Xbox Exclusive Starfield Is Apparently 'Playable In Full From Start To Finish'

If that is the case, then that is fantastic. However, it would be in Bethesdas best interest to use the time between now and whatever launch window they have to spend the time going through the probable crazy amount of Glitches and Bugs that will be in the game right now. This is the first massive game to be released by Bethesda since Microsoft bought them and it would be a great thing if the game was working as best as perfect as possible when it arrives.!!

Why is this suprising . Rumour had it that Final Fantasy 16 was the same back in early December hence why its got a June release. Give Bethesda the same amount of time, if not longer to iron out bugs. Sorted. I expect between July-September time frame if true.

Better to polish it now and wait for it to come out and be great day one. Nobody wants the day one turd that needs polishing to be great.

@LordFunkalot definitely is annoying that almost every game isn't ready at launch. I don't trust any publisher and always wait for at least the first patch before thinking about playing a game unfortunately.

i hope its done....

but, what actual state of playability? bug riddled or relatively polished?

and i cant see it coming a month before Redfall, Starfield so big, Potential for Redfall to be forgotten.

That's the way. Good. A lesson learned from the Cyberpunk 2077 controversy.

Still, some companies are abusing their base with serious technical issues in their final products from hot IPs, like Pokémon.

As an active gamer in my 40s with the same passion I had from day one, without sounding like an old man it was better in my day etc. I fully understand the gaming landscape, technologies, complexities and game development has drastically changed. Something I am thankful for as it has brought us some classics over the years and will do in the future - I would say tho, with day one patches/releases in questionable states, it dulls my excitement for games releases. Case in point Dead Space; just come out, I was looking really forward to it but still wasn’t sure until I had seen a good few trusted reviews. Jedi fallen survivor, Hogwarts legacy both look good but will they be ok day one? Have to wait and see. Back in the day you just dropped the money and what was there was what you got, this wasn’t a thing and it made it a bit more fun. Games are still enjoyable to me and I still get excited (Redfall and Starfield - please be good) just not as much as back before all this patching

I miss the days of a game being complete upon release. Almost everything needs a day-one patch now. It's what has turned me to go all nearly all digital bar Nintendo first-party games on Switch. I still have to have a physical copy of those...

So was Cyberpunk 2077 but doesn't mean it was at a quality that a game should atleast be.

I’m sticking with my original date
November 2023.
They will or should have to ramp up PR etc
Maybe special edition console and controller and other items.
That all takes time to get ready and roll out.

I still think it was probably playable from Start to Finish in time to launch for 11/11/22 in the same way Fallout 4 was too - but whether you'd 'want' to play it through or wait until the many bugs, glitches etc are 'fixed'. We had reports that Playtesters were 'impressed' with the scale and game-play which you can only imagine would have access to the 'whole' game to ensure that they 'test' the systems, test the mechanics etc to ensure that they work 'together'.

MS/Bethesda could 'Shadow Drop' after their Showcase (like Hi-Fi Rush) as the 'only' people likely to 'buy' Physically are those Series X owners who don't have Game Pass - but could still play Day 1 by 'buying' digitally or subscribing to GP. MS doesn't really 'need' long marketing schedules to try and build 'hype' to get more 'Pre-orders/day 1' sales as a LOT of people will opt to access through Game Pass anyway and may encourage many to Subscribe to play - pay $70+ or subscribe.

Delayyyyyyy, delayyyyyy, the Xbox wayyyyyy.

I’m very excited for this year’s lineup, but it looks like both Forza and Starfield are slipping to late in the year. I get it that we need the best game(s) possible, but man, can they ever live up to their promises?

March: Starfield focused Developer Direct
April: launch

I mostly joke, but also read this and do scratch my head at the few claiming this is going to be delayed to second half… it’s not impossible but what on the news reported so far at all hints at that, other than personal pessimism?

Starfield and Forza will be Microsoft's two big Holiday releases. Kinda sick of hearing about it at this point. It's taking away my interest in playing the game. This game has been in development since Fallout 4 was released, which means it's going on eight years. Meanwhile, Elden Ring was made in under five years. And don't anyone think for a second that Game Pass doesn't have alot to do with this. I keep imagining Todd Howard saying this "Starfield is launching on Game Pass and it's not going to be multiplatform? Well then it will be done when I say it's done!" But I don't think this year is going to be bad at all. I think we get three (hopefully) Triple A titles from Microsoft - Redfall, Starfield and Forza. Compared to the PS5, I don't think the Playstation comes out with more than three big games this year.

@Dezzy70 Bruh, you are spot on with that date. And I believe Forza will be right before that.

@Tharsman I believe it's Fall, with Forza. Trust me, I certainly hope you're right and I am wrong. If it does come out in April, that might mean that Forza and possibly STALKER 2 will be Holiday releases. Let's hope.

@Sebatrox Sure, because eight years is not long enough.

@BAMozzy how come you highlight certain words in your replies that dont need one? just curious as when i read your posts they throw me.

anyway MS certainly do need to advertise Starfield massively, its going to be their system seller this year. they finished 3rd in most regions, and to push GP they need to sell more boxes.

Starfield/Redfall are likely to be vying against FF/Spiderman as console sellers, Sony will go hard now they have consoles available.

for whatever reasons MS doesnt advertise, yet they keep telling us in the know that GP is great.... so get out there and show it

Didn't somebody from The Initiative say that Perfect dark was playable start to finish, like 2 yrs ago?

@Dezzy70 @Tharsman Personally I'm expecting a Holiday launch purely for business reasons if nothing else. Right now XB has a choice between having a megaton hit at Christmas going head to head with Spiderman 2 for console attention, or dump the game in June and everyone's focused on Spidey and PS in November.

@NEStalgia June is FF, admittedly not as big a seller, but can guarantee they will market it hard.

@stvevan Starfield could come mid-late June, giving Redfall 4-6 weeks to breathe. Forza may fall back, which is fine.

@theduckofdeath i was just going off the date in article

@NEStalgia
Always said the below since June 2022.
Redfall May 2023
Forza September 2023
Starfield November 2023
Also for good business sense.

Todd Howard said it could have made the original date last year in his Rex Friedman interview but they have been polishing it ever since.

I think we are seeing the difference between Microsoft owning it and allowing more time and money than independent Bethesda ever could have afforded.

@stvevan They DON'T need to sell Hardware as their Games are available basically EVERYWHERE on day 1 thanks to Game Pass Cloud. If you can't afford to buy a Series S to 'play' Starfield, you could play on whatever devices you have - Mobile, Laptop, Samsung TV etc. The hardware will 'sell' because it offers advantages over the 'entry' point in - Better resolutions, local play and of course a bigger library - but the point is to sell Subscriptions first and foremost. Hardware is an 'optional' choice.

Its not like PS or Nintendo who have 'exclusives' only available on their Hardware on day 1 so you have to own that hardware to play. Its not the same Business model where Sales are the ONLY metric they care about - hence they keep their Exclusives off of Sub services so you have to buy to play Day 1.

If Starfield released today, it would seriously drive up Subscriptions as people would have the $10 or so needed to play Day 1 on whatever devices they have. As far as playing 'locally', MS has a 'cheaper' option sacrificing a bit of PQ, although still an upgrade over Cloud in the Series S, a more premium Console experience for a bit more cash or if you want the 'Best' experience, you have PC's so don't actually have to buy ANY hardware, even buy the game to play on Day 1.

It doesn't matter if MS end up '3rd' in the Hardware charts because they could still have the largest community of Gamers in their 'ecosystem' across Cloud, PC and Consoles.

The only people that even buy Physical on Xbox are those on Series X who choose to, PC and Series S are basically all-digital these days so they don't need to print discs and distribute them for launch. So you can cut out that 'time' delay between finishing and releasing too. Announcing its 'release' date in several months isn't necessarily going to SELL more Hardware, more Pre-orders etc because you can literally play for $10 on hardware you already have, only choosing to pay 'more' for an 'upgraded' experience.

Cloud is limited to 1080/60 and ONLY the streaming Library, Series S is upto 1440/120 with a 'bigger' Library, Series X upgrades visuals up to 4k/120 and has a Disc Drive, PC can offer 'higher' visual quality and/or frame rates but also has the highest upfront cost. The 'entry' level to play Starfield though isn't 'consoles', its Cloud supported devices and I be the vast majority has a device they could play Starfield on without being 'forced' to buy MS branded Console boxes. I could play on my old Laptop with NO gaming GPU/CPU without needing to buy a Console, without needing to 'pre-order' or commit a LOT of money upfront - its a Choice so if people 'Choose' to rush out, buy Xbox consoles for a 'local' gaming experience and 'better' visuals, they can, but if not, MS still has a way for you to play for as little as $10...

@stvevan Yeah, but I don't think FF in June really warrants MS coming out with their biggest gun to try to counter-it and leave Holiday open for Spidey to have free reign. And FF targeting the JRPG crowd isn't really a direct competition for anything MS is doing in particular. Slightly different markets, as much as the PS fandom wants to position PS as "for adults" their biggest game is Spiderman where half the kids in spiderman pajamas in a Spiderman themed bed will be all over it. Starfield doesn't go for the kids market, but it's a strong contrasting split while Sony's going hard on kids at the holidays for MS to have something equally big that's all-adult.

Heck, even among FF fans I expect XVI to be divisive. It's the first mainline FF I haven't preordered since preordering was a thing. I'm in a wait and see pattern. It seems.....off.

There's the other elephant in the room with BotW2 in May. Who wants to launch Starfield right in the center of Zelda hype? Phil and Larry will be playing their Switch in May/June. No time to launch Starfield

@LordFunkalot I'm also in my 40's and while it's odd that developers and game testers don't catch everything before release, I'm ok with the current status quo as I have a constant backlog to play through. I waited almost a year to play Horizon Forbidden West, I own God of War Ragnarok but haven't played it yet. I think a big difference for us is that we have patience and aren't as concerned by spoilers (as I probably was back in school/university.) I'll play Starfield when it's as good as it can be, definitely expecting a patch or two.

@TJ81 Back in the day there weren't "spoilers" in games, and games were about gameplay. You didn't not enjoy Mario 64 or Starcraft because you knew how it ended. You already knew how it ended because every video game story predictably was the same I still don't comprehend this "I have to play it within a day of launch and beat it within 5 otherwise it'll be spoiled for me!" mentality.

@NEStalgia Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8, 9, Chrono Trigger, and basically every jrpg say hi.

There been games that could be spoiled for a sling as games had story, thing is most games didn’t have sorry unless they were RPGs.

Slowly non-rpg games have been taking RPG features, starring with stories but now also even with XP and progression system.

Anyways I can see why some fear spoilers too badly, personally I find it quite easy to avoid them but I am not on twitter or Facebook, don’t follow games on Twitch and only follow a select few YouTubers that talk almost exclusively about upcoming games and don’t waste time spoiling things.

I can see anyone that does a single one of those having an easy time having things spoiled for them.

@Tharsman Yeah but even in the day with movies lots of movies people just rented and weren't worried about spoilers. The only time I remember a major spoiler issue was The Crying Game, and that didn't kill interest. It must be a social media related phenomenon.

@UltimateOtaku91 It was but on pc. I got it day one on pc and all was perfect to be honest. Completed it without issues. Not such a good game though.

@NEStalgia friend, spoilers on movies and TV have been a huge deal for me since like before I have memory.

It was much harder for anyone to spoil thing for me, though, precisely for the things I noted above (I wasn’t in social media, since it didn’t exists) so I had to actively have a family member or friend open their mouth and ruin things.

In my youth I worked on a small neighborhood video club, even then I managed to stay spoiler free, but I can tell you that although not everyone cared, it was a big deal for a huge chunk of my customers.

Day one rentals were significantly driven by people wanting to have chats with friends about the most recent media without having things spoiled.

Then again true classics kept renting for years, sometimes by people that already knew all that was doing to happen.

There is always a chunk of the market, title wise, that will only get attention early on but once people know what goes on, no longer has any significant value, at least not to keep copies around for rent.

I don't think there's a compelling reason to delay launch. By most estimates, we'll see a recession of some kind in 2023. Sales potential isn't going to get better, so pushing back the release date is just going to hurt them more. (Assuming the game is actually done).

@Tharsman Yet another area I just don't understand humanity.

There's a lot of times I'll lose interest in a game then read the story to see what happens to decide if I actually want to bother seeing it, and IMO some of the best stories are the ones that show you the end in the beginning but watching how things got there is the most interesting.

I also wish someone had told me what happens to Aeris as I was left without a leveled healer for the rest of that stupid dungeon, LOL

@TheOGChemperor It's launching on Game Pass, so at $15 it shouldn't be too recession-affected, but could influence console sales and new subs around the holidays in general. Heck, if the recession hits like '08, it could be a massive bump to subscriptions in competition with Spidey2 for $570.

@NEStalgia about Aeris: I never understood people being shocked about that. Might be a regional thing but where I grew up, that scene was part of the marketing videos being shown on almost every video game store at the time.

@Tharsman LOL, now that's pretty funny, I never knew that. Here it wasn't. Though I imagine even if you saw it you probably assume it's just one of those scenes where they make it look like that, then 5 minutes later they're back in the party because playable video game characters can't be killed for real. And to be fair, though it defied expectations and became famous, it was a legit game breaking event because if you balanced your party around the character, you don't really have what you need to escape, and then you have to grind for no reason to rebuild that party role. It was a storytelling game changer, but in terms of gameplay it was a garbage move.

@NEStalgia but nothing new to the series. I can’t remember what SNES entry it was (either II or III US numbers) but I gave my best gear to some party member that ended leaving, just after I had spent all my money gearing him up before anyone else. It was rough equipping someone else up after he left.

Someone at squaresoft loved pulling the rug from under players feet back then.

@Tharsman if today's square made it you could buy Aeris back for $19.99

@Romans12
Your comment is factually correct.

But, I would rather see a new game that took 8 years to make and might be something different and special instead of a two to three year new story on a game that uses the same old game engine and plays like every other game they've made or in the same genre.

After the success of the Developer_Direct, here’s what I’m predicting:

We get this Starfield direct at the end of March, but before we dive into Starfield the direct opens with a new trailer for Ghostwire Tokyo, showcasing the new improvements added to this latest release. They shadow drop it like they did with Hi-Fi Rush and then proceed with a nice Starfield deep dive.

@MattT3142 that would be smart of them. Deathloop was dropped way too unceremoniously, IMO.

@Bionic-Spencer I'm guessing that's exactly what they're doing. They can't screw this up. This game has to be rock solid, bug free and just awesome 100% to succeed. Especially with how many games release half finished and how critical everyone is.

@LordFunkalot And all this time I thought turds couldn't be polished. I wonder if that is something that could be put on one's resume.

@ZYDIO You should speak to CD Projekt Red, I’m sure they could advise

@LordFunkalot Haha. They seem like they win some and then they lose some.

@ZYDIO Lol, big time

@NEStalgia Very true, a better statement would have been to say friends bragging rather than spoiling anything. Unbearable back then! Today I'll wait as many patches as it takes to optimize a game I'm looking forward to.

I wonder when the ABK executive will call Starfield ***** to say as another reason for xbox to buy them

I am playing The Outer Worlds again as a warmup for Starfield. Such a great game.

@Tharsman Yeah, and the added improvements to the Series X version plus GamePass should help it have a little bit of a resurgence. Especially if people that enjoyed Hi-Fi Rush choose to try out more of Tango's games!