Between May 9 and May 10, new posts appeared online including screenshots from an official survey from Bethesda, which seems to be all about Starfield. The survey was immediately scanned with caution by Reddit users to determine the veracity of its content, which quickly proved to be reliable, and that's when theories started sprawling all over the place. The survey asks several questions, and one of them seems suspiciously too pertinent to Starfield and the concept of the game thus far presented by Todd Howard.
The very first item of this survey asks players to rank from "does not apply at all" to "applies a great deal" if they spend a lot of time creating their characters, their home, or their spaceships. Of course, being Starfield a new IP about space travel and exploration, and with Todd Howard's confirmation that the game will feature spaceships (and, possibly, even fuel, gravity, and other things), Bethesda fans immediately connected the dots. It's unclear if this survey is indeed about the long-anticipated Starfield, but it does seem to be the case, considering no other space games are known to be in development at Bethesda.
What Bethesda's Spaceship Survey Could Be About If Not Starfield
Some fans pointed out that the talk around spaceships and customization does not necessarily mean that Starfield has to be the protagonist here, and that's because there are other games that could be receiving this treatment. Wolfenstein 3 could come at some point, despite it being unannounced to this day, and in the previous entries in the series players could travel to Venus and to the moon, so building and customizing a ship to do so in a new chapter of the franchise is not that farfetched. Furthermore, this could refer to the still-unannounced Prey 2, with the prequel being set in space, and the new title likely to retain the same setting.
While these theories are within the realm of possibility, it would be extremely unlikely for the aforementioned games to release any sooner than Starfield, especially considering there have been almost zero talks about this chance apart from mere indiscretions. With this in mind, it's easy to see how this specific question (and others within the very same survey) pretty much has to be referring to Starfield, now. There have been rumors and alleged leaks about this space adventure new IP, and some people place Starfield's release by the end of 2021, rather than having it release in early 2022.
What Bethesda's Customizable Spaceships Survey Entails For Starfield
Starfield is likely interfering in a way with the production and development phase of The Elder Scrolls 6, especially considering how TES6 is reportedly not releasing any sooner than after a while since Starfield's launch, which in turn still lacks an official release window. Still, this survey could also be an indication that the game is finally almost ready and finished, meaning that it will indeed launch this year. This is what some fans sensed by taking a look at the survey's questions. Others saw the survey itself as proof that Starfield is still not complete, and that these questions were asked specifically to adjust a few things before finally coming out of production.
Regardless of Starfield's release date, an important piece of information is that spaceships are likely to be customizable. Not only that but also characters and homes, possibly. There have been talks about Starfield including cities, which would make sense in regards to the homes bit, and the game is still classified as an RPG, which makes character customization plausible.
Furthermore, spaceships being customizable is huge, as Todd Howard said that Bethesda is actively drawing inspiration from Elon Musk's SpaceX for realism and authenticity in Starfield, with ships likely to have fuel and there being several types of combustible materials or gases to be found. Whether this means that there will be a certain degree of player agency over things like flying their own spaceships or finding substances to power them up in the first place, for now, it remains to be seen.
Starfield is in development.