Highlights
- Starfield's leaked main menu has sparked controversy online, with criticisms and negative assumptions being made about the game's development team.
- Former Blizzard producer Mark Kern's tweet about the main menu was met with backlash, with Bethesda's Pete Hines defending the team's design choices.
- While the main menu is simple, assumptions about the game's development and quality based solely on this footage are potentially unfair and irresponsible.
A heated discourse has been ignited online after Starfield's opening main menu screen leaking online led to some dubious criticism. Starfield is already in the hands of reviewers and influencers for various media organizations. As is common anymore, this has led to some leaked content from Starfield finding its way online. A controversial figure on social media then criticized the leaked main menu, prompting a response from a Bethesda employee and a significant amount of backlash.
Starfield is set to release on PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6. Bethesda Game Studios' projects always seem to have a certain amount of controversy surrounding them, but Starfield is launching into a much more caustic atmosphere. Where there's already jokes about Bethesda games lacking polish at launch, there are also negative feelings surrounding Starfield's Xbox console exclusivity. The result is that Starfield has become a target for less-than-well-intentioned internet denizens to try and start controversies.
Perhaps the most notable example of pre-launch controversies for Starfield has to do with the game's opening menu. Some brief footage of Starfield has leaked online that was largely innocuous. Mark Kern, former Blizzard producer and designer for StarCraft, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft, decided to make a controversy out of Starfield's opening menu, however. He stated on Twitter that, "Starfield's start screen either shows hasty shipping deadlines by a passionate team overworked, or a team that didn't care."
The comment from Kern has led to a significant amount of backlash online, due to its negative assumptions and accusatory tone. The comment even drew a response from Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines. Hines responded to Kern on Twitter, saying that the team, "designed what they wanted," and that the main menu was, "one of the first things," Bethesda settled on. Hines even goes so far as to criticize Kern, stating that questioning a developer's "care" because they might have done differently is "highly unprofessional."
It's difficult to see exactly what Kern is criticizing in Starfield's main menu. The screen is simple, to be sure. It features a planet in shadow with a star inching out from its edge, producing a thin line of light around the planet's circumference. The Starfield logo is then shown over the center of the darkened planet. It's the logo layered on top of what the logo is based on.
It's entirely possible that Bethesda's development team truly has been overworked. It has been accused of crunch culture in the past, though Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty says that culture has changed. It's also possible Starfield is launching too soon, a criticism most Bethesda games receive. But to make those assumptions based on Starfield's main menu, and leaked main menu footage at that, is potentially irresponsible given heightened tensions online.
Starfield releases September 6 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.