GQ did an interview with legendary game creator Todd Howard of Bethesda, on the upcoming launch of Starfield on 31 August/1st September (depending on where you are)
Nearly 10 years in the making, Starfield is one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year. Zelda Tears of the Kingdom was launched to acclaim and massive sales, and likewise for Baldur's Gate 3.
The game is so important for a few reasons. According to the article, Xbox has not had a culturally significant game since Halo 3 in 2007, whereas their arch-rival Sony has had The Last of Us II and God of War: Ragnarok just recently. Microsoft has been on the acquisition trail recently to boost their content and Bethesda (and its parent publisher) were brought into the Microsoft umbrella because of a 7.5 billion acquisition in 2021. So a lot is riding on this, as Starfield is a Xbox exclusive. I suspect there is a hope that this will boost the sales of Xbox consoles, similar to how Tears of the Kingdom kept the 7 years old Switch going strong.
As a retail investor who is interested in gaming companies, massive AAA games with long development cycles like this are a business risk. They are sinking time, money, and talent into a product that will only ship and produce revenue at the end of the cycle. This is why a lot of major studios prize strong IPs and use them to churn out games (looking at you Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty). It is hard to get new games made but at the same time it is hard to blame management for this risk-aversion.
Tears of the Kingdom may be relying on a strong IP and based strongly on the successful Breath of the Wild, but the amount of polish and relatively bug-free quality was widely admired by many. Larian studios is a privately owned Belgian studio that delivered another high quality game that is relatively free of game breaking bugs. As a gamer it is hard not to root for studios to take some risk and deliver polished, quality product. Given Bethesda's stature, we will expect and hope for the same from them.
The article also gives an insight into the kind of details that go into a game and you can start to understand why quality takes time. We know the old saying "Cheap, fast and good, pick two". In this case we cannot expect Starfield to be delivered fast. Hopefully the article can help to understand why this is.
Last but not least, it contains a little tidbit: the tentative release date of Elder Scrolls VI.
Enjoy the article, I sure did.
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