Starfield shows its first gameplay presentation at the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase

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On June 12, 2022, Microsoft held its highly anticipated Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, which took the slot previously held by its E3 conference. The Los Angeles show had been canceled that year because of the pandemic, without even a virtual edition.

Among the many announcements, the most anticipated was the first gameplay showing of Starfield, which got a prominent spot at the event. Until then, the game had only appeared in a teaser at E3 2018 and in an in-engine trailer at E3 2021, besides concept art. Watch the demonstration:

The anticipation was justified. Starfield is Bethesda Game Studios’ first new intellectual property in 25 years, a space action RPG that director Todd Howard described as “Skyrim in space”. Active development began after the release of Fallout 4, in 2015, and the game runs on a heavily modified version of the Creation Engine, adapted to generate planets procedurally. Shortly before the event, in May, Bethesda had delayed the release from November 11, 2022 to the first half of 2023.

For a recap of everything that happened in the presentation, the Xbox channel published this video:

And those who prefer to watch the full showcase can find it on Xbox Brasil’s official channel.

What came next

Starfield was released on September 6, 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X|S. In the final version, players can land on more than a thousand planets, switch between first and third person, build outposts and recruit crew members. Critics were generally positive, praising the open world, the setting and the soundtrack, with mixed opinions on the story and the exploration. On launch day, Phil Spencer announced that the game had reached one million concurrent players. On April 7, 2026, Starfield also arrived on PlayStation 5.