Bethesda’s Starfield and Redfall Have Been Delayed to 2023

Bethesda, one of the biggest video companies under Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios umbrella has made the hard decision to delay its upcoming Starfield and Redfall games to the first half of 2023. Both games were expected to ship this fall season (Starfield had a November 11, 2022 release date), and this will now leave a big hole in Microsoft’s lineup for the lucrative holiday season.

“We’ve made the decision to delay the launches of Redfall and Starfield to the first half of 2023. The teams at Arkane Austin (Redfall) and Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) have incredible ambitions for their games, and we want to ensure that you receive the best, most polished versions of them,” the Bethesda teal announced earlier today.

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Starfield was indeed one of the most-anticipated games of the year, and it was expected to get some significant stage time during Microsoft’s Xbox & Bethesda games showcase next month. It’s not clear yet if this delay will lead Microsoft to change the content of its presentation, but Bethesda said that it “can’t wait to share our first deep dive into the gameplay for both Redfall and Starfield soon”.

According to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, Bethesda may well have announced Starfield’s November 11, 2022 release date too early. “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,” Schreier tweeted, adding that the term “Next Cyberpunk” floated.

Bethesda Games Studios is known for its ambitious open-world games such as Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. However, despite the critical acclaim and passionate following, most Bethesda games are also notoriously buggy. It’s certainly much harder than before to create AAA games during a pandemic, but Bethesda certainly took the best possible decision. As Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto famously said, “a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”

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Conversation 7 comments

  • will

    Premium Member
    12 May, 2022 - 10:19 am

    <p>Its OK Microsoft, you have Halo to pull you through the holidays! Oh….wait….</p><p><br></p><p>I would guess it will be MW that would be the holiday hit. Games take time, and with more complex and bigger games it will take more time. You only get one shot at a good launch and it becomes almost impossible to get people back into the game when they have left. Halo should have been delayed at least 6-12 months vs what it is now.</p><p><br></p>

  • christianwilson

    Premium Member
    12 May, 2022 - 10:46 am

    <p>Starfield was my most anticipated game of the year. I’m sad I won’t be playing it this fall like I expected to but I’d rather it not be a mess at launch. I think Cyberpunk was a lesson for everyone, not just CDPR.</p>

    • Donte

      12 May, 2022 - 12:13 pm

      <p>Games have shipped in beta state for 10 years or more now. This is nothing new. I remember when Battlefield 4 shipped (big BF fan) and it was a complete mess for a year with lots of huge updates apologies from Dice/EA, law suits etc. Good thing they learned their lesson because BF 2042 is fantastic 🙂 </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>Maybe with Microsoft’s money behind them, they will take the time to ship games that are mostly bug free vs mostly buggy.</p><p><br></p><p>This still does not bode well for Microsoft. Sony still has the best exclusives. Microsoft buys these companies to fix this and we just wait…and wait. The Xbox fanboys keep saying the XSX/S will be great when this game or that game comes out. Sure and by then the next console will ship shortly after.</p>

    • Thretosix

      13 May, 2022 - 3:30 pm

      <p>Starfield isn’t delayed long. Don’t know if that is good or bad, it took CDPR a year to fix Cyberpunk and they are still working on it. We really don’t know where the game is at this point to know otherwise to. The June showcase should give a good look at the next year. </p>

  • crunchyfrog

    12 May, 2022 - 12:23 pm

    <p>As a huge Fallout fan, I have been looking forward to this as a new entry into Bethesda’s open world games sporting a newer, possibly brand new engine. I believe the game engine running Starfield will likely be behind Elder Scrolls 6 (2-3 more years) so it’s best that they take the time they need to polish this game and not release it too early, ie; Fallout 76.</p><p><br></p><p>I never believed it would be ready this November anyways…</p>

  • behold105

    Premium Member
    12 May, 2022 - 4:27 pm

    <p>I am 62. At this pace I doubt I will live long enough to see the next chapter of the Elder Scrolls.</p>

  • zeromus2003

    13 May, 2022 - 10:33 am

    <p>The delay for Starfield should not be a surprise to anyone as the game and all future games (ES6, Fallout, etc) from Bethesda still rely on that turd of a game engine, "Creation". An ex-dev leaked detail from his experience working on Starfield, attested that the engine/state of play was a "mess". Even went as far as saying manual flight controls were "horrible". So its no wonder this is going to take time. It was my main game I was looking forward to for Christmas, but I’d rather they polish it more and then release…. of course its been in so-called development for 9 years and we still don’t have one vid of actual gameplay!?! The sad thing is this delay will probably even delay Elder Scrolls 6 to 2028 or beyond.</p>

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