Will Starfield have multiplayer or co-op gameplay?

Starfield is all the buzz in the gaming community as of late thanks to the recent gameplay reveal shown off at the Xbox/Bethesda Games Showcase. Todd Howard and the team at Bethesda Game Studios revealed a ton of new information about Starfield through this gameplay showcase. From 1,000 explorable planets to character creation to skill trees, fans now have a much better idea of what Starfield is than they did at the beginning of this year. However, a question about Starfield is being asked by fans that has not truly been answered by Bethesda: will it have multiplayer and/or co-op?

Multiplayer is a feature that rarely arrives for the launch of a Bethesda title. Fallout 76 is one of the only Bethesda Games Studios’ titles to actually feature multiplayer and co-op gameplay. However, that was the developers’ most recent release, which has fans wondering if those cooperative features will be coming to Starfield or not.

Multiplayer and co-op in Starfield

As of the time of writing, Bethesda Game Studios has not explicitly said anything regarding multiplayer or co-op. However, it doesn’t seem likely that the game will launch with either of these features. Todd Howard has said time and time again that Starfield is a single-player experience. If the developers were planning on co-op gameplay, this statement would have likely been revised.

We can also go by Bethesda’s previous releases in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout universes. Fallout 76, which was heavily criticized upon its release, is their only game with co-op features. Of course, co-op was the focal point of the game, as there were no NPCs on the map when the game launched. Bethesda has said Starfield is more along the lines of a Skyrim or Fallout 4.

Judging by all of this, it would be highly surprising if Starfield featured any sort of multiplayer or co-op modes. However, the game will be able to be modded. This means that players could download a mod in the future that offers multiplayer functionality to Starfield. A mod of that size would likely be released further down the line but the possibility remains. Recently, co-op mods for Skyrim and Fallout 4 have also begun to pop up, so not all hope is lost.