Starfield is the next big RPG from Bethesda Game Studios, the studio behind the main series Fallout and Elder Scrolls games. Considering Bethesda's track record, there is already a great deal of hype behind Starfield, even though next to nothing is known about the game in an official capacity. While fans still have yet to see any Starfield gameplay or learn much about the game in terms of concrete information, it seems as though it could very well be in their hands by the day of the year.
As spotted by Pure Xbox, industry insider Rand al Thor spoke in a recent episode of the Xbox Two podcast, where he discussed Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda. According to Rand al Thor, Starfield is going to be an Xbox exclusive game, and Microsoft is hoping for the game to launch this coming holiday season. Rand Al Thor doesn't provide evidence to back up his claims, but he says that he's heard this information from "very reliable people."
Rand al Thor is confident enough in Starfield releasing in holiday 2021 that he has apparently made bets on it. He then doubled down on the claims, saying that he is "really, really confident" that Starfield is going to be releasing as an Xbox exclusive game.
As far as Starfield's progress, Rand al Thor believes that the game is already basically finished. "It's in bug squashing mode right now," Rand al Thor said. He compared its development progress to that of Halo Infinite, which is also expected to launch holiday 2021. If Starfield truly is at the end of its development cycle, then a 2021 release date for the game is certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
Rand al Thor isn't the first industry insider to suggest that the Starfield release date could be sooner than expected. NateDrake on the Resetera forums also said that Starfield could release in 2021, though they cautioned that plans could change between now and then. NateDrake's information was apparently several months old, and it's possible that the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could have pushed Starfield's release date back.
For now, Starfield does not have an official release date and it doesn't really have much in the way of any official information at all. If the game is truly looking to launch later in 2021, then it seems quite likely that Starfield will be featured at Microsoft's E3 2021 presentation, so fans should stay tuned.
Starfield is in development for unspecified platforms.
Source: Pure Xbox