Starfield review concerns raised as Bethesda withholds copies from specific outlets

The release of Starfield is almost upon us, but an important date lies between the present and then. Tomorrow, on 31 August, the review embargo lifts which means, yes, Starfield will be getting its Metacritic score. It’s a day that everyone is waiting for with baited breath, but there may be a few outlets missing from the Metacritic roster.

As we near Starfield’s release, we’re learning so much more about the game. It shouldn’t surprise us that there’s a lot to get to grips with. After all, there are over 1,000 planets to explore across 100 star systems. In recent days, fans have been freaking out over the newly discovered open-world boundaries, plus we now know that there’s a chonky day one update which is set to make some important changes to the game. While many reviewers have likely been discovering all of this for themselves across the last couple of weeks, several sites are reporting that they never received review code from Bethesda, prompting concern from fans.

Take a look at Starfield in action below.

Yesterday, Eurogamer confirmed that they hadn’t received a code from Bethesda meaning they will have no review or guide coverage ready for release. In a statement, Eurogamer wrote, “No publisher is obligated to provide a copy of their game to us, but it is important we are able to be transparent with you, our readers, about the delay this will have on the Eurogamer coverage you expect.”

They continued, “Late-arriving review copies are not uncommon, but access this far behind so many other outlets is extremely unusual - particularly for a game of Starfield's prominence. It has, thankfully, been a very long time since Eurogamer was impacted by a similar situation, and cases such as this are very rare across the industry.”

Other sites came forward to share that they also hadn’t received code. VG247 confirmed they’d not had code given directly, but would have a review via a US based freelancer. Edge, GGRecon, Pure Xbox, The Guardian, Metro, and Dexerto also all appear to be without code. Fans are concerned about why code is so limited, particularly asking questions regarding if they should be concerned about the quality of the game.

Seeing as reviews land tomorrow, fans won’t have long to find out what critics think of Starfield. Eurogamer added that they’d received a game code an hour after publishing their statement.