Over the past couple of months, leading up to and in the immediate aftermath of the big Xbox Games Showcase presentation, I’ve been hearing rumours about Bethesda Game Studios. Today, I wanted to get into some of what I’ve heard – and debunk a couple of commonly-repeated rumours, too!
Bethesda was notably absent from Xbox’s big summer presentation, with no mention of either Starfield or the upcoming Elder Scrolls VI. To be blunt with you: I’m not surprised that either of those games were absent. In fact, I’d probably have been more surprised if Todd Howard had toddled out onto the stage to make a big pitch! The Elder Scrolls VI is – as we’ll get into in more detail in a moment – still multiple years away from release, and Bethesda has already been burned by its way-too-early announcement. And Starfield? Well, let’s talk about that.
When Starfield wasn’t so much as mentioned at the Xbox Games Showcase, I saw a lot of folks overreacting. “Starfield is being abandoned!” said one. “Bethesda is ignoring it and moving on!” cried another. While I agree with the overall sentiment that Starfield underwhelmed in terms of both critical reception and sales, and is certainly in trouble, I don’t believe that we need to write its obituary quite yet. Let me explain why.
Starfield is, according to solid insider information, getting a PlayStation 5 port in the not-too-distant future. I wouldn’t be shocked to hear talk of a potential Switch 2 port, too, but that’s much more speculative on my part. But Microsoft and Xbox wouldn’t want to announce this news at their event; it’s like saying “you might as well just buy a PS5!” Instead, it seems much more likely to me that Starfield will be announced for PlayStation 5 later in the year – almost certainly in time for Christmas. Alongside that announcement may well be another piece of DLC.
Starfield hasn’t yet had a standalone expansion pack that Microsoft can really use to measure its future prospects. By that I mean that Shattered Space was sold as part of Starfield’s premium edition bundle, which players needed to buy if they wanted to play the game on its real release date in 2023 instead of a week later. Many folks who may have switched off from Starfield already paid for Shattered Space, even if they didn’t play it, and the expansion’s standalone sales in 2024 will be impacted by that. I feel absolutely convinced that Bethesda has enough in the tank for one last Starfield push – and a second expansion pack is certainly gonna be a part of that.
If Bethesda and Xbox have good sense, they’ll announce a PlayStation 5 “deluxe edition” port of Starfield, including not only Shattered Space but also the new DLC, as well as a similar release of the bundle for Xbox and PC. I’d imagine this DLC will be later this year; Shattered Space was in the autumn, so expect anywhere from September to November for this DLC. Some have pointed to Bethesda tradmarking the name “Starborn;” that could be the next DLC’s title.
So Starfield should be getting a second piece of DLC and a PS5 launch – with a potential Switch 2 port if things go well. But things are not going well right now, and Starfield is really in the last chance saloon. Failure to light up the board on PS5, and/or another poorly-received expansion pack will almost certainly lead to the game being quietly abandoned. There might still be occasional patches to fix major bugs and issues, but if Starfield doesn’t get its redemption arc soon, there really won’t be any point in Microsoft greenlighting even more money on the game’s continued support.
So Starfield isn’t dead… yet. We’ll have to see whether the next DLC addresses the game’s many issues, and whether it’s as big and transformative as it needs to be. Starfield needs something on the scale of Cyberpunk 2077′s Phantom Liberty, as I’ve said before. Whether Bethesda can even do something like that, though… well, we’ll find out later in the year, perhaps.
Up next is The Elder Scrolls VI. I’ll level with you: I’m astonished that anyone thought they’d see this game at the Xbox Games Showcase this year. Some super-fans are still clinging to the desperate “cope” that The Elder Scrolls VI is coming out next year. It isn’t. It simply is not. It’s way too early in its development cycle – a cycle that has only lengthened over time. No, The Elder Scrolls VI might – if Bethesda pushes and Microsoft is okay with a buggy mess – make a late 2027 release date. But realistically, I still think 2028 or even 2029 are more likely.
Starfield took five full years of work. There were changes to Bethesda’s creaking, zombified, thirty-year-old game engine which took up some of that time, sure, but the game still took five years to make and polish. Microsoft insisted on a year-long delay which was largely spent on bug fixing; I shudder to think what Starfield might’ve looked like if it had been pushed out on its original release date! But why, then, have some folks convinced themselves that The Elder Scrolls VI will be ready in half the time? Bethesda hasn’t been working on the game since 2018; development only started in earnest after Starfield’s release in late 2023, and realistically, a significant portion of Bethesda’s team was still assigned to Starfield for several months after, working on hotfixes, patches, and DLC.
So let’s be bold and make a prediction: you will not see The Elder Scrolls VI this year. Not a teaser, not a trailer, not concept art… nothing. You probably won’t see any of that stuff next year, either, unless Microsoft has supreme confidence in the game and its ability to make a 2027 release date. The Elder Scrolls VI is still a ways off and it needs time in the oven. And there’s another potential wrinkle in this equation, too: the Oblivion remaster that was released earlier this year.
This is a little technical, but bear with me. Oblivion was remastered using a process that combined two different game engines. Oblivion’s original code is still there, running on Gamebryo/the Creation Engine. But layered on top of that is Unreal Engine 5, which renders the game’s graphics. This process has led to Oblivion looking absolutely fantastic, by the way… so might Bethesda want to implement the same technology into The Elder Scrolls VI? I mean, it would be pretty awkward if the game launches and people begin comparing it unfavourably to the Oblivion remaster! If Bethesda does choose to go down that route, that could add to the game’s development time – and it’s something Bethesda may not have even considered until recently.
There is one additional consideration here, one that could bump up The Elder Scrolls VI’s release date a little. It seems that Microsoft may be intending to launch new hardware in 2027 – and you could hardly get a better-sounding launch title than the sequel to Skyrim! Microsoft might want The Elder Scrolls VI to be the new Xbox console’s “killer app;” a system-seller that could potentially outmanoeuvre PlayStation. If that’s the case, maybe the 2027 holiday season could be a targetted release window.
Finally, there’s talk of a remaster of Fallout 3 using the same process as Oblivion. With a new season of the Fallout TV series officially on the schedule for December this year – a mere six months from now – could we see that remaster sooner than we think? Timing it to coincide with the new season would be perfect, if Bethesda and partner Virtuos could manage it. It might be a tall order to release the Fallout 3 remaster so soon after the Oblivion remaster, though! Still, there could be news of that game sometime around the holidays, as hype for the show’s second season builds.
So that’s it for now. Those are the Bethesda rumours I keep hearing – and my response to them!
I’ve been a Bethesda fan since I played Morrowind on the original Xbox back in 2002. I still consider that game to be one of the best I’ve ever played, and I’ve enjoyed other Bethesda titles in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises, too. But I’ll be honest with you… I’m not excited about anything the studio has on the slate right now. Starfield’s absolutely appalling microtransaction marketplace – which feels like something from a shitty free-to-play mobile game – speaks volumes about the company’s current direction and how they view their audience. Even if The Elder Scrolls VI looks great, and even if Starfield were to get a miraculous new update and expansion that completely transformed the game… I just don’t want to support that kind of behaviour in the single-player space.
Look around at other single-player role-playing games. Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Kingdom Come: Deliverance… none of them have the kind of egregious in-game marketplace and paid mods that come baked-in with Starfield. If you think The Elder Scrolls VI will be spared the same fate, well… I wouldn’t bet on it. Bethesda has been trying to implement these kinds of paid mods and microtransactions for years, and I don’t see the company being persuaded to stop now.
Whether you’re okay with that… that’s up to you. For me, at the very least it’s reined in my potential hype or excitement for The Elder Scrolls VI. And even if Starfield were to get that Phantom Liberty-sized DLC that it desperately needs, if the microtransactions and paid mods remain in place, I’m still not inclined to play it or support it. It’s sad, because Bethesda used to be one of my favourite developers and, as I said, they created one of my favourite games of all-time. But this greed… it’s just sickening, to be honest with you.
Anyway, we got a little off-topic there at the end, but I think I said everything I wanted to about The Elder Scrolls VI and Starfield based on the rumours I keep hearing! I hope this has been interesting, at any rate. A lot of this is speculative, but I’m fairly confident about most of my predictions and my analysis!
Until next time!
Starfield and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered are out now for PC and Xbox Series consoles. All titles discussed above are the copyright of Bethesda Game Studios, Xbox Game Studios, and Microsoft. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 