Failure to launch
Bethesda heavy hitters ‘Starfield’ and ‘Redfall’ delayed to 2023
Two highly anticipated Xbox exclusives, Starfield and Redfall, have been delayed to the first half of 2023 due to development issues.
Starfield was supposed to be the biggest video game of 2022, but now it'll have to settle for being one of the biggest of 2023. Today, Bethesda announced that the upcoming Bethesda Games Studios-developed Starfield would be delayed to the first half of 2023, along with the vampiric multiplayer shooter Redfall from Arkane.
Not very surprising — Rumors of a Starfield delay have circulated for months. A few weeks ago, a verified insider indicated that the game looked good, but may have too much content to actually release on time. (Sounds like a Bethesda game to us.) That insider also seemingly confirmed that the game has player-controllable flying ships, which is exactly the sort of feature you would expect from a sci-fi setting, but also seems damn hard to implement in an open-world game.
The timing of this announcement likely isn't a coincidence, as Bethesda has a game showcase scheduled for June 12. At this point, we should expect to see some gameplay footage of Starfield, but maybe it's not worth getting your hopes up; 2022 has been a particularly barren year for big games, so if you're looking for something to play, we recommend looking to the indie space for now.
Traffic jam — It’s worth noting that both of these games are Xbox exclusives, so that console’s 2022 lineup is probably the biggest loser here... not that the PS5’s lineup is particularly stellar for the rest of the year, either, since God of War: Ragnarok isn’t coming until 2023 either. Let’s just say that March 2023 is going to be a busy month for gamers.
Starfield inherited the mantle of the biggest release of 2022 when Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 was delayed to 2023 earlier this year. Now, Elden Ring takes the title without much in the way of competition — as well as many Game of the Year awards, I presume. Let’s be honest, FromSoftware’s latest was probably going to take most of them even if both of those games came out this year, but this move makes it even easier.