Insider hints that Bethesda will delay Starfield after Deathloop

Michael Gwilliam
Starfield Xbox performance

It seems like Deathloop will be far from the only Bethesda game delayed in 2021, as the major studio appears to be gearing up to announce that Starfield won’t release this year.

On Thursday, April 8, Bethesda revealed that Deathloop would have its release date pushed back a few months from May to September to make sure the team had ample time to complete the game.

Now, according to former Game Informer and Fanbyte journalist Imran Khan, Starfield will be the next game to be delayed.

In a tweet, Khan addressed the Deathloop delay and posted a screenshot to an article he had written about how the global health issue had impacted game development and the industry.

https://twitter.com/IdleSloth84/status/1380386836007247873?

“I’ll point out this part of my recent piece. I’ll probably point to it several more times this year,” he captioned the screengrab.

In this part of the article, a developer expresses concern that the industry will be reeling from the global health crisis for years.

“The truth is, players aren’t going to get every video game we — we, as in every developer — want to put out this year,” the dev remarked. “That sucks, but it’s the truth. We don’t want to put out a mess, we want to put out the best games we can, and we’re moving at three-quarters speed on average days and way less on bad days.”

Deathloop was delayed to September, 2021.

Idle Sloth, another insider, has backed up that Khan was speaking to a Bethesda employee. In particular, in regards to players not playing every game they want to put out this year, he says was a direct reference to Starfield.

Starfield is set to be a massive RPG. It was first announced way back at E3 2018 and was set to be the company’s first new IP in 25 years.

It’s not clear yet when or if Bethesda will announce a Starfield delay, especially as the game does not yet have a release yet, but some were anticipating a hopeful 2021 release. That, however, seems unlikely given these recent developments.