Let's be real, gang – when Starfield finally dropped in 2023, I was hyped beyond belief. Bethesda's first new IP in a dog's age? Sign me up. But after logging way too many hours, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a dumpster fire, but calling it a bit of a letdown is putting it mildly. The endless procedurally generated emptiness, the clunky lack of ground vehicles, those copy-paste outposts... It just didn't hit the same way Skyrim or Fallout 3 did back in the day. And I know I'm not alone – the buzz around the watercooler was that Starfield had fumbled the touchdown.
Fast forward to now, 2026, and we're all still waiting for The Elder Scrolls VI to actually show its face, let alone a Starfield sequel. But a recent chat with Bruce Nesmith – a former senior game designer at Bethesda who hung up his spurs in 2021 to write novels like Mischief Maker – has thrown a massive bucket of hopium onto the community. In a talk with VideoGamer, Nesmith basically said that Starfield 2, whenever it does roll around, is going to be "one hell of a game." High praise from someone who knows the studio inside out, right? And honestly, his reasoning is on the money.
Nesmith compared the whole situation to how Bethesda built Skyrim. That game had the "tremendous advantage" of Oblivion, which itself was standing on the shoulders of Morrowind. The team could just iterate, polish, and add new bells and whistles instead of reinventing the wheel from scratch. Starfield, on the other hand, was a whole new beast – a fresh IP with brand-new lore, tech, and mechanics. It's the classic "first pancake" scenario in game dev: the first one is always a bit wonky, but it sets the stage for a perfect stack.
He hit the nail on the head when he brought up franchises like Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed. I mean, remember the original Assassin's Creed? Fun, but repetitive as hell. Its sequel, though? Absolute banger that defined an entire generation of stealth-action games. Same goes for Mass Effect – the first one was a janky gem that laid the foundation for the masterpiece that was ME2. Dragon Age? You bet. The pattern is crystal clear: the first game plants the flag, the second game charges in and conquers.
So why should we believe Starfield 2 will follow suit? Well, Bethesda now has a fully established universe, factions people actually care about (Crimson Fleet for life, fight me), and a truckload of feedback on what worked and what didn't. They can finally fix those barren planets, maybe give us a proper rover to zip around in, and craft questlines with the depth of a Skyrim Dark Brotherhood arc. The foundation is there – the game just needs to be fleshed out and given the love that comes from working on a known entity rather than starting from square one. Nesmith is spot on: it's a no-brainer that the sequel will be a massive leap forward.
Of course, the million-dollar question is when. As of 2026, Bethesda's plate is stacked higher than a cheesecake factory menu. The Elder Scrolls VI is still the golden child that commands all studio resources (fingers crossed we see gameplay this year), and after that, a new Fallout is supposedly next in line. Starfield 2? We're probably looking at the 2030s at the earliest, if we're being realistic. That's a loooong wait, and my gaming rig will probably need another upgrade by then, but hey, quality takes time. And if Nesmith's track record is anything to go by, the payoff could be the space odyssey we all dreamed of.
In the meantime, I'll be keeping an eye on Bethesda's "big three" – because, yep, Nesmith also mentioned that Starfield is now officially part of that iconic trio alongside Elder Scrolls and Fallout. That's a huge vote of confidence from a studio that doesn't throw such labels around lightly. The first Starfield might not have been the 10-year game like Skyrim, but its sequel? It might just have the bones to become exactly that. One hell of a game, indeed. I'm already strapped in and ready for liftoff, even if the countdown is going to be a long one.