Rumor: Starfield in 2021 - Microsoft Plans Ad Campaign

Starfield from Bethesda Softworks may debut as early as this year. Rumors circulating for months seem to be confirmed by Microsoft's marketing campaign plan.

The space RPG announced in 2018 by Bethesda is still shrouded in mystery, however, rumors and leaks are surprisingly unanimous - Starfield will debut in 2021. According to Shpeshal_Ed - one of the hosts of The Xbox Era Podcast - a strong argument in favor of the rumors about Starfield's launch taking place in 2021 is the fact that Microsoft has purchased ad slots this year which are intended to advertise Bethesda's new RPG.

Although, on the one hand, the scenario according to which Starfield will debut in 2021 seems unlikely (taking into account that we still know very little about the game itself and its current status), rumors have been claiming for several months now that it is very likely (if not almost certain). According to Jeff Grub from VentureBeat, the official presentation of Starfield should be expected around this year's E3 (which falls on June 15-17), and launch before Christmas - Provided that the coronavirus does not thwart these plans.

Other sources seem to agree with both Xbox Era and VentureBeat representatives - youtuber Rand Al Thor and Jaz Corden from Windows Central both claim that, according to their information the game is in the final stages of development and will be exclusive to Xbox and PC as part of Microsoft's policy. Of all the above rumors, the latter seems the most likely - after all, Microsoft has to point out from time to time that it owns Bethesda now.

Starfield itself remains a mystery for now. The game is to be a representative of the RPG genre with SF setting, offering a gigantic open world, at least several times larger than the one made available to players in Skyrim. What's interesting, Bethesda wants to focus on building player's bond with NPCs, which was not one of the strongest points of the studio's previous games - according to Todd Howard, it's supposed to increase immersion and improve the player experience in this single-player title.

What will this look like in practice? We do not know. If the rumors are to be believed, we'll get to know a bit more details around this year's E3. However, it's worth remembering that a quick presentation and release of the game a few months later is a ploy that Bethesda is well known for - this is how Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 saw the light of day. Whether it was the right strategy, though...