Bethesda’s Todd Howard took to the stage at the end of today’s Xbox Bethesda showcase and revealed the very first Starfield gameplay trailer, which gave us a look at the player character exploring the mysterious moon Kreet, shooting at some baddies, and later on, creating a custom base and spaceship.

Howard explained that you can customize the look and layout of your spaceships with “loads of different modules, ship manufacturers, and more.” You can also choose crew members you meet along your journey to work on the spaceship because, naturally, you have much more important priorities as the captain of the spaceship – the gameplay trailer shows the player character piloting their spaceship around various planets and shooting at hostile enemy ships. 

As for Starfield’s character creator, Howard said it’ll be Bethesda’s “most flexible yet.” You’ll start the game by picking a background with three unique starting skills and then building out your character before the adventure starts.

Today’s Starfield presentation also added a bunch of details about the size and scope of Bethesda’s upcoming action-RPG, like the fact that you’ll be able to explore over 1,000 planets and tinker with somewhere around 100 systems. And of course, since this is Bethesda after all, there will be a lockpicking minigame.

Elsewhere in today’s Xbox showcase was the news that Diablo 4 is launching in 2023.

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Through investment and acquisitions, Xbox Game Studios is now an enviable force in the industry. There are more upcoming Xbox Series X games in development than ever before – something that is unlikely to change anytime soon, particularly with Microsoft Gaming on the precipice of purchasing Activision Blizzard. 

While the $70 billion acquisition is yet to be finalised, there are still 23 of the industry’s leading game developers creating new Xbox exclusive games – each of which will be available in Xbox Game Pass from its day of release. 

Below you will find the full Xbox Game Studios list, a breakdown of what each developer is famous for, and some insight into what they are working on next. 

Xbox Game Studios list

Every Microsoft-owned, first-party studio and what they are working on:

• 343 Industries
• Alpha Dog Games
• Arkane Studios
• Bethesda Game Studios
• Bethesda Softworks
• Compulsion Games
• Double Fine Productions
• id Software
• Inxile Entertainment
• MachineGames
• Mojang Studios
• Ninja Theory
• Obsidian Entertainment
• Playground Games
• Rare
• Roundhouse Studios
• Tango Gameworks
• The Coalition
• The Initiative
• Turn 10 Studios
• Undead Labs
• World’s Edge
• Xbox Games Studios Publishing
• ZeniMax Online

343 Industries

• Notable releases: Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox One, 2015), Halo Infinite (Xbox Series X, 2021)
• Working on: Halo Infinite (live service)
• Founded in: 2007

343 Industries has stewardship over the Halo franchise. The studio most recently released Halo Infinite on 15 November, 2021 for Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC. The studio is set to continue working on Halo Infinite for the next decade, expanding Master Chief’s journey on Zeta Halo with campaign expansions, and continuing to maintain the Halo Infinite multiplayer live service experience with additional seasons of content. 

Alpha Dog Games

• Notable releases: Wraithborne (iOS, 2012), MonstroCity Rampage (iOS, 2017)
• Working on: TBC
• Acquired in: 2021

Alpha Dog Games is a mobile-focused developer that was actually acquired by Bethesda in late 2019 to support the publisher’s growing interest in the iOS and Android market. Given Microsoft’s investment in mobile and cloud gaming, it’s likely that Alpha Dog will continue working behind the scenes on the initiative.

Arkane Studios

• Notable releases: Dishonored (Multi, 2012), Prey (Multi, 2017)
• Working on: Redfall (Xbox Series X, 2023), Deathloop (Xbox Series X, TBC)
• Acquired in: 2021

Arkane Studios is known for building complex immersive sims, experiences that weave a reactive sense of choice and consequence right through the action. Arkane most recently released Deathloop as a timed-exclusive on PS5, and the studio is thought to be working on an Xbox Series X port now. Arkane is also developing Redfall, a co-op shooter which’ll let you and your friends hunt vampires across a sprawling open world – it’s expected to launch early 2023.

Bethesda Game Studios

• Notable releases: Fallout 3 (Multi, 2008), The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (Multi, 2011)
• Working on: Starfield (Xbox Series X, 2023), The Elder Scrolls 6 (TBC)
• Acquired in: 2021

By acquiring Bethesda Game Studios, Microsoft has added one of the most successful and influential outfits in the industry to its arsenal. This is the studio responsible for overseeing the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls franchises, although it also has a brand new IP in the works called Starfield. Starfield is a sci-fi RPG that is expected to launch in early 2023.

Bethesda Softworks

• Notable releases: N/A
• Working on: N/A
• Acquired in: 2021

Microsoft didn’t just acquire eight development studios, it also brought ZeniMax Media’s publishing wing into the fold too. That means that ‘Bethesda’ as you traditionally know it will continue to exist, with Microsoft allowing it to work semi-autonomously where it will continue to publish the games that are born from its portfolio of partners. 

Compulsion Games

• Notable releases: Contrast (Multi, 2013), We Happy Few (Multi, 2018)
• Working on: TBC
• Acquired in: 2018

Compulsion Games has only released two games since its formation in 2009, Contrast and We Happy Few, which are polar opposites in terms or theme and genre, although they are connected by a shared value: an undeniable sense of style. Compulsion Games is yet to reveal what it is working on now.

Double Fine Productions

• Notable releases: Brutal Legend (PS3/Xbox 360, 2009), Psychonauts 2 (Multi, 2021)
• Working on: TBC
• Acquired in: 2019

Double Fine Productions creates cult-classics. Ever since its formation in 2000, Double Fine has always made games its own way, with an unwavering desire to provide windows into weird and wonderful worlds. Double Fine released Psychonauts 2 to rave reviews in 2021, and the studio is yet to announce what it is currently working on.

id Software

• Notable releases: Doom (Multi, 2016), Doom Eternal (Multi, 2020) 
• Working on: TBC
• Acquired in: 2020

They don’t come more legendary than id Software. This is the studio that essentially created the first-person shooter with Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, Doom in 1993, and Quake in 1996, and is known for having the industry’s greatest shotgun. id is yet to reveal what it is working on following the release of Doom Eternal. 

inXile Entertainment

• Notable releases: Tides of Numenera (Multi, 2017), Wasteland 3 (2020, Multi)
• Working on: TBC
• Acquired in: 2018

inXile is a studio with speciality in c-RPGs, founded by Brian Fargo – director of Wasteland and executive producer of the original Fallout. inXile hasn’t revealed its next project, although it’s rumored that the studio is is building a ‘AAA-RPG’ for Xbox Series X. Given that Wasteland 3 released two years ago, hopefully it won’t be long before the studio shows us what it has been up to.

MachineGames

• Notable releases: Wolfenstein: The New Order (Multi, 2014), Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus (Multi, 2017)
• Working on: Indiana Jones (Xbox Series X, TBC)
• Acquired in: 2021

MachineGames was founded in 2009 by former members of Starbreeze Studios, before being handed the reins to the Wolfenstein series in 2010. The studio made a name for itself with its subversive and tightly-designed first-person shooters. It was recently announced that Bethesda will be collaborating with LucasFilm Games to create a brand new Indiana Jones game, with MachineGames handling development.

Mojang Studios

• Notable releases: Minecraft (Multi, 2011), Minecraft Dungeons (Multi, 2020)
• Working on: Minecraft (Multi, 2011)
• Acquired in: 2014

Mojang is the Minecraft company. Acquired by Microsoft in 2014 for 2.5 billion dollars, Mojang has been dutifully updating and evolving Minecraft across all of its supported platforms since. While the studio rarely operates outside of the core Minecraft experience, it did release a family-friendly dungeon-crawler in 2020 called Minecraft Dungeons. 

Ninja Theory

• Notable releases: DmC: Devil May Cry (Multi, 2013), Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Multi, 2017)
• Working on: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 (Xbox Series X, TBC), Project: Mara (Xbox Series X, TBC)
• Acquired in: 2018

Ninja Theory built its reputation creating beautiful, detailed action-adventure games like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and DmC: Devil May Cry. Since its 2018 acquisition, Ninja Theory has invested heavily into state-of-the-art motion capture, Unreal Engine 5, and other new technology to help drive forward Xbox Series X fidelity. The studio is working on Hellblade 2, and a new experimental horror game codenamed Project Mara. 

Obsidian Entertainment

• Notable releases: Pillars of Eternity (PC, 2015),  The Outer Worlds (Multi, 2019)
• Working on: Grounded (Xbox One, 2022), Avowed (Xbox Series X, TBC), The Outer Worlds 2 (Xbox Series X, TBC)
• Acquired in: 2018

Obsidian Entertainment is a legendary developer of RPGs. Whether it’s action-heavy, like Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, or leaning more heavily into the strategy-side with Pillars of Eternity, the name ‘Obsidian’ is a mark of quality. The studio currently has Grounded in early-access, which is working towards a 2022 release. The studio is also developing a new RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe named Avowed, and has begun early work on The Outer Worlds 2.

Playground Games

• Notable releases: Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One, 2018), Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series X, 2021) 
• Working on: Fable 4 (Xbox Series X, TBC)
• Acquired in: 2018

Playground Games was given the keys to the Forza franchise back in 2010, with Forza Horizon developed in collaboration with series stalwarts Turn 10. Ever since, Playground has consistently delivered open-world racing games that go above and beyond that of the competition. Following the release of Forza Horizon 5 in 2021, the studio is now full focused on its reboot of an iconic Xbox RPG – Fable. 

Rare

• Notable releases: Viva Pinata (Xbox 360, 2006), Sea of Thieves (PC/Xbox One, 2018)
• Working on: Everwild (Xbox Series X, TBC)
• Acquired in: 2002

Rare is a legendary British studio. So much so, it’s difficult to know where to even begin. So let’s skip the history lesson and fast-forward to the present. Rare continues to support and update Sea of Thieves, one of the best multiplayer games out there right now, while it works on a brand-new co-op adventure called Everwild. 

Roundhouse Studios

• Notable releases: N/A
• Working on: TBC 
• Acquired in: 2021

Roundhouse Studios is an unknown quantity. This is a studio created by Bethesda in 2019, staffed by developers that were with Human Head Studios right to the bitter end. Given that staff has experience in everything from FPS to RPGs, it’s impossible to know what it is working on – but whatever it is, it’s bound to still be in the very early stages of pre-production. 

Tango Gameworks

• Notable releases: The Evil Within (Multi, 2014), The Evil Within 2 (Multi 2017)
• Working on: Ghostwire Tokyo (Xbox Series X, 2023)
• Acquired in: 2021

Tango Gameworks is Shinji Mikami’s studio, the famed creator of such classics as Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. Tango’s first two releases were confident, terrifying psychological horror games, although its latest is a little weirder. Ghostwire Tokyo launched as a timed-exclusive on PS5 in 2022, and the studio is expected to release an Xbox Series X port in 2023. Tango is yet to reveal what it is working on in the meantime. 

The Coalition

• Notable releases: Gears of War 4 (Xbox One, 2016), Gears 5 (Xbox One, 2019)
• Working on: TBC
• Founded in: 2010

When Microsoft acquired the rights to Gears of War from Epic Games in 2014, it was handed off to The Coalition. The studio now leads production on the franchise, pushing the scope of the series with each new installment. The Coalition’s most recent release was Gears 5 in 2019, although it has since launched an updated version of the game for Xbox Series X. The studio is yet to confirm what it’s working on now, although it is known to be investing heavily in Unreal Engine 5.   

The Initiative

• Notable releases: N/A
• Working on: Perfect Dark (Xbox Series X, 2022)
• Founded in: 2018

The Initiative is a brand new video game developer, founded by former Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher. The studio is packed with talent from BioWare, Naughty Dog, Respawn Entertainment, and others, and is being touted as a key player in Xbox’s future. The Initiative is currently developing a reboot of the Perfect Dark series, which was revealed in 2020. Due to the scope of the project, Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics has been brought in to co-develop Joanna Dark’s long-awaited return.

Turn 10

• Notable releases: Forza Motorsport 7 (Xbox One, 2017)
• Working on: Forza Motorsport (Xbox Series X, TBC)
• Founded in: 2001

Ever since its formation, Turn 10 has been known for its meticulous attention-to-detail, working to create the most realistic and engaging racing sims imaginable. It’s currently building a next-generation Forza experience for Xbox Series X, although Microsoft is yet to give the project an official title or release window – let alone any details. Given the five year wait, Forza Motorsport is expected to return sooner rather than later. 

Undead Labs

• Notable releases: State of Decay (PC, 2013), State of Decay 2 (Xbox One, 2018)
• Working on: State of Decay 3 (Xbox Series X, 2022)
• Acquired in: 2018

Undead Labs has had its sights on delivering the ultimate zombie survival experience ever since its formation. The studio is currently working on State of Decay 3 for Xbox Series X, which will be its first release since becoming a first-party Xbox studio in 2018. The game is thought to still be early in development, so we’ll likely be waiting a little while before we see any more of it in action. 

World’s Edge

• Notable releases: Age of Empires 4 (PC, 2021)
• Working on: TBC
• Founded in: 2019

While World’s Edge isn’t directly responsible for making new games, it has been positioned as a caretaker for one of Microsoft’s biggest franchises. The studio coordinates development for Age of Empires, working to ensure external studios such as Relic Entertainment and Forgotten Empires are properly aligned. To that end, World’s End helped to ship Age of Empires 4 in 2021 for PC, and is yet to reveal what it’s working on next.

Xbox Game Studios Publishing

• Notable releases: N/A
• Working on: N/A
• Founded in: 2000

Xbox Game Studios Publishing is an internal group within the Xbox Game Studios group that supports external developers, and those under the wider first-party group. In the past, the global publishing team has worked with partners like Insomniac and Dontnod to bring Sunset Overdrive and Tell Me Why to the platform; it’s currently helping Avalanche Studios with its co-op smuggling game Contraband. 

ZeniMax Online Studios

• Notable releases: The Elder Scrolls Online (Multi, 2014), Fallout 76 (Multi, 2018)
• Working on: N/A
• Acquired in: 2021

ZeniMax Online Studios is responsible for creating and overseeing Bethesda’s online-focused games, such as The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76. The studio isn’t known to have any brand new games in development, although it is continuing to support, develop, and grow Bethesda’s MMORPGs. ZeniMax Online Studios’ most recent release was the The Elder Scrolls Online: High Isle expansion.

Extended Reading: What the Xbox acquisition of ZeniMax could mean for games like The Elder Scrolls 6, Starfield, and Deathloop? (opens in new tab)

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Pasquale Scionti works as a senior lighting and Look Dev artist at Ninja Theory. When not working on the beautifully cinematic continuation of Senua’s story, Scionti likes to spend his time creating demos in Unreal Engine that are inspired by popular game franchises. 

One of his most recent creations features a space-themed setting which Scionti says is “inspired by Mass Effect & Starfield”. The artist shared a short video and some stunning images of the project on Twitter (opens in new tab). The video, which you can see below, shows an astronaut exploring a dusty red-hued planet that bears a striking similarity to Mars. It’s incredibly well made and makes us long for Starfield all the more. 

WIP Inspired by Mass Effect & StarfieldUnreal Engine 5 Lumen Nanite character with Cc3 & als4 https://t.co/hKkMbZcfnMhttps://t.co/MB2ACfuS36#unrealengine5 #UE5 #MassEffect #Starfield #planet #quixel #Videogame @UnrealEngine @quixeltools @80Level @bioware @BethesdaStudios pic.twitter.com/gFKmoKQb2pMay 17, 2022

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Scionti’s other dazzling creations include a PT-inspired project (opens in new tab) that brilliantly captures the feel of Kojima’s playable teaser for Silent Hills. There’s also an Elden Ring-like demo (opens in new tab) made in Unreal Engine 4 that lets you appreciate the beauty of the Lands Between without worrying about all the tough as nails enemies all too ready to rob you of your hard-earned runes.   

Hellblade 2 will be a lot bigger than its predecessor, according to Ninja Theory’s Tameem Antoniades. Discussing the game’s scale in an interview earlier this year, the Hellblade 2 developer said Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice will “look like an indie game” compared to the sequel.

With Starfield delayed, there’s plenty of time to get up to speed on next year’s big RPG series from Bethesda, here are all the details.

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“These decisions are hard on teams making the games and our fans,” Spencer said in a tweet (opens in new tab) sharing Bethesda’s delay announcement. “While I fully support giving teams time to release these great games when they are ready, we hear the feedback. Delivering quality and consistency is expected; we will continue to work to better meet those expectations.”

Regarding “quality and consistency,” Spencer appears to be skirting discussions around Xbox’s first-party lineup. Despite a massive and ongoing spending spree which has seen the company gobble up Bethesda and now Activision for tens of billions, Xbox is still light on big games and exclusives. 

Starfield was the tentpole Xbox title for 2022, and Redfall was also positioned as a major get with Arkane’s pedigree behind it. Losing both to 2023 has sapped quite a bit of wind from Xbox’s sails and, by extension, lowered the impact of its upcoming joint showcase with Bethesda. This has put the Xbox Series X in almost the exact situation it faced at launch following the big Halo Infinite delay.

There’s also something to be said for the ever-widening gulf between promised release dates and realistic ones, especially in the uncertain circumstances that the games industry is still grappling with. Xbox is far from the only company facing this challenge, but as “the feedback” Spencer mentions would indicate, it is acutely aware of it right now.

This news has come at a bad time for Xbox, as the company faced heavy criticism of its DRM policy after a recent outage left many players unable to launch any games for days. 

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In the latest episode of developer update Into the Starfield, design director Emil Pagliarulo said that Bethesda knew it wanted to do “some kind of persuasion mini-game thing.” In response, quest director Will Shen said “it was funny, we didn’t start with ‘let’s do an evolution of, let’s look back at the old Oblivion system’, but there are a couple of beats there. You have to think about ‘What’s my risk here, which one do I want to choose?’ We didn’t want it to be a system where there was definitely a right thing to say.”

In Oblivion, attempting to persuade a character opened a mini-game featuring a wheel with various options to select. Players could Joke, Admire, Boast, or Coerce an NPC, and each character would have a different reaction to each option. By using those options across multiple ’rounds’ of conversation, players aimed to increase an NPC’s ‘disposition’ to get them onside. Increasing your speechcraft skill changed the impact of each choice, and also offered the chance to bribe characters to help your cause even further.

Now 15 years old, Oblivion’s system is a little dated, but Starfield game director Todd Howard seems pleased with the way that the persuasion system has been reimagined for Starfield. He says that “it feels like you’re having a conversation where you’re actually trying to persuade somebody of something. As far as the new systems in dialogue, I think it’s definitely one of the most successful ones that we’ve had.”

It does sound as though the conversation systems from Skyrim and Bethesda’s Fallout games will play a diminished part when trying to convince an NPC of your point of view. In those games, success or failure was often a case of making sure you picked the correct dialogue options, some of which would be limited by your speech skill, essentially locking you out of the ‘correct’ answer.

Elsewhere in the update, Bethesda’s developers discussed Starfield’s factions and companions, and may have showed off our first peek at Starfield gameplay.

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Bethesda revealed new details about how you’ll interact with the Starfield NPCs you travel with over the course of the game in a new developer diary video. 

“No matter what story we write, the one the players tell themselves is the one they think about and love the most – and the companions,” said Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard.

With that in mind, the developers explained how Starfield’s Companion characters have been improved and further fleshed out in the upcoming RPG.

“Something we really leaned into on this game is how the other characters felt about you,” explained Howard. 

To that end, the team explained how they wanted more out of the Companions to make them more believable. Now they’ll get to know and form bonds with each other, make comments on the things that you do, and become a type of mirror for the type of person you’re becoming over the course of the game. It’s all in a bid to make them feel more realistic and grounded. 

“That’s probably my favourite part, like when you’re exploring and then your companion makes some comment off the cuff about something that you’re checking out or something that just happened,” said lead artist Istvan Pely. “That just feels so perfect for immersion. It’s just so believable, you think it’s a real person.”

In the same clip, we also got our first look at one Companion character that you’ll be traveling with: VASCO the robot. It’s unclear what type of interactions will be available with VASCO at this point, but imagining responses from this loader-style bot is all the more interesting with what Bethesda has in mind. 

The team also discussed some type of persuasion minigame as part of this new system, which feels more like you’re “trying” to persuade someone of something. This will more than likely reflect on how you interact with your Companions as well.

There’s still quite a ways to go until we can experience Starfield for ourselves, as it’s due out for a November 11 release on Xbox Series X and PC. But these tidbits are certainly something to chew on.  

Starfield is one of the most anticipated upcoming Xbox Series X games, but when will we see it in action? There’s always a chance Microsoft will give it a big reveal in June, although it is yet to officially book out any time in the E3 2022 schedule. 

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Just below, you can see a post on the Starfield subreddit, which claims to show a number of images from an unannounced Starfield-themed watch, and the same user also claims to have a found a draft instruction manual for the watch itself, which shows the watch will offer Bluetooth support for mobile devices. That manual suggests the device is being made by The Wand Company, a UK-based prop designer that helped make the collectible Pip-Boy that shipped with certain editions of Fallout 4.

This new watch certainly looks pretty flashy, not to mention expensive. It’s adorned with a number of designs, which we can only assume means the watch face itself is interchangeable, and there’s also settings that’ll show you the current temperature and humidity. This actually isn’t the first time we’ve seen this watch: it featured in a behind-the-scenes video for Starfield last year in June 2021.

Underneath the subreddit post, some commenters think this watch is what’ll arrive with the Collector’s Edition of Starfield. Right now, all we know about the expensive edition of Bethesda’s new game is that it features something in a fancy box, but we don’t know what’s actually in the box itself. If the watch is buried in the Collector’s Edition box, that’d surely make it one expensive purchase.

The user who found the manuals, YouTuber SquiddyVonn, suggests that the watch could also make up a significant part of Starfield’s UI. In a video, they note that its display box appears in last year’s trailer, and that it device could be the equivalent of the Pip-Boy for Bethesda’s next game.

Right now, Starfield is on track to launch later this year on November 11, for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, being available on day one through the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. The new game marks Bethesda’s first new IP in over two decades, so it’s safe to say expectations are pretty damn high for the new spacefaring RPG.

That launch date might be a fair way off, but you can already check out some recent Starfield concept art of the various worlds we’ll be exploring.

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Earlier today, Xbox held a special Tokyo Game Show 2021 presentation, a showcase that was chiefly dedicated to its Japanese audience. During the presentation, Starfield creative director Todd Howard briefly appeared to reveal that the RPG would have a full Japanese voiceover, while also mentioning that Starfield boasts well over 150,000 lines of dialog (thanks, Nibel (opens in new tab)).

This puts Starfield’s voice line count well above both Fallout 4 and Skyrim. The former game reportedly had 110,000 lines of dialog in total, while Skyrim had just over half that amount at 60,000 dialog lines. This is a pretty good indicator of just how big and dense Starfield actually is, although since it’s a Bethesda RPG, it was never exactly going to be a small game.

Still, it’s nice to know that Starfield’s Japanese fans have a full native voiceover to look forward to, and we have an indication of the RPG’s size. Bethesda’s first new IP in over 25 years will finally be with us on November 22, 2022, and when it does arrive, it’ll be an Xbox console exclusive, available worldwide on PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. 

This  follows in the wake of Xbox’s blockbuster acquisition of Bethesda last year in 2020. Starfield had never technically been confirmed to be coming to PlayStation consoles, but when the game received its first proper reveal with a new trailer earlier this year at E3 2021, it was revealed as an Xbox console exclusive, and also a new-gen exclusive game for both Xbox consoles.

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Speaking to The Telegraph (opens in new tab) yesterday following Starfield‘s big unveiling at E3 2021, Howard revealed some smaller details about the game. The director describes it as “a bit more hardcore of a role-playing game than we’ve done,” with things likes “choosing your background” enabled for the character creation system. 

“We’re going back to some things that we used to do in games long ago that we felt have really let players express the character they want to be,” Howard continued.

Elsewhere, there are details of how Starfield functions in the minute-to-minute gameplay. “It is a first-person and third-person game, like our other ones,” the director says, referring to how The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games would let the player manually switch between playing in both first and third-person perspectives at any given time.

Howard continues by referencing Starfield’s “large scale goals and storytelling,” while maintaining that gameplay will feel just as rewarding. The Starfield game director also makes sure to mention that the new game isn’t going to ape the feel of Star Wars of Star Trek – Starfield is very much its own thing in tone and style.

Right now, these are pretty much all the gameplay details we have to go on about Starfield. Bethesda previously revealed that the upcoming RPG would use an overhauled game engine, and would feature an entirely overhauled animation system for characters and items. As for how Starfield actually plays though, we’ll have to wait a fair few months more to see it in action for ourselves.

The wait for Starfield isn’t going to be an easy one, and there’s plenty of pressure on Bethesda for its first new IP in 25 years. As revealed yesterday during Xbox’s big E3 2021 showcase, Starfield will launch on November 11, 2022, and will release on PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S (as well as Xbox Game Pass on day one), skipping out on PlayStation entirely in the wake of Bethesda’s acquisition by Microsoft. 

If you’re looking to upgrade your gaming setup before Starfield’s arrival, head over to our Prime Day TV deals guide for the best price for 4K visuals.

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Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who has a solid record of teasing out details for games early, started a Twitter thread (opens in new tab) earlier today where he shot down rumors of Starfield being poised to arrive by the end of 2021. A few hours later, he followed up that denial with a claim of his own: Bethesda is planning to release Starfield in late 2022, and it will tease that date for the game at E3 2021. If true, keep a close eye on Bethesda’s shared event with Xbox and check out our E3 2021 schedule for all the rest of the presentations that have been announced so far.

Rumors like this keep floating around but Starfield is nowhere near done, according to several ppl familiar with development. It’ll be at E3 but the planned release date I’ve heard is way later than most people expect. Sharing this so that folks keep their expectations in check https://t.co/LVFzmX1XYuMay 20, 2021

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Over the last few weeks and months, we’ve seen no shortage of claims surrounding Starfield, with some claims that Bethesda was aiming to launch their new game later this year in 2021. Schreier’s claim is just the latest in a very long line of rumors, although given his track record, this claim is significantly more reliable than the previous rumors floating around.

We know relatively little about Bethesda’s new RPG so far. One thing we know is that it’ll feature a brand new engine from the developer, as Bethesda revealed late last year that they’d be overhauling their engine for the development of not only Starfield but The Elder Scrolls 6 as well. Both games appear to be quite some distance away, but we can pretty safely assume that the latter is further out from eventually seeing the light of day.

In fact, we aren’t even sure which platforms Starfield will eventually launch on (and there’s been no shortage of rumors surrounding that topic either). A previous rumor claimed that the developer is aiming to launch the RPG on PC, but also on Xbox as a console exclusive, skipping out a PlayStation release entirely. Right now, no one knows which platforms Starfield will be launching on, not even PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, as he revealed he’s just as much in the dark as we are as to Bethesda’s plans.

For every game confirmed to be launching this year so far, head over to our new games 2021 guide for more.

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