A key developer of Bethesda's upcoming space-faring RPG Starfield has pointed to the classic bounty-hunting anime Cowboy Bebop as one of the inspirations team members have drawn from when creating the game.In a series of posts on Twitter earlier this weekend, Emil Pagliarulo, design director at Bethesda Game Studios, fired off a list of outer space science fiction movies and television shows that have had an impact on creation of Betheda's next RPG, including the 1998 anime series. Also included in Pagliarulo's list were 1997 horror flick Event Horizon, 1972 sci-fi film Silent Running, and '70s British deep-space television series Space: 1999.To be fair, Pagliarulo didn't specify that he was talking about the anime version of Cowboy Bebop, although one would assume he's referring to the enduringly popular original, genre-defying animated series (and a movie) and not the universally panned 2021 Netflix live-action adptation. In fact, he made a point in his post that he doesn't know a piece of science fiction that hasn't had an impact on the developement team. "But seriously, I don't think there's a sci-fi movie or TV show out there that hasn't inspired Starfield's many devs in some way ... It's outer space, after all - there's room for everything."
Starfield is due for release on September 6 exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC, with its own gaming showcase, Starfield Direct, set to stream on June 11. We don't yet know too much about its plot, although investigating interstellar anomalies and engaging in space combat seem to be heavily featured, based on materials that have been released by Bethesda so far. And coming from the publisher responsible for The Elder Scrolls series and the later Fallout games, heavy roleplaying elements are all but mandatory, with a dialogue system set to dwarf publisher siblings The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4.