They showed a montage of the ship leaving numerous planets in the same animation, so I assume it's a cutscene.
As for landing on the planet, maybe it's like the new Lego Star Wars where you look towards the planet and hold a button.
If it's a cutscene I hope at least you have the option of viewing it from first person so you can pretend you're in control of taking off than just watching a third person cutscene of taking off.
Todd's right that it doesn't HAVE to be seamless in game transition, but there needs to be something that doesn't break your immersion too much, something that allows to play pretend with the fantasy of being an astronaut and blasting off and landing, that is literally a core element of the entire point of the game, you're an astronaut and you're exploring space, if it's just pulling up a menu, selecting "go to space" and boom, there you are (after a loading screen) that's is absurdly fucking gay.
But at least we we're way beyond Mass Effect 1 where you can only explore a square of a planet and space exploration is watching a lame little model of your ship float around a map, actually being able to directly fly around your ship in space and explore an ENTIRE planet? That's a legit "whoa" idea, I'm just worried about the transition from space to planet and planet to space, but hopefully they're smart enough to have some sort of workable compromise.
Nice to actually have a western game to be excited about again, shit was looking pretty bleak for a while there, it's also nice to think of finally having a good Bethesda game after 10+ years.
Yeah, I liked the aesthetic as well. Not too grimdark but the science station in the trailer looked just enough lived-in to be believable. I'll probably buy this, just not on day one, it scratches the space exploration itch and outer worlds looks a bit goofy to me.
I really can't say enough positive about it's aesthetics, while maybe a few things are a little too generic, overall they nailed it, they managed to make a sci fi space faring aesthetic that looks realistic but not generic.
They're really leaning in hard on specifically a "NASA" look to everything, how NASA designs suits, ships etc and I fucking love it.
Outer Worlds went for retro futuristic but they picked the wrong one, it should have been Flash Gordon instead of "wild west in space" and while maybe the aesthetic was fine, the writing and "comedy" of the game was awful, pure Reddit soyness, the gameplay was incredibly boring as well.
I feel like it's pretty safe to say Starfield will be better than Outer Worlds.