Trivia / Starfield

• Dear Negative Reader: In late 2023, Bethesda were replying to negative reviews on Steam. However, their responses were more or less challenging people's criticisms by insisting that they're wrong and that they need to play the game more. Ahead of a massive patch in March 2024, however, Bethesda changed strategies and instead replied to reviewers complaining about bugs informing them that the bug would be resolved in the upcoming patch.
• Killer App: Mixed fan response aside, Starfield was a big seller at launch and helped to solidify the Xbox Series X|S. It was the one game that everyone had their eyes on after Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda Softworks went through, something Microsoft capitalized on almost immediately; starting from E3 2021, Starfield was featured in every big showcase from Microsoft up until its release on September 6, 2023. Even after the divisiveness of Halo Infinite and the disastrous launch of Redfall, Starfield still kept enough people interested to prevent them from completely writing off the Xbox Series X/S, and it paid off big-time come release; it resulted in a 1056% increase in sales of the console on Amazon ahead of the game's launch with similar spikes reported at other retailers, easily becoming the platform's biggest exclusive up until that point.
• Meaningful Release Date: The game was planned for an 11-11-2022 release. 11 + 11 is 22, and this would have been 11 years to the day since Skyrim's release. Subverted when the release was pushed back to 2023.
• No Port For You: Due to Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda, Starfield will not be coming to the PlayStation 5.
• Production Throwback: The E3 2021 trailer features a mission patch for "The 10th Planet" displayed on a wall in the ship. The 10th Planet was a cancelled 1997 game which marked Bethesda's last attempt at creating a sci-fi game.
• Release Date Change: Originally planned for an 11-11-2022 release, it was announced in May of 2022 that Starfield would be pushed back in 2023 to give Xbox Game Studios (which had acquired Bethesda as a subsidiary after work began on the game) more time to polish it. It was ultimately released September 6th, 2023.
• Role Reprise: Craig Seschler returns as the Adoring Fan, 17 years after the original release of Oblivion.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game was originally planned to have a voiced player character similar to Fallout 4. Elias Toufexis and Cissy Jones would have been the voice actors. After this was scrapped due to the negative reception of a voiced protagonist in Fallout 4, they were instead given the roles of Sam and Andreja, respectively.
  • Exploration of the game files has revealed a significant amount of content cut from the final version of the game (much of it actually labeled "CUT" or "DO NOT USE"):
    • At least three additional large settlements were cut, listed under the same "Worldspaces" header as other major settlements including New Atlantis and Akila City.
    • At least four cut "settlements", including Chandra Vineyards (producer of the various wines still found in the game).
    • Evidence that certain planets would have extreme atmospheric conditions ("Heat 3", "Permanent Hurricane" etc.), requiring specialized spacesuits in order to explore.
    • A number of unused planetary "Traits", including "Giant Geysers", "Liquid Methane Volcanos", "Lakes of Liquid Lead", etc.
    • Underwater content, including aquatic "Flora", detailed fish models, and mechanics related to movement in fluid.
    • House Va'ruun was going to be much more present, controlling the Serpentis system, with snippets of conversations and unique Va'ruun quest markers suggesting they were going to be another joinable faction. This seems to have been a very recent cut, as they come from objects which still exist in the game files and can be accessed via the in game console
  • Voice files exist for the Constellation crew members responding the player's ship being boarded by hostile forces, something that can't happen in the final product, implying it was once a possibility.

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