Bethesda’s Starfield Not Guaranteed for Current Gen Platforms

Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield was finally announced at the publisher’s E3 2018 presser. Of course, a number of questions arose from what was shown. Is Bethesda finally using a new engine? What changes have been made to its traditional open world design? Will it be coming to current gen platforms or is it exclusively next gen like The Elder Scrolls 6?

Creative director Todd Howard was asked by GameSpot if there’s a possibility of Starfield skipping this generation of consoles. While Howard didn’t confirm that it would be happening, he also said that it’s “not out of the question.”

“I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know the answer to that yet. I can’t absolutely say yes to [leaving current generation console behind]. We’re not going to limit the game that way yet. I’m willing to [leave current generation consoles behind] but it’s not a priority right now. I’d put it that way.

“When you’re making a game, you want to get the best stuff on the screen, and then you optimize and you do things and if it lands here, we can cast a wider net, great. But if we can’t…we’ve done that before.”

Suffice to say, it sounds like Starfield is still a ways off in its development cycle to really land on either side of the console fence. Given that Microsoft has started work on the next Xbox and Sony has stated that the PS4 is starting to wind down, it doesn’t seem completely unreasonable to expect Starfield on the next generation.

As always, we’ll have to wait and see. What are your thoughts on