Starfield

"Discover Starfield, the new space epic by Bethesda Game Studios. Starfield is the first new franchise in twenty-five years from the acclaimed developers of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series." ― Description

Starfield^[1] is a single-player science fiction role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game was first announced during Bethesda's E3 Press Conference in 2018.^[2] Starfield was released on September 6, 2023 for Xbox Series X/S and PC, with an early access period beginning on September 1, 2023 for purchasers of certain game editions. It is also available through Xbox Cloud Gaming for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.^[3]

Premise[]

It is the year 2330. Humanity has left Earth behind and spread among the stars, colonizing a small pocket of the galaxy known as the Settled Systems. However, the pioneering spirit that drove the initial diaspora has long since faded and exploration efforts beyond known space have dwindled. When the player stumbles across an alien artifact and experiences a vision, they cross paths with Constellation, the last group of space explorers, who are endeavoring to solve the greatest mystery of all: what is out there? This sends the player on a quest across the Settled Systems to discover the nature of the artifacts, but draws the attention of a secretive group bent on covering up the artifacts' existence and eliminating those curious about them.

Development[]

Bethesda Game Studios considered various pitches for "the space game" while they were working on installments in the The Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises in the 1990s and 2000s.^[4] Starfield was originally trademarked on September 13, 2013.^[5] Pre-production for the game began sometime between 2012 and 2013, and active development began following the launch of Fallout 4 in November 2015.^[6] The game was first revealed to the public at Bethesda's E3 presentation in June 2018, where the first teaser was shown alongside a teaser for The Elder Scrolls VI. Todd Howard confirmed that Starfield was in a playable state, and summarized the progress of development up to that point: "We've [Bethesda Game Studios] been talking about it for a decade, we started putting things on paper five, six years ago, and active development was from when we finished Fallout 4, so two and a half, three years."^[7]

Bethesda maintains its own internal wiki for Starfield, to which all of their employees have access. These include histories, backstories, and starship architecture.^[8]

In September 2020, Microsoft announced its acquisition of the parent company of Bethesda Game Studios, Zenimax, for $7.5 billion. This was the second most expensive video game company acquisition at the time, second only to Tencent's buyout of Supercell in 2016 for $8.6 billion.^[9] On March 8, 2021, the acquisition was approved in the EU.^[10] Microsoft's Xbox division head, Phil Spencer, explained in June 2023 that one of the leading reasons behind the acquisition of Zenimax was to prevent Starfield from releasing exclusively on the rival PlayStation console. Before the acquisition, PlayStation parent company Sony had recently secured exclusivity agreements for Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, products of Bethesda Softworks studios Arkane Lyon and Tango Gameworks, respectively, and Spencer was concerned that Sony would ink a similar deal for Bethesda Game Studios' Starfield. Losing access to Starfield was considered an unacceptable outcome for the Xbox brand that would further reduce its standing in the console market, and it was decided that purchasing Zenimax was a necessary move to remain competitive.^[11]

On February 23, 2021, Bethesda Game Studios announced a charity auction for Make-a-Wish foundation where the prize was the opportunity to design a character for the game. The auction was won by an unknown bidder for $15.4k.^[12]

Starfield was originally scheduled for release on November 11, 2022, which was revealed in an official teaser trailer presented at E3 2021.^[13] However, Bethesda Softworks subsequently decided to delay the game to allow for more development time, and announced on May 12, 2022 that the launch had been pushed into the first half of 2023.^[14] On March 8, 2023, the game's new release date of September 6, 2023 was announced.^[15] An in-depth "deep dive" preview of Starfield was presented as part of Xbox's showcase on June 11, 2023, at which time the game was made available for pre-order and an official Starfield-themed Xbox controller and wireless headset went on sale.^[16] The game officially went "gold" on August 16, 2023, and it became available for preloading the following day.^[17]

Features[]

Major features in Starfield include:^[18]

RPG with the ability to toggle between first-person and third-person camera perspectives
Character Customization
Skill progression
Shooter and melee combat
Over 100 explorable star systems with over 1,000 worlds
Diverse, procedurally-generated worlds with various biomes, environmental and weather conditions, flora and fauna
Ship customization
Ship to ship combat in space, with the ability to board and capture NPC ships
Planet Surveying
Outpost Construction and operation to collect resources
Weapon and Consumable Item crafting, and researching new recipes
Unique and generic companion NPCs with various expertise, affinity systems, questlines and romance options

Editions[]

	Standard Edition	Premium Edition (digital)	Premium Edition Upgrade (digital)	Premium Edition Upgrade (physical)	Constellation Edition
Starfield game	✔	✔			✔
Constellation Skin Pack		✔	✔	✔	✔
Starfield Digital Artbook & Original Soundtrack		✔	✔	✔	✔
Shattered Space story expansion		✔	✔	✔	✔
5-day early access		✔	✔	✔	✔
Constellation Patch				✔	✔
Steelbook case				✔	✔
Credit Stick with Laser-Etched Game Code					✔
Starfield Chronomark Watch & Case					✔

Add-ons[]

Cosmetics
- Old Mars Skin Pack (pre-order bonus)
- Constellation Skin Pack (included with Premium and Constellation Editions)

Expansions
- Shattered Space (upcoming)

System Requirements[]

Minimum[]

OS: Windows 10 version 22H2 (10.0.19045)
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, Intel Core i7-6800K
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700, NVIDIA GeForce 1070 Ti
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 125 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD Required

Recommended[]

OS: Windows 10/11 with updates
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, Intel i5-10600K
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
DirectX: Version 12
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 125 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD Required

Reception[]

Reviewer	Score
CGMagazine	9.5/10^[19]
Destructoid	10/10^[20]
Eurogamer	3/5^[21]
Game Informer	8.5/10^[22]
Gamespot	7/10^[23]
Gamesradar	5/5^[24]
IGN	7/10^[25]
IGN Japan	10/10^[26]
Metro	6/10^[27]
PC Gamer	75%^[28]
PCGamesN	70/100^[29]
PC World	5/5^[30]
Tom's Guide	4/5^[31]
VG247	4/5^[32]
VGC	5/5^[33]
Washington Post	4/4^[34]
WCCFTech	9/10^[35]

The Xbox version of Starfield holds a "generally favorable" aggregate review score of 83 on Metacritic based on 90 critic reviews, and the PC version holds a "generally favorable" aggregate review score of 85 based on 80 critic reviews.^[36] On Steam, the game has a "mixed" rating.^[37]

Individual critic reviews have been mixed. For example, Steven Mills of Destructoid praised Starfield, saying "I wasn't sure if it could be done, but Bethesda has managed to raise the bar for sandbox games even higher. In the end, Starfield is an epic sandbox open-world RPG with a beautifully immersive universe, a captivating story, and fun and compelling gameplay the whole way."^[20] In contrast, Dan Stapleton of IGN was critical of the game's pacing and design: "It's never a great sign when someone recommends a game on the grounds that it gets good after more than a dozen hours, but that's very much the kind of game Starfield is, and I do recommend it. There are a lot of forces working against it, and the combination of disjointed space travel, nonexistent maps, aggravating inventory management, and a slow rollout of essential abilities very nearly did it in."^[25]

Bethesda stated that as of December 20, 2023, Starfield had garnered approximately 13 million unique players, which included both purchases and Gamepass downloads.^[38] Despite this, the game lost 97% of its playerbase by early 2024,^[39] and had as low as 2,550 concurrent players worldwide on Steam by April 2024.^[40]