Starfield could very well be the most polished and bug-free game that Bethesda has ever launched, according to Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty. The long-awaited and hotly anticipated space exploration RPG recently got a comprehensive 45-minute gameplay overview that managed to reinvigorate its playerbase with newfound hype, but it doesn't seem like Bethesda and Xbox are done just yet.
In fact, Todd Howard suggested that Starfield has the content of five or six games, citing its impressively flexible base and spaceship customization systems, progression options, gameplay mechanics, and beyond. Everything shown so far certainly suggests a massive sandbox RPG that's true-to-form for Bethesda Game Studios, but polishing it all up will be crucial as well.
In a recent interview with Giant Bomb, Matt Booty, the Head of Microsoft Studios, put out an admittedly lofty claim about Starfield. Booty said that, if Starfield were to launch today, it would already feature the least number of bugs a first-party Bethesda game has ever had on launch day. With the game slated to release in early September, this is an extremely promising statement for those who may have become jaded by Bethesda's infamously buggy open-world action RPGs.
As tolerating Starfield's potential bugs may be out of the question for some Bethesda fans at this point, Booty's statement could be a very positive sign. It could also, however, result in severe disappointment if the claims end up not being true on launch day. It is worth remembering that this is the first time that a first-party Bethesda RPG is coming out under Xbox's publishing umbrella, meaning that the studio possibly has far more quality assurance resources to pull upon than it ever had.
When Todd Howard compared Starfield to Red Dead Redemption 2, he explained that the game's exploration has a very similar vibe to Rockstar's widely acclaimed open-world cowboy title. This, too, could be taken as a positive sign, as Bethesda is seemingly uninterested in turning Starfield into a game with constant running and gunning, instead opting for a more grounded and complex sandbox.
Though everything shown about the game so far does indeed seem promising, it is worth remembering that Starfield has a 30 FPS cap on consoles, too. This is a deliberate choice made by Bethesda, whose developers feel that a consistent 30 FPS is superior to an unlocked, uncapped framerate. This option will presumably be relegated purely to the PC version of Starfield, which should offer more performance customization options for those who wish to fiddle around with their experience.
Starfield releases for PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6.