Bethesda Softworks is one of the most well-recognized game studios in the modern gaming landscape, showing a great knack for developing gargantuan open worlds with a great focus on player agency and freedom. The studio has now been acquired by Microsoft, following the acquisition of parent company ZeniMax Media for a whopping $7.5 billion.
Ever since the acquisition has been completed, fans have been curious to see what such a deal brings to Xbox, Bethesda, and gaming as a whole. While there's little to no doubt that Starfield might be the first in the showings, some fans have shown concern regarding the potential quality of the game at launch. This can mostly be attributed to the Fallout 76 launch debacle, but there's a multitude of reasons to remain positive about Starfield's development and eventual release.
Starfield's Importance
Starfield is the studio's newest IP in over 25 years, and therefore it makes sense to garner the most positive first impression that it can. A considerably larger scale doesn't help either in this regard, and this could be one of the many reasons why Starfield has remained silent for so long. While that's not to state that Fallout 76 was indispensable, but a tight budget and various deadlines took the best of the team's ever-increasing ambition. To their credit, Fallout 76 has turned its fates around for the better, and fans giving the game a second chance are extremely pleased with it thus far.
Starfield might be of great importance to Bethesda, but it is equally if not more important for Microsoft. Many plausible rumors and speculation has suggested a 2021 release for the game, which if true, could make Starfield this year's biggest Xbox exclusive alongside the delayed launch title, Halo Infinite. With these two titles being some of the earliest in Xbox's next-gen offerings, these titles might dictate Xbox's first-party offerings this console generation, implying Starfield needs to meet a high standard of quality.
Bethesda's Comfort Zone
Another big reason why Fallout 76 failed to meet player expectations was that Bethesda had no prior experience with live service titles. While a seemingly easy task to pull off for a team of such caliber, there is a multitude of small touches that can make or break a live-service game. This is what precisely happened with Fallout 76, but Bethesda did put in the effort to release substantial updates and ultimately overhaul the game into something much better. That being said, Starfield likely won't run into the same problems Fallout 76 did at launch.
Starfield has been touted to be primarily a singleplayer experience, one mostly restrained to the action/adventure and role-playing generally associated as Bethesda's strongest suit. While this isn't to state that Starfield would break sales records and probably be the year's very best, it seems that fans have more reasons to remain optimistic for the game. There's certainly a possibility that Starfield will grace the stage at E3 this year, and hopefully, it meets as many of fans' expectations as possible.
Starfield is currently in development.