Bethesda has a pedigree of producing some truly fantastic open-world adventures with series like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. While these games are some of the most beloved and popular in their respective genres, Bethesda does misstep occasionally, like the release of the disappointing and buggy online RPG Fallout 76. However, with award-winning recent offerings like Deathloop and a group of exciting upcoming releases like Redfall, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Starfield, Bethesda is definitely a publisher that more often than not lives up to its respected reputation.
Alongside the legacy games and long-running series, Bethesda seems to be embracing new IPs with its upcoming releases, like the sci-fi action RPG Starfield releasing later this year. With the reputation that it has and the goodwill that Bethesda has largely generated among fans over the past decade or so, it's no wonder that the announcement of a new IP during the E3 Press Conference in 2018 was met with such excitement from players. Alongside launching a new IP, it seems like Xbox has big plans for the game, with Phil Spencer's recent comments for his hopes that Starfield will have even more of an impact than Bethesda's previous masterpiece The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Xbox's Aims For Starfield
Whenever a new game is launched, expectations from players are always high if it comes from a publisher or developer that has produced some iconic titles in the past. However, aside from the raised hopes of players eager to get their hands on the upcoming game, it seems Xbox's Phil Spencer also has big expectations for Starfield. In a Twitter thread that detailed a recent interview with Spencer and Axios reporter Stephen Totilo, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming reportedly said that he hopes Starfield will be the "most-played Todd Howard game ever." This is a lofty aspiration when players take into account the titles that Howard has been involved with, including the iconic and best-selling Skyrim.
Not only does Spencer wish to top some of Bethesda's greatest hits in terms of sales and player numbers when it comes to Starfield, but he also has aims to make gaming more accessible and more popular across the board. Mentioning titles like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, Spencer explained his focus on increasing the number of players for a multitude of titles across the next few years, saying that increasing the types and numbers of screens that gamers can access games on will hopefully lead to larger playerbases.
Why It Will Be Hard For Starfield To Measure Up
While early glimpses of Starfield certainly looked impressive, players have seen surprising little about the sci-fi title despite its release fast approaching towards the end of this year. Described as a completely new, next generation experience, it will be the one of the first new IPs from Bethesda in a long time.
Set twenty years after a devastating Colony War, Starfield will see players creating a customizable character who is part of Constellation – an organization of space explorers. Gamers will help humanity expand its exploration of space and chart new areas of the vast expanse, with players able to travel from planet to planet to achieve this.
It's hard to judge if Starfield will be able to measure up, as much of the game still remains a mystery. However, Skyrim is very much a known entity, and it is undoubtedly the record holder for Bethesda at the moment when it comes to its most played game. Since it was first launched in 2011 to critical acclaim, Skyrim has been re-released several times and is available across many gaming platforms, including several generations of PlayStation and Xbox, and for Nintendo Switch. Just in terms of accessibility, Starfield will only be available on Xbox Series X/S and PC after launch, with no current plans for a PlayStation 5 release. Despite Spencer's comments about making games more accessible to increase player numbers, this doesn't seem to be the immediate plan for Starfield.
From what details have been released about Starfield, players know that it will be at least three times bigger than Skyrim, which already had an expansive setting. Starfield will therefore be suitably vast to reflect the focus on exploration and the impressive size of space, but this won't necessarily be an advantage unless the settings are creatively designed and engagingly populated with quests and characters. Bethesda has said that it spent a lot of time on the design of Starfield in order to distinguish it from other space-themed titles, and with development reportedly starting back in 2015, the studio has had a lot of time to try and get this right.
One of the aspects that Skyrim is most famous for is its extensive mods. Mods are one way for gamers to put their own stamp on a game, infusing it with elements that weren't part of the original design to either improve the gameplay or simply amuse the player. This aspect of the game has lead to its long life and continued relevance, and the Skyrim Special Edition even allowed gamers to download fan-made mods on consoles. Starfield might not inspire the same kind of modding fever that Skyrim did (and continues to do), and this would severely impact the number of players that the game could attract, and the time that they'd be willing to spend with it. While Starfield has a lot of potential, it seems unlikely that it will come closs to surpassing Skyrim's impact on gaming as a whole.
Starfield releases for PC and Xbox Series X/S on November 11.