Warning
The following contains spoilers for Starfield and Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.
Doug Liman's Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, is often considered underrated, but not because people don't like it. In fact, the movie has a 91% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and a 90% Popcornmeter, and given how increasingly rare it feels for critics and moviegoers to agree on a film's quality, that's saying something. However, it was Edge of Tomorrow's initial weak reception that would lead to many considering it an underrated movie, after it grossed just under $29 million during its opening weekend, which is considerably low for a $178 million blockbuster. Nevertheless, in the years following its theatrical release, it became one of the "best sci-fi movies you probably missed," hence Todd Howard and Bethesda's decision to model the ending of Starfield after its own.
GameRant recently traveled to Rockville, Maryland to visit Bethesda HQ and get a taste of Starfield's Free Lanes update and Terran Armada DLC ahead of its release. While there, director and executive producer Todd Howard entertained a group Q&A, where he answered questions about the sci-fi RPG, its future, and all things Bethesda. At one point during the discussion, Howard began delving into Starfield's ending, outright comparing it to Edge of Tomorrow and the feeling it leaves viewers with once the credits start rolling.
Bethesda and Todd Howard Wanted Starfield's Ending to Feel Like Edge of Tomorrow
New Game Plus is one of the most popular features in role-playing games that are meant to be played for a long time, as it gives players another opportunity to not only experience a game's story again, but also to continue growing their character and potentially make different choices during each subsequent playthrough. But Starfield's New Game Plus isn't as simple as rinse and repeat, as it drops players into an entirely different universe with each playthrough, changing everything from dialogue to certain narrative events and even some of the most important characters in the game's world.
However, players aren't forced to start a New Game Plus in Starfield if they don't want to, and they can instead choose to stay in their current universe. The reason why they might want to is that stepping into the Unity—an ethereal sphere at the center of the universe—means their relationships and even many of their belongings will be left behind in the process, and when they emerge on the other side in a brand-new universe, the characters they once built something lasting with will have no memory of who they are. Howard commented on the original intention behind that, stating it was meant to ask players a "weird deep question" beyond even gameplay:
"The Unity, that part of Starfield...that really was a way of asking you this weird deep question of, "Are you this power gamer who wants to just get everything? Are you willing to leave this world behind? How do you feel about your own life choices? Would you leave that behind and start over?" So, some of that pain—we're fixing it—some of that pain of having to give up your stuff is supposed to make you feel bad."
Of course, Howard had to add that Bethesda was "fixing" New Game Plus with Starfield's Free Lanes update, which allows players to bring a limited amount of their belongings into the next universe upon stepping into the Unity. But "fixing it" might be a bit of a stretch, because while a certain part of it is now fixed in the eyes of many players who have been requesting such a patch for quite some time, they are still leaving behind relationships they've built with some of Starfield's key NPCs—and in some cases, those characters might not even exist in the next universe.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
