It’s redemption time for Bethesda after several years of very average releases. The studio has finally announced the official release date of Starfield, its space RPG as mysterious as it is excessive.
Bethesda is finally getting started on the release of one of the most original titles of the past three years. We indeed had news of Starfield at the beginning of March, with a very special video dedicated to the announcement of the release date of the game. As a reminder, Starfield is a titanic project of the American developer, a futuristic RPG intending to take us to the confines of the stars, all on more than a thousand visitable planets according to the words of the essential Todd Howard. Today, we take stock of all the essential information, new or old, on Starfield.
It was in a video of a few minutes that Bethesda gave us news of Starfield. Largely absent from the last Developer Direct from Xbox and Bethesda last January, the game finally showed the tip of its nose in a trailer announcing its release date. On the menu, some unpublished images of the cosmos and an announcement from none other than Todd Howard himself. The director of Bethesda spoke about his new game in a short interview, saying that the studio teams were eager to discover a new project for which a lot of work has been and is still provided. The studio will open its doors in June for an evening specially dedicated to Starfield. Then, finally, the long-awaited announcement of a release date set for September 6, 2023 on PC and Xbox Series.
Starfield at the center of a special broadcast next June
We told you a little above, Starfield is not an easy task for Bethesda. The studio has been waiting for a big release for several years, and intends to put the package on this new project. But for now, information and images on Starfield are scarce. This is why the publisher invites us to an evening which will be specially dedicated to him next June. For the exact date, the Starfield Direct is scheduled for the June 11, 2023.
It was therefore at the highlight of the Summer Game Fest 2022 show that Todd Howard presented us with the latest and most titanic project from Bethesda: Starfield. More than fifteen minutes of images, comments and statistics that had the gift of making us dizzy. You can rewatch the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase announcements above, but to sum it all up, the game may well conquer your Xbox Series or PC before conquering the stars. Currently in the final stages of development, the game is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2023. Gameplay-wise, Starfield is shaping up to be an open-world RPG, a grand space epic of exploration, intrigue, and fights that will integrate almost everything that can be expected from such a type of game today. Crafting, skill tree, advanced character customization, impact of choices on the plot, construction of bases and ships, combat on the ground and in space… Todd Howard had something to gargle with the many images that he had to show us.
Starfield will therefore be a futuristic role-playing game set in the cosmos. You will embody the character you have decided to create in the first or third person, in his quest to forge a name for himself through the stars. More than 1000 planets are explorable there, and you will be able to access them thanks to your fully customizable ship. You will find resources that you will have to manage, enemies that you will have to overcome, and different factions that you can decide to follow or not to progress in the plot. Add to that crafting elements and extremely extensive character customization, and you’ll have a gargantuan project that could well overwhelm your hard drive before destroying your framerate.
But that’s not all, Starfield is also a pure RPG. You will therefore have access to a skill tree in addition to the in-depth customization of your protagonist. You will choose to invest points in it to unlock passive and active effects that you can then improve through different challenges. Something to quickly take your adventurer from zero to hero. On the progression side, there is also the eternal crafting, which will allow you to modify and improve your weapons as you wish. Note that the game will also include the ability to build bases of operation where you want, and to hire NPCs there to perform various tasks.
Unfortunately for fans of Sony consoles, since the friendship between Xbox and Bethesda after the takeover of Zenimax Studios by Microsoft two years ago, the future of Bethesda games on Playstation is more than uncertain. Starfield will therefore only be released on Xbox Series and PC, the Xbox One not having the resources to assume such a title. A sizeable next-gen exclusivity, therefore, which will have something to rebalance the balance between Sony and Microsoft after a year 2022 clearly in favor of the Japanese manufacturer on this side (Horizon Forbidden West, God of War Ragnarök, etc.).
To be short in our answer to this question: no, Starfield will not incorporate multiplayer elements. While nothing is ever set in stone, the game has, since its announcement in 2018, always been advertised as a single-player game. Note that it is always difficult to offer an experience of the size and ambition of this RPG in cooperation or multiplayer. Information which, although it is not new, may deserve a little tear, as the potential of such a project in cooperation or multiplayer is titanic. Exploring the stars is good, with several it would still be a little better.