When images of Starfield leaked online a few months ago, fans debated over their authenticity. Now it seems that those leaks have been confirmed, thanks to a t-shirt that a Bethesda employee wore during Todd Howard’s Develop: Brighton Digital conference presentation.
In September, three gameplay images of Starfield leaked online via Imgur. The images provided fans with their first look at Bethesda’s upcoming sci-fi RPG, the developer’s first new IP in more than 20 years. The stills, which showed a user interface graphic, a model for a large space craft, and a third person view of an astronaut character, appeared to be legit but Bethesda never officially verified their authenticity.
Now it seems that the developer has confirmed that the images are indeed authentic, though in an indirect and discreet way. Eagle-eyed users on Reddit noticed that the logo of a t-shirt worn by a Bethesda employee during Howard’s Develop: Brighton presentation matched the logo worn by the astronaut in one of the leaked images. The employee in question is Ashley Cheng, managing director at Bethesda Game Studios. During the presentation, Cheng made a brief appearance from a video call, in which he wore a t-shirt with an official Starfield logo on the front, and a more discreet logo located on the arm.
The logo appears to be identical to the logo that can be seen on the astronaut’s shoulder. Since employees wear official merchandise, this seems to confirm that the leaked Starfield images are real. Bethesda Vice President Pete Hines also acknowledged the t-shirt on Twitter, though he did not make note of the logo.
The logo itself features the surface of a planet with twinkling stars seen above the atmosphere. This is likely the logo of one of the game’s factions, similar to how the Brotherhood of Steel have their own logo in the Fallout franchise. It seems that it will play an important role in Starfield, as it was worn by the player character in the leaked images and is featured on Bethesda’s official t-shirts.
Despite Bethesda announcing in August that no new Starfield information would be revealed until 2021, leaks and small tidbits of information on the game have persisted to surface in recent months. A few weeks after the first three images leaked, an additional image surfaced showing the same astronaut character. Howard has also fed fans small informational pieces about the game, such as how Starfield will be exclusively single player. Bethesda also revealed that Sony sought to make Starfield a PS5 exclusive before the company was acquired by Microsoft.
Starfield is in development for unspecified platforms.
Source: Reddit