One of the more highly-anticipated games of 2022 has been Bethesda’s new IP, Starfield. The sci-fi action-adventure was officially announced back in 2018, and after a lengthy development time, it seemed like we were finally going to get our hands on it late in 2022.
Unfortunately, the November release date that was originally set is no longer going to be met. Early Thursday morning, Bethesda announced that Starfield, alongside another anticipated game, Redfall, will get delayed to a 2023 release date. The reason for the delay was cited as an opportunity to polish the games more and bring fans the best experience possible.
An update on Redfall and Starfield. pic.twitter.com/pqDtx26Uu6
— Bethesda (@bethesda) May 12, 2022
While the delay is disappointing, it likely was for the best because a follow-up report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier says that Starfield, in particular, may have been doomed at launch had Bethesda chosen to force the game out to meet its November release date. Supposedly some devs said it would have been akin to the “next Cyberpunk.”
Last spring before E3, I spoke to some folks on Starfield who were extremely worried about committing to a 11-11-22 date based on the progress they’d made so far. (“Next Cyberpunk” was the term floated.) Good on Bethesda for delaying even after announcing that specific date. https://t.co/QdWFf0zGIY
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) May 12, 2022
The Cyberpunk launch in 2020 was one of the most infamous cases of a game not being ready at launch we’ve seen in quite some time. If even a single dev was comparing the state of Starfield to Cyberpunk, then we should all be happy that the game was delayed into 2023. While it’s very possible the game might be in a much better state than it was when Schreier originally talked to those devs around E3 2021, it’s still good to know that it’s getting a delay to be in a better place at launch.