So, Bethesda’s upcoming space-themed RPG sure is exciting, right? Starfield is set to launch (sorry not sorry) on 11 November this year, and as well as looking just absolutely incredible, it’s also been confirmed that there will be cats in the game. Space cats. That’s all you really need to know.
Clearly, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has a lot of faith in the game doing well, too, although he’s not specified if that’s because of the space cats. Speaking with Axios reporter Stephen Totilo (and published via Twitter), he revealed that it’s his goal for Starfield to be an even bigger deal than Skyrim.
ICYMI... be sure to check out the official trailer for Starfield below.
“I love the Forza 5 and Halo stats. […] I love how many people played Psychonauts 2 vs. Psychonauts 1,” he said. “So, when I look at the teams, when Todd and I talk about Starfield, it's: ‘How do we make sure this is the most-played Todd Howard game ever?’”
Now, that’s a pretty hefty goal. In 2016, Todd Howard confirmed that Skyrim had sold over 30 million copies, and since then, there’s been even more re-releases on different platforms, which will have no doubt boosted sales further. Not only that, but Starfield is actually giving PlayStation a miss entirely - it’s currently only set to release on Xbox Series X/S and PC.
So, what is Spencer’s plan to have the game do even better? He continued: “As a platform, I think we have a lot to do with that. Quality of the title is number one, no doubt about that. […] But that will be success for me for the individual games: can we really make these games - can we allow them to reach more players than they've ever seen before? And I say that because I believe in the social impact of interactive entertainment.”
Advert
According to a leak shared on Reddit last year, Starfield is set to have “dozens” of distinct planets to explore, with the majority of them being larger than the entirety of Skyrim’s world. So on scale alone, it certainly sounds like the game is going to be substantially bigger, but whether or not this will translate to player numbers is another matter.