Kurt Kuhlmann, a former Bethesda developer who served as lead systems designer on Starfield, has cast doubt on the chances of sequel to the sci-fi epic as the game simply didn’t perform well enough commercially.
Speaking with FRVR, Kuhlmann was asked if Starfield 2 could ever happen, and he replied, “I would be very surprised [if there was a sequel]. I don’t think Starfield was anywhere near successful enough to do a Starfield 2.” He added that he feels that the first Starfield didn’t quite live up to the vision of creator Todd Howard, and a sequel would have been able to achieve this.
“It’s, in a way, too bad, because I think with the lessons learned on Starfield, a Starfield 2 could have been much closer to the game that Todd had [in mind],” he commented. “You can envision that game, you can imagine that game. That’s not quite what Starfield really is.”
One of the areas that Kulhmann feels failed to quite deliver and could be improved upon is the outpost building mechanic, which he felt was a missed opportunity as outposts didn’t integrate with the overall narrative.
You can travel around all these planets, you can land anywhere you want, you have total freedom. Plus, there’s this really cool story and all these cool characters… and modular spaceships, why not? Let’s put that in there. And you can build a base anywhere you want on any planet. For what it is, as a standalone system, it’s cool, but it’s not nearly as integrated with the rest of the game.
It caused problems for it to be integrated with the story and the missions and stuff in Fallout 4, so it was kind of put to the side. Which begs the question of, well, why is it still in the game?
Kuhlmann, who also served as co-lead designer on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, stated during an interview with the same outlet that people at Bethesda had expected the studio to move to The Elder Scrolls VI after Fallout 4. Instead, the developer worked on Fallout 76 and Starfield. Meanwhile, the ex-Bethesda designer revealed during an interview back in January that the setting for The Elder Scrolls VI was decided back when Fallout 4 was in production, although there’s still the possibility that things could have changed following his departure from Bethesda.
Starfield was originally released for PC and Xbox Series X/S in September 2023 and later arrived for the PS5 in April 2026.
[Source – FRVR via VGC]
