The moment so many space nerds have been waiting for has arrived. Starfield gameplay is officially available to view. Shown off for 15 minutes during the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase this past weekend, Bethesda’s Todd Howard introduced us to many exciting details on what we can expect when Starfield releases next year.

Starting off with a spaceship landing, the gameplay shows a large amount of systems that players will interact with when they enter Starfield. Combat and exploration on foot was exciting to finally see, and jetpacking around during combat brings a whole new dimension to the fight. The facial animations showcased look fantastic and it seems the amount of story to interact with is immense, based on the conversations seen and the reveal that there are over 1000 explorable planets present in the game. With that, it was also announced that players could pick a landing zone on any part of the planet, for every one of those 1000 planets. Points of interest will have missions or stuff to do, and it will be interesting to see how actively full these planets are. Space can be fairly empty, and making sure it is exciting and vibrant is a difficult balance to find.

The advanced RPG and character creation systems truly allow players to create a main character that is unique and advances the story in their own way. With a width of options available, replayability should be very high but that remains to be seen. Many of us still remember the promise and disappointment of Cyberpunk 2077 and its character creation and early game.

However, what stood out most was the news of ship customization, piloting, and outpost creation. Being able to modularly craft the perfect ship and bases while crewing them with characters you meet is so exciting, and seeing the dogfighting in space seems to be an extreme change of pace from previous Bethesda titles. While it looks very fun, it remains to be seen how exciting and in-depth the space gameplay will be.

However, that doesn’t even explain half of this video, so make sure to watch it yourself! Check out the entire Starfield showcase below, and let us know your thoughts in the comments. Starfield releases to PC and Xbox in 2023.