'Starfield' Release Date: Bethesda Reveals Its Development Plan

After years of rumors and speculation, Bethesda debuted a teaser for its sci-fi adventure Starfield at E3 2018. The trailer was sparse on information, but a new documentary on the game studio revealed some key details about the upcoming title.

Fans first caught wind of Starfield back in 2013 when Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax, filed to copyright the name. Since then, those rights have been consistently renewed, fueling speculation about the project’s scope and importance. Even after confirming Starfield’s existence at E3, the studio declined to comment further about the game. This new information we have comes to us from an unlikely source — The Making of Fallout 76 by crowd-funded documentary team Noclip.

In the final minutes of the documentary, Bethesda director Todd Howard speaks candidly about Starfield’s production. The studio has been developing it for years in tandem with Fallout 76, and once production wraps up on Fallout 76, most of Bethesda Montreal and the main studio in Maryland will be moved over to focus on Starfield.

Before you get too excited, this still means Starfield definitely won’t be released in 2018. Although the game has probably been worked on for at least five years, Howard’s comment on shifting production weight after Fallout 76 implies it’s been handled by a skeleton crew so far. Even a Fall 2019 release might be too optimistic, because Bethesda also confirmed that it’s begun pre-production on Elder Scrolls VI. That’s a lot big projects to juggle.

However, we do know for sure that Starfield will not be an MMO as many theorists assumed. Howard said it will be “a big single-player game.”

If the news about Fallout 76 being a multiplayer-focused game bummed you out, then you can look forward to having that presumably big, big galaxy in Starfield all to yourself.