Starfield drifts off to 2023

 Another year of waiting

As we get trucking along into 2022, we're getting to the point where a lot of those straggling games that managed to avoid the past two years due to complications are finally getting to the point where they're nearing competition. Gotham Knights is nearing a date and looking worse off for it, the new Saints Row is getting closer to it's current release date, heck we might even see Cyberpunk DLC this year; but if there's one thing we won't be seeing, it's a Bethesda title. Okay, I suppose that isn't technically fair. We already know that Bethesda have rented out their very own E3-type conference in the near future in which it's highly likely that they're going to show off some gameplay for something upcoming, maybe even drag out Todd to say something positive about TES VI development only for us to learn 4 years later that he was lying and the game currently only has a handful of preliminary assets reserved for it. But we won't be getting an Bethesda game this year, and that's going to be a tough pill to swallow.

I've made no secret about my lack of interest in Starfield so far. The game lost me when I found out it was sci-fi instead of Sci-fantasy and whilst the creative eye of some of the concepts looks imaginative and impressively grand, I'm familiar enough with Bethesda concept art to know that the final imagining is invariably going to be a disappointment. (Just look at what they did with Fallout 4's Mama Murphy. Square Enix, they are not.) But I'm always happy to be proven wrong and I want Bethesda to win me over with their inbound presentation. But you know what I want even more than that? For the game itself to follow swiftly after like they teased they wanted to do more of when Fallout 4 launched. Remember? When the only game they managed to pull the 'announce than launch' trick with after that was Fallout 76, a game in desperate need of more development? Well it seems Starfield was going that exact direction from the sound of things.

I believe the term mined from the internal teams to describe the state of development was 'The next Cyberpunk', which tells a damning account of the legacy that game has had to the nightmares of prospective developers out there. (Make sure to finish all your greens, or the Cyberpunk will come and ruin your game!) To be fair, they couldn't have become the next Cyberpunk unless they spent several weeks in a concerted effort to push marketing material that sold the game as something it wasn- oh, is that what we're about to be getting later this year? Yeah, then I can see why they delayed it. Of course, with this delay also comes the pushing back of Redfall, but if there's a single person out there which even remembered that game existed I'd eat my hat. A vampire game which isn't 'Vampire: The Masquerade'? Why even bother?

To be clear, I am happy that Bethesda are cognisant enough of their own development to be able to identify when a project is heading towards ecological disaster and needs a relief effort. Especially given that they proved woefully inadequate of wielding that exact foresight in the past. Launching a brand new IP is a big deal for a company like Bethesda who've stuck rigidly to their two meal tickets for the best part of the last decade, and making sure this new series launches right and doesn't end up as another 'Anthem' is a prudent philosophy to adopt. Many other companies have played out exactly what happens to the bullish who rush their budding train wrecks out the door and, spoiler alert, it never works out for them. It used to just wreck their reputation and threaten to harm sales of their next game, but nowadays I'm happy to report it often tanks sales of the afflicted game too, according to COD: Vanguard's figures! (Although Cyberpunk was immune, of course. There's always the exceptions.)

Yet even as I accept and acknowledge it, I have difficulties swallowing the delay when we think about what it means in the bigger picture. This means another studio purchased by Microsoft for the sole intention of providing XBOX with exclusives to compete with Sony, is going to hold off on delivering for another year. This is getting embarrassing now. Midway through the last generation Microsoft started talking a big game about racking up first party studios to shift the power balance, and it has achieved absolutely nothing for them so far. All they've got is delayed games and one total development hell trainwreck studio called 'The Initiative'. Hardly the Avengers of game development like they bigged up all those years previously.

Sony on the otherhand? They're looking at 'God of War: Ragnarok', Final Fantasy XVI, Spider Man 2, Marvel's Wolverine, Knights of the Old Republic Remake, and so on. Not all of those are due for 2022, admittedly, but they're set in stone guaranteed hits for Playstation, whilst Xbox just has smoke and bitter promises. What have they got coming up? Scorn? Been in development for an eon, we can hardly just any prospective guesses at it when that's coming. STALKER 2? Indefinitely delayed for obvious reasons. The Outer Worlds 2? Oh yes, can't wait for a sequel to one of the RPGs ever made! Space Marine 2? Okay, that one does look good, I'll admit. State of Decay 3? Those games are never quite all they could be; making them serial disappointments. Or how about Fable 4? The next entry in a series of games that fans can't decide if they even like or not. Like the equivalent of the 'Sonic' fandom for the Xbox fanboys, no one really knows what the players want and so this new entry could end up being anyone's guess.

The 'competition' is a joke. There is no competition here. Mircosoft has all the money in the world to throw around acquiring billion dollar studios, but for the life of them they can't squeeze any nuggets of gold out of them. Whilst in the meanwhile the Sony studios are cranking out banger after banger that are piling up so much that PlayStation are slowly deigning to offer PC players the table scraps franchises they can't be bothered to hoard anymore. "Days Gone? Yeah I guess you can have that, no one really went crazy for that game anyway." "Death Stranding? Pretty controversial. Sure, take it." "Persona 5? Nah, I think that game still has some legs on us. You can have the direct sequel, I'll keep the RPG." Yes, Sony will continue serving as villains in my mental delusions until they give me access to Persona 5- I'll accept no concessions on this matter.

So cast off all of your hopes and ambitions of a fair console war. We're not there, and we likely never will be. In their lack of competition, complacency is allowing some of the less amiable tendencies of the Sony supremacy to shine through. $70 for current gen games? You want to feed that to me and tell me I deserve it? Don't even dribble out that utter gibberish about "making up for frozen inflation", you insult your own intelligence and ours by even conceiving such rot! And where's Sony's competitors showing them up for this poor behaviour? Microsoft is nowhere and Nintendo is preoccupied with it's own unapologetic schemes to bleed its audience dry. So my message: Get your damn act together Microsoft, you're letting the entire industry down.