Starfield is delayed... again

Well... shucks.

What is in a deadline? Hopes? Dreams? Ambitions? I'm really curious, because it seems that out of all the entertainment mediums we see trounce about within the world, gaming is the most given to pushing back their final release date at that time you feel like you're sitting on the home stretch. Remember that Cyberpunk did this only a couple of months before their launch? Although to be fair, that turned out to be a warning for a game that was no where near the state it needed to be in to satisfy the breadth of it's audience. How many movies can you think of that get pushed back by half a year out of nowhere? Aside from the actual un-releasable train wrecks, or those prolonged franchises, I don't think there's a culture like that at all in the movie making business. Deadlines are this immutable, unshifting, monster that must be met and won't back down for anyone or anything.

Of course, nobody is going to be more devastated about having to push back the game than Bethesda themselves. Not only has the company been very open about their utmost wish to reduce the amount of time between announcement and release- in hopes of really capturing that lighting of the reveal moment: We've seen perhaps the biggest possible culmination of this philosophy in the game they literally just published: Hi Fi Rush. Tango Gameworks' break from the norm which was released within the same hour that is was first unveiled to the world. With a clear direction like that present for the all the world to see, you just know that the entire team of department heads must have been biting their lips to nubs before admitting that Starfield just wasn't going to be in the place it needed to be for the launch day. Which, to be fair, is better to realise now then several weeks after it's in the hands of the public.

Starfield is, afterall, a break into a new IP the likes of which Bethesda hasn't done for more than two console generations at this point. And it's a game that comes after a string of less than Steller launches, (not including the Skyrim Re-release they snuck in there) so yet another spotty launch window was likely not an option. Still it is pretty frustrating that Bethesda seem nervous enough about the state of a game, that all the world seems standoffish on, to the point where they'll kneejerk delay the thing during what should be the home run of marketing. I know that for me it at least starts ringing some alarm bells that maybe the ol' Open World kings might have bitten off more than they can chew with the hundred visit-able worlds and the customisable flyable ship and the mod support and all those hallmarks we expect with a Bethesda title of yore.

I've not been very quiet about the fact that I consider Starfield to be a side-ways step in the development of Bethesda as developers and storycrafters. I think that a straight science-fiction world seems like a waste of creative fuel for a company that seems to excel best writing high fantasy and cramming those skills into the other projects that they make. I really wanted a cool Sci-Fantasy space adventure with twisted aliens popping with crazy lore and silly powers- what we're getting instead feels fundamentally flat-footed and bland. I think the presented story hook they're dangling from the reveal trailers is honestly bad, as far as open world storytelling goes, sounding more like a blunt fishing hook than an interwoven series of embedded arrows pointing you towards a larger mystery. And with every moment that Starfield prolongs itself, my scepticism grows.  

I also find it quite curious that Todd Howard presented this not as a delay but as if this is the first time the Starfield release window has ever been discussed, and it isn't. Don't know why the guy feels the need to be a little cagey about that, but then who is Todd Howard with an unhealthy sprinkle of lying in his grand overtures? In the window that would have seen the game release we will instead be getting an 'direct' into the particulars of Starfield, but even that hasn't really gotten me too excited as almost every glimpse of the game we've got up until now has come with an equal amount of studio footage of Todd or someone from the team talking about the philosophy behind each design step and justifying it, which is great for a 'behind the scenes' video but in this build-up-stage rubs me a little as though the developers aren't confident enough in the footage they've put together to speak for itself.

But I am a consummate worrier when it comes to these sorts of things because I've been burnt by the industry just so many times of late. Bethesda were once so lock-step with the sorts of experiences that I was seeking out of my gaming time but recently it's felt more and more as though they've slipped into an entirely different audience demographic that aggressively precludes me. Just as Bioware have slowly being doing ever since the days of Dragons Age Origins- I'm feeling like the adult at a teenagers birthday party wondering where all the like-minded thinkers got to. And, of course, that has been what's led me to other sub divisions of RPGs, to the classics of the genre and back around to JRPGs. The genres that have never let me down. Maybe Bethesda just aren't making games for people like me anymore and that's something I have to accept.

Of course, alternatively Starfield is the launch back to form that I've yearned for out of the Bethesda team and I'm splitting hairs about a game I just need to play to get. And I suppose in a way my feelings on the game pretty much track with the exact sort of scepticism that Bethesda are trying to avoid by truncating their announcement-to-release strategy. I wasn't much feeling the game when it was announced, my worries got swept aside when the game was first shown off and in the moments since the excitement has worn off and the worries remain. Bethesda want to capture that sweet spot when buyers are at the height of their excitement before the mental blockers that defend their wallets kicks back into action. And I can definitely understood that squeamishness what with everything I'm going through as fan right now.

Starfield is going to come our way at the late-year deadline of September 2023, capturing the Christmas period and wrestling for attention alongside the other heavy hitters who typically occupy that month. Although Bethesda does have a tendency to take the air out of the room so maybe it's them who need to start considering their surroundings in the months to come. (Like that Robocop game that was just delayed until September! Uh oh- Officer Murphy might be walking into a second massacre!) With it will come a brand new chapter where I think Bethesda will get it's last chance to prove it's still got something special to be part of the 'cool' crowd, and don't quite deserve their reservation to the 'ol fogey developer' club that they've been temporarily placed in of yet. I certainly want to believe that Bethesda still has some pep in it's step so I'll be rooting for them, not least of all because I want Elder Scrolls VI to rock as much as V did!