I just typed out a few notes during the showcase so I will put them here for discussion.
- There are over 1000 world. These are procedurally generated but have handcrafted content placed randomly on them.
- Every you see exists and all planetary objects can be visited.
- Illumination is changing based on the atmosphere and the sun type/proximity.
- Animation system and combat system has been reworked from the ground up.
- You can play in 1st or 3rd person.
- Resources exist and are collectable
- You can find enemy camps on planets and/or other random things/locations.
- You can fast travel to your ship.
- You can have companions that aid you on the ship or on ground.
- Visual style for the tech was called by devs as Nasa-Punk as in advanced but worn
- You can choose landing spots on a planet or fast travel to an existing one.
- You jump drive to other systems and can upgrade drive for longer jumps.
New Atlantisis the biggest city Bethesda ever created. There are more cities:- Akila city: Western style. Looked like RDR2.
- Cydonia city: Mining city built for resources.
- Neon: Known as Pleasure city. Cyberpunk style.
- There is a mythical group called Constellation. They are the last explorers of humanity and are looking for answers to long lasting humanity's questions. Your main story revolves around them I think.
- Character creation is vastly improved and it's extensive. Mocap used for the making.
- You choose one of 40 (employee) presets and then put more details from there.
- You choose your background and skills. Chef was an example. Your skills affect interactions in the game.
- You can have up to 3 traits and each has pros and cons.
- You get 1 skill per level and you can rank up skills.
- 5 skill trees with 4 ranks per skill. Jetpack, mind-control and Neurostrikes(heavy strikes) shown. Great build diversity.
- They studied data from NASA to strike balance between realism and fun.
- There is dogfighting in space
- Ships are highly customizable and upgradable down to rearranging modules around.
- Can hire crew members with different skills
- Ship has a power allocation system(think of an Equalizer style thingie). You can reallocate power according to situation. Shields and weapons for combat or engine for escaping, etc.
- There's a trait that lets you target specific subsystems on an enemy ship.
- You can destroy ships and loot them or board them and capture them for your fleet.
- You can commit piracy on friendly ships.
- You can build a outpost and produce resources from animals.
- You can build outposts, assign companions to them and keep producing resources. You can decorate outposts and live there.
- Guns are highly customizable down to type of ammo. Melee weapons exist. Miniguns shown.
- Gravity changes with each planet.
- Firing in 0g can push you back.
- Photo mode exists.
Please feel free to add any details I missed.
edit: Here is the full showcase(45 minutes) for people who want to watch it.
I'm extremely skeptical. What they showed today is ENORMOUSLY ambitious- it looks like they are aiming for an Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen kind of experience, and both of those games have been actively worked on for over a decade now and don't have all of these features.
The only other game I can think to compare this to is No Mans Sky- which completely failed to deliver most of what it promised on day one- but has implemented everything and then some in the years since.
Like, what they are saying is VERY cool, but of the three games that I can think to compare it to, one of them is still deep in development (and the story mode has never materialized, depsite years of RSI saying it's right around the corner), one was a complete disaster on launch, and one of them has been consistently good but still isn't feature-complete with everything they want. Elite Dangerous only added an on-the-ground FPS mode in 2021, and the general consensus in it is that it was quite lackluster.
This game is promising to have good on-the-ground FPS/TPS gameplay, good ship-to-ship combat, multiple ways to engage with the game's economy which are viable (like trading, being a mercenary, piracy, mining), an extreme level of ship customization, and presumeably multiple ship types that work best for each of the "professions" like trading and fighting. And also a story. And 1000 procedurally generated, planet-sized planets.
That is as much if not more than what Star Citizen promised, and Star Citizen still doesn't have half of the features. It's WAY more than No Man's Sky promised, and we all know how that turned out- even with what NMS now has in the game, this is more ambitious by a lot because of the graphics they are promising, the customization of ships, and the physics model (NMS is newtonian, but it doesn't really play that way).
And it's bethesda- they're known for making good games, but they have never made anything even remotely near this ambitious before. Their games are renowned for being buggy messes on release. And they want to release this on fucking consoles, which makes it even more difficult.