The Release Date for 'Starfield' Just Got Pushed — When Can We Expect the Game to Come Out?

Game director Todd Howard is pretty infamous for his works. From the many ports of Skyrim to claiming that everything in Fallout 3 "just works," the gaming community knows the Bethesda Game Studios head as a one-trick pony who makes bold claims while rehashing the same old content. It must have been a relief for fans when Todd and the dev teams at Bethesda announced brand new IPs, including Starfield.

The highly-anticipated game is currently in development. When is the release date for Starfield? As of May 2022, the game is further off than we expected.

Starfield was first announced during Bethesda's press conference at E3 in 2018. The upcoming action RPG takes place several light years outside of our known solar system in colonies known as "The Settled Systems." Two space-faring factions with a history of civil war are currently experiencing tentative peace times. Players assume control of a space explorer navigating the Settled Systems.

As of writing, there has been no gameplay footage for the game in the four years it's been in development.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Todd Howard quite simply described Starfield as "Skyrim in space." From that, we can at least surmise that the game will be an open explorable game with plenty of missions, enemies, and NPCs with which to interact.

Though it's difficult to gauge what kind of adventure Starfield will offer without gameplay footage, it's exciting to think about what an open-world space game from the Elder Scrolls creators will look like.

Unfortunately, we're further from Starfield's release than we thought. In May 2022, Bethesda formally announced the game's delay from fall 2022 to the first half of 2023. The announcement also mentions the delay of Redfall, a game being developed by another studio called Arkane Austin.

"The teams at Arkane Austin and Bethesda Game Studios have incredible ambitions for their games," the announcement reads. "And we want to ensure that you receive the best, most polished versions of them."

The game's first release date was revealed during E3 in 2021. Bethesda presented Starfield with an awe-inspiring teaser (that still didn't show gameplay) that abruptly ended with a dramatic date reveal of Nov. 11, 2022. Following a stunt like that, announcing a delay must feel disappointing.

As of this writing, no one has any idea what the game looks like or when it will actually be released. Fortunately enough, we at least know what platforms it will be on. Starfield will be available on the Xbox Series X/S as well as PC. While not technically a console exclusive, players will only be able to get the game on a limited number of systems.

On the bright side, gamers who want to play Starfield on Xbox have time to try and get their hands on the elusive Series X/S before the game comes out.

Starfield is expected to release in Q1 2023.