What is the release date of Starfield? It was originally supposed to be November 2022, but Bethesda announced a delay of Starfield to 2023. Luckily, we still got a pretty decent taste of the new open-world game on Xbox and Bethesda over the summer.
Starfield has the potential to be one of the best PC games of all time, or so we hope. We haven’t heard much about the finer details of the open-world game, but now that we know the Starfield release date, the end is in sight. Here’s everything we know about Starfield so far.
Starfield release date
Starfield’s release date is September 6, 2023. The release date was announced in the “Official Release Date” trailer, which suggests that the player will find the “source of everything.”
Starfield was supposed to be slated for the “first half” of 2023, as Microsoft’s Matt Booty has indicated it will release after Arkane’s Redfall. However, with this game releasing in May, the chances of a first-half 2023 release date for Starfield still looked slim. The space game will have a standalone showcase, a Starfield Direct, on June 11. This game-specific show should take us deep into the mechanics of the game.
Originally, Starfield was supposed to be released on November 11, 2022, but in May 2022 Bethesda announced that the game would be delayed until 2023. Starfield’s official support page reconfirmed the release date, stating that the game would arrive in the first half of 2023. We now know from this release date announcement that Starfield will be released in September.
Starfield pre-order
Starfield is available for pre-order at select retailers. It’s currently available for pre-order through Game in the UK and GameStop in the US.
Starfield Xbox Game Pass
Starfield is also coming to Xbox Game Pass, meaning you’ll have instant access to Bethesda’s space epic from day one. Xbox Game Pass subscribers don’t need to pre-order, and like other games from Microsoft-owned studios, we imagine you’ll be able to pre-load Starfield ahead of launch.
Is Starfield exclusive to Xbox?
Starfield will be exclusive to Xbox and PC, as Microsoft agreed to a $7.5 billion deal to buy Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media.
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Xbox boss Phil Spencer mentions his excitement for upcoming Bethesda games, “some announced and many unannounced,” including Starfield.
star field game
We first saw the Starfield trailer in 2018. Since then, we’ve only seen a small portion of Starfield via a June 2021 trailer before seeing a much larger taste of its gameplay in June 2022. .
During the Xbox and Microsoft Games Showcase, we saw footage of Starfield in action, showing how the dialogue and persuasion mechanics will work, plus some additional spaceflight elements with commentary from Todd Howard (video below). below). It also appeared that Starfield can get a survival mode, which is lovely and a bit creepy.
The game demo begins on a bug-infested planet where the player mines iron from a cave before traveling to the Kreet research lab. Here we see the Crimson Fleet, one of Starfield’s many factions, looting the area in search of treasure. These pirates are hostile, which gives us an excuse to see some Starfield weapons in action, like the Grendel machine gun. Combat is a lot like Fallout 4, except there’s no VATS system to rely on.
After a briefing from the Starfield Constellation faction leader on an artifact we unearthed, we get a few introductions with the other faction leaders, who tell us what they represent. We also see more hostile aliens, dinosaur-like creatures jawed to otherworldly horrors lurking the hallways of an abandoned facility.
In recent years, there have been hints of systems that fans of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls games may be familiar with. Here’s everything confirmed so far in terms of gameplay:
- You can choose a variety of doors and chests, but the game refers to the practice as “digital picking”.
- You can steal items from NPCs, although this is extremely high risk as this feature failed during the Starfield gameplay reveal.
- You’ll be able to persuade NPCs through a special mini-game rather than specific dialogue options and random rolls, though that’s meant to be more complex than how The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion handled the feature with pie charts. This was briefly touched on during the second episode of the docu-series Into the Starfield, where lead mission designer Will Shen mentions that the team “didn’t want it to be a system where there’s definitely the right thing to say”.
- You have the option to recruit certain other NPCs as well as romance some of them.
- One of your companions is Vasco, which is a companion robot with similar functionality.
- You can join factions, and each questline runs independently of each other. In Fallout 4, siding with certain factions blocked other questlines.
With the official release date trailer, the official release date has arrived. September 6 is now potentially our most anticipated day of the year. The release date trailer didn’t just give us a date, however, it hinted at Starfield’s overall story: it looks like the player will seek “the source of everything”, now if it’s some kind of god. the presence or simply a large cloud mass remains to be seen.
Starfield character creation
Game Director Todd Howard also talked about Starfield’s character creation tool, including the many Starfield backgrounds and Starfield traits your astronaut can start their journey through the cosmos with. The gameplay gives us an overview of Starfield’s capabilities and a brief introduction to the Starfield Research Lab projects.
If you’re curious what dialogue will look like in Starfield, we’ve got some (hopefully) reassuring details. First, the classic BGS silent protagonist returns, which is probably helpful considering there are around 250,000 lines of dialogue in the game. dialogue options presented as self-contained sentences. There’s a new persuasion system where you spend points in a series of linked exchanges in hopes of getting the desired outcome before staying longer than your welcome.
Starfield base building and spaceships
Finally, there’s a section in the demo dedicated to building the Starfield base, which includes the ability to design and pilot your own starship. In addition to space combat, this spacecraft will be useful for exploring Starfield’s many planets in the known universe, with more than 1,000 of them available to visit, according to Todd Howard. In an interview with an IGN developer, he confirms that Starfield does feature some procedural generation, but that the Bethesda team “did more craftsmanship on this game, in terms of content, than any other game.”
If you’re looking for more information about the Starfield universe, Bethesda also showed off some concept art for some of the Starfield cities we’ll be able to visit, including the game’s largest colony, New Atlantis. Luckily, it looks like these large conurbations are just the highlights, and there will be plenty of other towns and even a few smaller metropolises to visit. If you’re wondering how long Starfield is, we have a few theories you can check out.
Starfield Multiplayer
Will Starfield have multiplayer? The short answer is no. The long answer is still no, but if you want proof, we point you to this 2020 Develop: Brighton Digital conference session, where Todd Howard confirms that Starfield will be a single-player experience. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, Howard refers to Starfield’s multiplayer (or lack thereof) at around 45 minutes.
Now that we know the Starfield release date, it’s time to dive into every corner of the known universe for more details, or just wait until June and a Starfield Direct. We can’t wait for more news on what could be one of the best PC games of all time. Check out our Starfield interview with a former Bethesda developer for more details on the scale of the project. We also have confirmation that the beloved Elder Scrolls NPC fan is set to return to Starfield. Finally, check out the latest in The Elder Scrolls 6 and The Witcher 4 if you’re looking for other epic RPGs that haven’t been released yet.