Bethesda went with the Rule of Three this time. Three videos, albeit short ones, visiting three very different locations on its upcoming Starfield. Emil Pagliarulo has a few more syllables in his last name than you do, and he's also the Design Director on Starfield. He narrates with a couple Celtic-looking tattoos on the backs of his hands and a stalwart "It is what it is" plaque at the base of his second monitor.
New Atlantis is the first city here. Capital city of the United Colonies (UC). It's a political and military powerhouse, and they use the term "melting pot" to describe its people, which of course evokes an American idealism. Pagliarulo calls it a "true reflection of the future of our world." I like how for a place called New Atlantis, it certainly feels underwater in this living concept art.
Then there's Neon. With a name like that, it was a city that knew what it was from the beginning. Out in the water like some oil platform-sized gambling river boat, what began as a fishing platform turned into a drug-infused pleasure city when the fisherman figured out drugs make more money than halibut. That's just Bethesda being Bethesda, making sure there's some version of Skooma available in space.
Finally, in these entirely too short videos, is Akila, which is basically the name of a fictional wolf in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. This city, the capital of the Free Star Collective, is even surrounded by a wall to keep out the hybrid wolf-velociraptor beasts native to the planet. Akila's people are all about the sanctity of freedom. They place a lot of stock in individuality.
I love me some concept art. I'm glad Bethesda got some more life out of these three pieces, and prove that there's more to these locations than the fact that they just look fantastic. Really getting some breadth out of the different places you'll visit in Starfield. A massive city from a massive empire, a pleasure barge on a water world, and practically a tent city clinging to the ice and taking in all that fresh, cool air.
Starfield will be exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC next November (2022).
