Starfield’s New Atlantis is an Epcot-core vision of Walt Disney’s dreams

There’s a multitudinous selection of planets to explore in the sea of lights that is Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield.

The studio that brought you the original sci-fi RPG is back with a new action game set in the underwater worlds of Volii Alpha and the underground colonies of Mars. Elder Scrolls SkyrimThe Fallout series is full of new and exciting worlds that you can explore and conquer. Regardless of what background you choose, one of the first worlds you’ll set foot on is Jemison: an Earth-like planet located in the Alpha Centauri system that is home to New Atlantis, the capital city of the United Colonies republic.

New Atlantis embodies the optimistic optimism of StarfieldThe city is a glittering, modern metropolis with mid-century architecture, exotic acacia tree flat tops, and vibrant, flowing banners. More specifically, the design of the game’s first major hub world immediately reminded me of something in real life: the quasi-utopian model community of Walt Disney’s Epcot.

Image: Disney Parks

Conceived in the 1960s, Epcot (originally short for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”) was Walt Disney’s final unfinished passion project prior to his death in 1966 — a radially planned, environment-friendly city housed within a 50-acre climate-controlled domed structure, emphasizing a fusion of urban planning and suburban people-centric convenience.

“It will be a planned, controlled community,” Disney said in 1966 while describing his original vision for Epcot. “A showcase for American industry and research, schools, cultural and educational opportunities. In EPCOT, there will be no slum areas because we won’t let them develop. Landowners won’t have any control over voting, as there will be none. Renting houses will be more common than buying, with modest rents. There will be no retirees; everyone must be employed.” However, Disney’s dreams of “utopian” urban planning would die with him.

Photo: Joseph Prezioso/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Due to the intrinsic impracticality of maintaining, governing, and operating such a city, the plans for Epcot were eventually scaled down to a theme park whose concept resembles a perennial world’s fair, dedicated to preserving the egalitarian future-focused optimism of the original project. Spaceship Earth is the epitome of Epcot. It’s an indoor ride that was designed by Ray Bradbury and housed in a geodesic dome. Bradbury also wrote the storyline.

You can also find out more about the following: Starfield, the dream of Epcot lives on in the layout of New Atlantis, complete with brilliant glass structures, bright neon billboards, a ubiquitous monorail transit system, and public art installations that double as children’s playgrounds and open communal spaces. It’s a vision of the future born out of the past of humanity’s now-dead homeworld, a dream older than the collective memory of the citizens who now inhabit it.

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks

It’s a fascinating and uncanny space that feels at once familiar yet alien: a better, albeit not perfect, world that nonetheless belies a complicated and fraught history in the form of The Well, the undercity of New Atlantis built out of the remnants of the colony ships that first landed on Jemison centuries ago. Imagine the aesthetics of the distant future as seen from today’s perspective is always challenging, but it becomes even more difficult when you consider the history of Jemison. Starfield’s New Atlantis, the building blocks of that future are as close as our own past.