Bilawal Bashir 
Long-awaited space RPG Starfield has gone gold and its preload, release date, and launch time are locked in.
The next big Xbox exclusive is officially ready for takeoff. Players were getting anxious over the relative quiet from the studio. However, Bethesda’s head of publishing Pete Hines assured fans that the game is on track and will be playable in the very near future.
Starfield is a single-player RPG set in space and features the traditional Bethesda gameplay style that involves combat, conversations, looting, and long quest lines. The game has clear similarities to the Elder Scrolls titles as well as fellow space exploration title No Man’s Sky. Fans have riffed on it as “No Man’s Skyrim” but the hope at Xbox and within Bethesda is for the game to live up to that moniker.
Starfield release date and ready time
Starfield can be played on Xbox at 4 p.m. PS or 7 p.m. ET on September 5. This means a September 6 release for Europe, with the game coming at 12 a.m. BST. The launch time on PC is not confirmed, but it should also be similar.
Players who bought the Starfield Premium Digital Edition can get early access to the game on Xbox and PC. Early access Xbox players can expect to play Starfield at 4 p.m. PST, 7 p.m. EST on August 31, and 12 a.m. BST on September 1, 2023.
It’s been more than 1,500 days since the game’s announcement and fans have been eagerly waiting to dive into another Bethesda RPG. The success of Starfield is also of critical success to Microsoft, which has been struggling to find a true killer app for the Xbox Series X/S after Redfall fell well short of expectations.
When can I preload Starfield?
Bethesda confirmed players can preload Starfield on Xbox Series X/S consoles on August 17. Starfield owners can preload through Steam on August 30.
The game has seen a couple of delays already. It was scheduled to release in November 2022, but in May 2022, the game was pushed back to the first half of 2023. Bethesda announced another delay in March 2023, pushing the game to September 6, 2023.
Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty claimed if the game were to release in June 2023, it would still have the fewest bugs that any Bethesda game shipped with. That is notable as Bethesda’s Fallout and Elder Scrolls are infamous for their sometimes-hilarious bugs at launch.
Fans were worried about another potential delay, but Starfield has gone gold. “Going gold” means that the game is ready to be copied to disks. This is notable as there was initially some indication that Starfield would see a digital-only release.
The game is an Xbox console exclusive and will be available on Xbox Game Pass. Starfield will not be coming out on PlayStation 5, but players will be able to look forward to playing Baldur’s Gate 3 around the same time.
