The fate of Bethesda Game Studios' hotly anticipated open-world RPG Starfield has been a matter of great discussion in the past few months. While Microsoft has been quite vocal about the entire situation, often bringing up Starfield in its interviews, it's PlayStation that has taken a back seat, with no comments on the subject matter, whatsoever.
After Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Bethesda in 2021 for a whopping $7.5 billion, fans all across the globe started to speculate the future of Bethesda's upcoming titles on Sony's platform. The signing of this deal indicates that the entirety of Bethesda Softworks, which includes the likes of Arkane Studios, id Software, Tango Gameworks, Bethesda Game Studios, etc., will become a part of Xbox Game Studios in the coming years. While Microsoft has been pretty vocal about not locking its games out of other platforms, Xbox Head Phil Spencer also hinted at an alternative where these titles may, after all, turn out to be exclusive on the Xbox ecosystem.
Fans ain't the only ones who don't know on which platforms these highly anticipated Bethesda titles, which also includes The Elder Scrolls 6, will ship on. It seems though President of SIE Jim Ryan is currently on the same boat as well. When asked about how he feels about the recent Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda, by a Russian website TASS, he says," That's a decision that is out of our hands, we'll wait and see what happens."
This completely turns the tide, considering how Sony reportedly wanted Starfield as a PS5 timed exclusive. This is even more evident from the fact that two of the upcoming Bethesda titles: Deathloop and GhostWire: Tokyo are indeed PS5 timed exclusive, while still, ironically, being part of Xbox's first-party library.
Although there's no confirmation on whether Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 will come to PS5, we do know that they are coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one, as Todd Howard confirmed in a recent interview. There's no doubt that Game Pass will drastically benefit from the addition of such huge, AAA, open-world titles that people can try for a $10 subscription charge, in contrast to paying $70 for a PS5 exclusive title.
However, PlayStation's first-party titles have seen immense success in the last two generations and this one is shaping up to be no different. Jim Ryan is confident that $70 is a fair price for these AAA blockbusters that players can only find on Sony's next-generation console. With titles such as Horizon: Forbidden West and God Of War: Ragnorak set to headline 2021, PS5 users have very little to worry about and a lot to look forward to.
Starfield is in development at Bethesda Game Studios and has no release date currently.
Source: TASS