Upcoming titles The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one of their launches, according to Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard. Microsoft’s acquisition of the company isn’t yet wrapped up, but this news indicates both parties are confident the deal will finish without a hi
Every tiny bit of information regarding Starfield is valuable due to the overall scarcity of details present. With that in mind, the latest few revelations by Howard will likely ramp up the anticipation to a whole new level for Bethesda faithful. Considering the involvement of procedural generation, the game’s world is likely to consist of several massive areas across it’s in-game galaxy/universe, complete with unique planets, which sounds revolutionary for Bethesda’s games’ traditionally singular, hand-crafted locations. On top of that, the absence of any multiplayer components will no doubt be a huge relief to those disappointed by online-oriented Fallout
Starfield was announced at E3 2018, and since then, next to nothing has been revealed about the game. The few scraps of information that Bethesda has made public since – like the fact that Starfield will be an exclusively single-player game – have come very recently. At its reveal, Bethesda said that there was still a long wait in store for Starfield, and there are no hints as to when that wait will be over yet. All that’s known on the subject is that Starfield is expected to launch before the long-awaited Elder Scrolls
Microsoft announced back in September it had purchased ZeniMax Media , which owns Bethesda and id Software, among other companies, for $7.5 billion. This dealt a massive blow to Sony in the console war leading up to the next-gen release this month. The acquisition, which should finish up sometime in 2021, gives Microsoft exclusive rights to the majority of Bethesda’s best franchises, including Fallout , DOOM , and The Elder Scrolls , in addition to Bethesda’s upcoming space RPG Starfield . Bethesda will still retain a certain degree of autonomy as developers will be able to publish titles for PlayStation on a “case by case” basis. However, Microsoft has gained a huge advantage in taking exclusivity of Bethesda’s strongest tit
Recently, Howard took part in a Develop:Brighton Conference . During a conversation with James Batchelor of GamesIndustry.biz, Howard revealed that while Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 are still a ways off, they’ll be available on Xbox Game Pass on the first day of their respective releases. This confirms speculation on how Bethesda would handle its future releases . Howard also dropped a few more tidbits about the two anticipated titles, including that Starfield will eschew multiplayer in favor of a singleplayer format and will be in a universe even bigger than Fallout
The game’s engine will be a huge leap forward in terms of visual quality and available features from past Bethesda games, as Howard claims that the upgrade will mark a more visible jump ahead in quality than even the huge technological gap between The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Oblivion . Apart from procedural generation, this engine will supposedly also improved animations, rendering, AI, and more. Speaking of AI, Howard specifically highlighted that NPCs will play bigger roles in future games, namely Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI . Addressing Bethesda’s newly established partnership with Microsoft, Howard promised that both next-gen titles will be available on Xbox Game Pass at lau
Howard remained as tight-lipped as ever about a release date for either title, only saying it’ll ” be a while. ” This could mean years, but it could very well mean months, considering Howard’s been historically blasé about release dates that ended up happening less than a year later. The implication of two major titles being available on the very first day of their release makes a pretty strong case for the notion Game Pass subscribers will have immediate access to all future Bethesda titles. It’s just as possible those same subscribers will essentially never have to pay outright for a Bethesda game in the future, as long it’s an Xbox exclusive (which quite a few of them will
This is pretty low stakes as far as leaks go, as the initial screenshots didn’t give much about starfield planets|https://starfieldgalaxy.com/ away. They did confirm a new visual direction for the game – which is in line with the fact that Bethesda is debuting a brand new engine for Starfield – but didn’t offer any clues as to how the game will actually play. There’s also the chance that the screenshots were from early enough in development that they hardly resemble the game at this point, but it now seems that they offer at least a snapshot of the game’s developm
If that is indeed the case, it may herald a gradual overhaul of how players purchase and play games. It could lead to a phase out of physical and digital one-time purchase copies in favor of monthly subscription streaming services. Bethesda’s status as a prolific studio with a considerable degree of clout may make it the standard bearer for such a revolution, or at the very least, the forerunner in Microsoft’s ongoing studio acquisition campa