Todd Howard read quantum physics papers for Starfield's development

Bethesda has done everything from consulting with Elon Musk to studying quantum physics research papers to inject more reality into Starfield.

In a new Starfield promo video, Todd Howard talks about developments the team is making in the massive epic space RPG. Bethesda originally wanted a fair amount of realism in the game, but Howard says that some of these mechanics just didn't fly.

"We were really into fuel and how the gravity drive works...I'm reading papers on quantum physics, you know, bending space in front of you, you don't actually work, you bend the space forward, you bring the space toward you," Howard said in the video.

"And so when we were playing that it became very punitive to the player. Your ship would run out of fuel and the game would just stop."

Howard says that Starfield's current iteration has no fuel restrictions. That's a pretty big deal. Immersion shouldn't trump enjoyability in games, so Bethesda nixed the original idea.

"You just want to get back to what you were doing, so we recently changed it where the fuel in your ship and the grav-drive limits how far you could go at once, but it doesn't run out of fuel. Maybe there will be an update or a mod that allows that, but that's what we're doing now."

Here are a few more tidibts about Starfield

• You can steal other people's ships
• Starfield will be a dream for the modding community, Bethesda says
• The game takes place in the year 2330, 50 light-years away from Earth