Even though it’s slated to release later this year in November, Microsoft and Bethesda have shown very little of sci-fi titleStarfield. A brief teaser trailer was shown atE3 2021, alongside its release date, but there remains no official gameplay footage (although the aforementioned teaser did apparently consist of in-game footage). Amidst this secrecy, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has made it clear that he has rather lofty aspirations for the game.According to Axios reporter Stephen Totilo, who shared a Twitter thread about a recent interview he had with Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming said that when he talks aboutStarfieldwith its director Todd Howard, they discuss how they can make it the most played game Howard has ever made. Considering Howard’s career, that’s an undeniably tall order.RELATED:Starfield Shows Animated Concept Art of Xenofresh CorporationHoward has been with Bethesda since 1994 and has worked on several entries in the popularElder ScrollsandFalloutseries. Even if one were to focus on the ones Howard served as director on, that coversFallout 4, which was both a critical and commercial success (it made $750 million within 24 hours of its release) andThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.
Skyrimis no doubt the current record holder for Bethesda’s most played game. Initially released in 2011, it has enjoyed several re-releases, with it now widely available across every major gaming platform, as well as continued mod support.The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Editionreleased only this November, bringing with it numerous DLC and expansions alongside entirely new content. It’s probably impossible to calculate exactly how much time fans have spent onSkyrimalone but between the re-releases and capacity for multiple playthroughs, it must be a staggering number of hours.
Player retention appears to be one of Spencer’s main priorities, or rather increasing player counts. He wants future Xbox games to reach new audiences and for already hugely popular franchises likeCall of DutyandWorld of Warcraft(which Microsoft will soon own through itsacquisition of Activision) to be even more popular in five years.
Spencer doesn’t provide any exact ideas for how to makeStarfieldso popular, although ironically one obvious solution is to make it multi-platform. At the moment,Starfieldis exclusive to the Xbox Series X/S and PC, withno plans at all for a PlayStation 5 release. Putting it on Sony’s console would make it more accessible and thus attract more players.
Totilo did bring this up to Spencer and asked if Microsoft’s policies are as generous as they sound because of their catches. Spencer only responded with:
“Well, that specific question of, ‘Hey, there’s only one place that I want to play games. And if that game doesn’t end up on the one place that I want to play that has its own business requirements for me as a creator…’ those people can go play those games…”
Starfieldreleases for PC and Xbox Series X/S on November 11.
