Starfield is full of detail. Every inch of its cities, colonies, habitats, and starships are packed with objects that have been lovingly crafted to make the environments feel lived in and personal. The scale of that detail is only possible with the massive budgets, huge stable of artists, and plenty of time that Bethesda has poured into its biggest game yet. And if you want an idea of how much work goes into making a video game, just take a look at the excellent doors throughout Starfield.
Just like its big brothers, Skyrim and Fallout 4, Starfield is a game about traveling: from building to building, planet to planet, and star to star. You go through a lot of doors in this game, and Bethesda’s doorsigners made sure every single one was memorable.
Listen, I know this is ridiculous, but it’s wild to think about how much work went into the doors in this game!
The Cockpit Hatch on the Frontier
One of the first doors you’ll go through is the heavy industrial hatch leading to the cockpit of the game’s starting ship, the Frontier. It looks and behaves a lot like the classic Vault door from Fallout, which was probably on purpose, from the locking mechanism, to the important-looking tubes and sockets on its surface to the actuator arm that pulls it free and seals it back behind you with a satisfying clunk.
Wide Airlock Doors
You’ll come across these at generic outposts, but if you just can’t wait for some sweet heavy-door action, set course for the underworld gambling den The Red Mile. This door features a giant handle, which looks like it takes a lot of elbow grease just to get going. When the door retreats into the airlock on a huge hydraulic piston, you can feel the blast of warm air as you leave the frigid surface of a distant planet behind.
Bathroom Doors That Go “Clackity-Clack-Clack”
I wish I knew more about interior design because I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a door that opens in the middle, made up of thin, vertical slats that close up like an accordion. These doors are mostly used to hide bathrooms on starships, which the player never needs to use and are for decoration only, but even they get a cool, unique door.
The Other Bathroom Doors
Two unique doors, actually, because there is another bathroom door type that is like a breadbox, just man-sized and turned on its side. I cannot emphasize enough how useless bathroom doors are in this game.
Classic Old Wooden and Metal Doors
The Cowboy Planet Akila doesn’t have time for yer fancy-schmancy accordion slats and industrial pistons. Out there in The Black, they make doors the old-fashioned way, out of metal and wood and particle board and whatever is lying around. These are a lot like the doors in Skyrim, only in space. With cowboys.
Even This Regular-Ass Door is Cool
It’s just two panels that pull apart, but even they flatten against the walls to take up less space and make a satisfying hiss when they open, like sitting on a comfy couch.
The one thing all these designs have in common, other than the obvious amount of money required to make them this good, is the feel. In video games, feel is as vital a quality as it is elusive, and there’s a lot more to it than just vibration and haptic feedback. Everything in Starfield the player interacts with, from the spaceships to the guns to the doors, is a marriage of visual, physical, and sound design that creates a very deliberate sense of weight and presence.
Starfield‘s generous fast travel system can help the tedious elements of the game fly by, but its commitment to materials and design allows for a slower, lived-in experience. That dichotomy is at the heart of all Bethesda games, and it is best emphasized by all those doors you walk through: easy to ignore but worth exploring.
For more on Starfield, check out our heartbreaking trip back to Earth, as well as this piece on how Bethesda finally cities right in this game.
