What you need to know
- Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield has gone gold ahead of its launch.
- This means that the game’s launch state has been finalized and discs can be printed for physical copies.
- Preloads for Starfield are also beginning shortly, with differences depending on platform.
- Starfield is the first game from Bethesda Game Studios as an Xbox first-party team, and is arriving on Sep. 6, 2023, with early access for Premium Edition buyers.
It’s been a long time coming, but the next adventure from Bethesda Game Studios is almost here.
The team at Bethesda shared on Wednesday that Starfield has gone gold, meaning the game’s launch version is finalized and development is done. Physical copies of the game can now be printed, while Starfield preloads for digital players will begin on August 17 for Xbox Series X|S users, and August 30 for Windows PC players.
Starfield is Bethesda’s first single-player role-playing game since Fallout 4 in 2015, almost eight years ago. The game was first announced with a teaser at E3 2018, a couple of years before Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media was acquired by Microsoft, adding Bethesda Game Studios and its sister teams like Arkane and id Software to the Xbox first-party family.
Starfield is also notably the second game at Microsoft to be developed using union labor, with ZeniMax Media QA workers unionizing earlier in the year.
Starfield is scheduled to launch on Sep. 6, 2023, exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC, as well as being available day one in Xbox Game Pass. Anyone that buys the Premium Edition of the game can start playing five days earlier on September 1, while Game Pass subscribers can buy the Premium Upgrade to play early and still save money.
Analysis: Let me in, Todd
It feels like it’s been forever, but I am so excited to finally be playing Starfield soon. Like many millions of others, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was my first Bethesda game (don’t worry, I went back and played the others in the years following that) and I was immediately hooked. Congrats to all the hard workers on this accomplishment!
