Bethesda Reconfirms Starfield to Launch in First Half of 2023 - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 January 2023 / 2,986 Views

Bethesda Software in May 2022 announced Starfield was delayed from November 11, 2022 to the first half of 2023. Redfall was also delayed from Summer 2022 to the same release window.

Bethesda in a new "Starfield Support" page has reiterated the release window for the game. "Starfield arrives exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC in the first half of 2023," states the page.

Starfield will also be available on Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Bethesda Reconfirms Starfield to Launch in First Half of 2023

Bethesda last year on the initial announcement of the delay stated, "The teams at Arkane Austin (Redfall) and Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) have incredible ambitions for their games, and we want to ensure that you receive the best, most polished versions of them.

"We want to thank everyone for their excitement for Redfall and Starfield. That energy is a huge part of what inspires all of us every day and drives our own excitement for what we are creating."

Bethesda Game Studios Executive Producer Todd Howard in June 2022 revealed the main story in Starfield will take around 30 to 40 hours to complete.

"This one's ending up a little bit longer [than our previous games] and we may tune that some still," said Howard at the time. "It’s more quests, so it might be 20% more than our previous ones."

He added that the main story "might be in the 30s, maybe 40" in terms of hours to complete.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

18 Comments

G2ThaUNiT (on 03 January 2023)

My body is ready! Hopefully we'll get a release date at the heavily rumored Xbox event!

Starfield is going to take up half of my 2023 with Zelda: TOTK taking up the other half lol

Imaginedvl G2ThaUNiT (on 03 January 2023)

My body is so ready too...
First half of 2023 is just crazy... I will need to stop playing Diablo 4 temporarily to play this baby but it will be worth it for sure ;-)

TheLegendaryBigBoss (on 04 January 2023)

I hope so, it has been nearly 8 years since their last rpg (fallout 4).

NobleTeam360 (on 03 January 2023)

Looking forward to it. I was just watching the gameplay reveal for it again and it just reaffirms my excitment for this game.

rapsuperstar31 (on 03 January 2023)

Can't wait, assuming Zelda TOTK comes out first, I will get to Starfield as soon as I beat Zelda.

2zosteven rapsuperstar31 (on 03 January 2023)

both a must purchase

KratosLives (on 03 January 2023)

This game wont release till after june

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LivncA_Dis3 (on 03 January 2023)

Ka-pi96 LivncA_Dis3 (on 03 January 2023)

Have you never played a Bethesda game before? It'd be full of bugs and glitches on day 1 regardless of gamepass.

G2ThaUNiT Ka-pi96 (on 04 January 2023)

That’s what we’re hoping to avoid as much as possible with the delay. Todd said Starfield could have released as intended, but now that they’re a first party, system seller studio, they felt they needed more time for polish.

NobleTeam360 G2ThaUNiT (on 04 January 2023)

That's good to hear. Glad Xbox is already having a positive influence on Bethesda. Here's hoping Starfield is a return to form after the disaster that was Fallout 76!

KratosLives NobleTeam360 (on 04 January 2023)

Tod bullshits a lot. Go and read and listen to his interviews and hype just before fallout 76 launched

-3

KratosLives G2ThaUNiT (on 04 January 2023)

That's just pr talk. So if they were going to release multiplat, they would just ship out an unfinished mess?

-3

G2ThaUNiT KratosLives (on 04 January 2023)

It wouldn't have been the first time Bethesda has done that lol. There's a reason why ever since the Oblivion days Bethesda was always joked about their buggy games. Todd is right though. The other Bethesda studios like Arkane, id Software, and Tango Gameworks are complimentary studios, but Bethesda Game Studios are a system-seller first-party studio now. There is extra pressure than ever on Bethesda Game Studios, especially after FO76, to show they're still capable of delivering single-player open-world RPG magic. Starfield needs to be to Xbox what Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is to Nintendo, and God of War: Ragnarok is to PlayStation.

Granted, Todd Howard had nothing to do with FO76 other than publicly hyping it up while he was working on Starfield, but still, Starfield needs to be a success to revitalize their image. So I don't doubt Todd saying they just needed more time for polish and that top Xbox engineers are working with them to ensure Starfield runs as flawlessly as possible on Xbox.

G2ThaUNiT LivncA_Dis3 (on 04 January 2023)

You’re just assuming that’s the case, but that’s rarely the case.

Also, you’re saying that as if there weren’t tons of broken AAA games for years before game pass even existed.

zero129 LivncA_Dis3 (on 04 January 2023)

Yes because before Gamepass devs never released incomplete games anyway and they still dont on Ps4-5 am i right?.

VAMatt LivncA_Dis3 (on 04 January 2023)

That argument might hold water if it weren't for the fact that AAA games have been filled with bugs for the last 20 years, and game pass has only been a factor for the last few.

shikamaru317 LivncA_Dis3 (on 05 January 2023)

Very unlikely. This game has been content complete for about a year according to the dev team, that means that they will have had about a year with somewhere around 300 internal devs doing nothing but optimizing to hit higher resolutions and framerates and fixing bugs, plus outsourced devs assisting too. This will be by far Bethesda's most stable game on release I suspect. They could have released the game in 2022 as planned as it was finished, but they delayed into 2023 to give it additional polish.