Starfield could have had decapitations, but the helmets got in the way
Heads up!
In an alternate timeline, Starfield could have been a much gorier game than the one we actually got.
According to former Bethesda character artist Dennis Mejillones, there were once plans for Starfield to have a much more graphic depiction of violence. That included the evergreen gore-filled death - decapitation.
However, heads would not literally roll in Starfield for a number of reasons. The first was due to technical implications with things such as the different space suits. Speaking on the Kiwi Talkz podcast, Mejillones explained that if Bethesda ultimately went down the decapitation route, it would have required the developer to factor in all the suits and how they would react to being severed.
"From a technical perspective there's a lot that has to go with it, you know... If you have to cut the helmet in a certain way, and it's got to come off, and you've got to have meat caps for the bottom where the flesh is," Mejillones said when asked about the game's lack of gore.
Bethesda did have "systems for all of that", he continued, but getting it implemented began to turn into a "big rat's nest of these things" the team had to take into account. He highlighted the helmets' "crazy hoses" as one such consideration.
Mejillones added the character creator in Starfield had evolved from the studio's previous games and now characters' bodies could be more different shapes and sizes, so that was also a factor.
Away from technical implications, Mejillones also reasoned Starfield has a very different overall tone compared to other Bethesda games, such as the ever chaotic Fallout. "Fallout is very stylised in this regard. It's meant to be... that's part of the tongue in cheek humour," he said, commenting on Fallout 4's Bloody Mess perk.
If you weren't aware, this perk increases the chances of enemies exploding into, well, a bloody mess (see video below). This over-the-top gore and theatrics is part of the fun of Fallout, and something which translated really rather well into Amazon's TV adaptation.
"It's like those old-school animes like Fist of the North Star - they punch each other, and gushes of blood would forever come out. It's just, nobody can hold that much blood but you're like 'oh man, that's cool'. It adds to that style," Mejillones continued, before concluding:
"I think for Starfield it was definitely meant to be more low-fi and realistic. We were inspired a lot by things like The Expanse and Star Trek, stuff like that. So I think [over the top gore] just didn't fit thematically... And on top of that you have the cost, the technical overhead cost to get that to work, so we were kind of like 'it's probably better not to include it in this game'."
So, would you have preferred Starfield to have featured more gore, or do you agree it needed to keep with its more grounded tone?
Away from the base game, last year Bethesda released its Shattered Space expansion for Starfield, which introduced a bit of horror to spice things up.
Bethesda's Todd Howard previously confirmed at least one more DLC for the space epic following Shattered Space. As for what that could be, fans believe a trademark for "Starborn" registered by Bethesda parent company Zenimax back in July could offer a clue to Starfield's second expansion.