Starfield's spaceship combat looks like first-person FTL

Starfield's ship-to-ship combat system will make for intense encounters out in the stars

While Starfield lets you use your grav drive to quickly jump between any of its 1,000 planets, if you take the time to cruise around the systems properly, you’ll quickly discover that it’s a lively universe indeed.

You have free reign to roam the galaxy as you please, and you’ll encounter all manner of travelers out in the stars.

Some may simply be ne’er-do-wells out to destroy your ship, but you might find stations out there that you can dock with to get quests from the people inside; one particular encounter that was shown off on the Starfield Showcase stream was a party ship with the rich elites of society. You’ll find your fair share of traders and explorers too, and the choice is yours whether you want to hail them and have a nice chat, or blow them to bits like a scoundrel.

Bethesda

If you do engage in combat, then get ready for some intense fighting, as you’ll need to out-maneuver your opponents to blow them to bits. You’re not just the pilot though, as you have a full FTL-style power system that lets you reroute power between systems to give you a temporary boost.

It’s not just sitting in a chair and shooting guns either. If you can immobilize a ship then you can dock with it and climb aboard. You’ll have to dispatch of the hostile crew, of course, but if you successfully clean out the ship then congratulations! It’s yours now.

It’ll take a bit of getting used to, but we’ll be excitedly yelling “All power to weapons!” as we line up a shot on an unsuspecting party ship just to wipe out some one-percent snobs.