“Bethesda Announced – ‘Starfield and Redfall Game’ – delayed to the first half of 2023”
Bethesda – has confirmed via Twitter that two of the most anticipated games for 2022 will no longer be released this year. Both Redfall and Starfield have been pushed back to the first half of 2023, leaving Xbox with a weakened first-party portfolio for the rest of the year.
Bethesda said in a statement that it wants Arkane Austin and Bethesda Game Studios’ teams to have enough time to realise their “great goals” and create the “best, most polished” versions of each game. Fans will be able to see a deep look into both titles’ gameplay in the coming future, maybe as soon as the Xbox Bethesda showcase in June.
A delay for Redfall is the least shocking of the two games. As of now, the vampire first-person shooter has only been presented to the public via a CGI trailer, and many recent AAA games suffer from delays.
Starfield’s push is a little more surprising, given it has already gotten a lot of press and has an aesthetically beautiful release date of November 11, 2022. The lack of a meaningful gameplay reveal so soon after its announcement, though, seems to support the notion that it was not ready. Following the announcement of the delay, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier speculated that the creators intended to prevent a situation similar to Cyberpunk 2077, after earlier voicing reservations about launching on that specific day. This makes reasonable, given the pressure of following up on Skyrim, as well as the inherent buzz around any major Bethesda release.
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Without these two tentpoles, Xbox 2022 will be devoid of many first-party titles. The publisher has also had issues with its Perfect Dark revival and Rare’s Everwild, leaving Xbox with very few holiday releases. Xbox should, at the very least, be able to compete with the other titles that will certainly fall into 2023 as the months pass.