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Bethesda’s brand new sci-fi RPG, Starfield, is all set to be released on November 11 this year on PC and Xbox Series X/S. After Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda in March 2021, the new Bethesda title will certainly be a day one addition to the Xbox Game Pass game library.
Following Bethesda Game Studios and its parent company Zenimax coming under the hood of Xbox, all Bethesda titles like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Prey, Doom, etc., are part of the Xbox Game Pass’ offerings.
Unlike previous Bethesda titles, the upcoming one will not be coming to PlayStation. However, according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, Microsoft expects the game to be hugely popular, perhaps even more so than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Skyrim sold 30 million copies in the first five years after its initial 2011 release. The number has only gone up, thanks to the Special and the Anniversary Edition re-releases and the active modding community. It will be, by no means, an easy feat for Starfield to surpass Skyrim in sales numbers.
Xbox Game Pass could be the golden ticket for Starfield to have huge player counts
The tail end of last year saw the release of Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite, two of the largest Xbox releases in the recent past. Both titles boasted a roughly 20 million player count soon after their releases.
A large part of that success can be attributed to Xbox Game Pass. Game Pass has enabled Microsoft to make many titles available to players who otherwise wouldn't have purchased them.
Xbox head Phil Spencer said:
“You can see it with Forza and Halo, the last releases. Those are the most played games in those franchises because we made them available on more screens than we ever have, through more business models than we've ever made them available.”
Speaking about his vision regarding Starfield, he added:
“So when I look at the teams, when Todd [Howard, Bethesda director] and I talk about Starfield, it’s: ‘How do we make sure this is the most-played Todd Howard game ever?’”
The hype around Bethesda's new sci-fi RPG is already immense. The trailers, constellation logs, and various lore tidbits like concept art from Bethesda have successfully portrayed to fans what their new IP is all about.
With more substantive details expected to come out this summer at events like The Game Awards, Starfield is among the most anticipated releases of 2022.
Although some of the attractions to Bethesda games have stemmed from their mod support and Xbox Game Pass is not the ideal place to mod your game, the subscription service can still work as a great option to play through the vanilla game for the first time.
