Starfield’s latest tease shows that Bethesda is embracing its fantasy roots

It’s a pretty good week to be a Bethesda fan because now we have two very important dates to mark on the calendar: First, on June 11th, we get the much promised starfield focuses directly (which was recently reported as imminent, but I guess we’ll have to wait until the magic E3 period for more reveals, as usual).

Secondly, September 6th will actually – probably, hopefully – release the thing on PC, Xbox Series consoles, and it’ll be day one on Game Pass, because Bethesda games are first-party Microsoft games that are now after a The battle is extreme capitalism in 2021. And it actually looks wonderful.

Set in an era of massive space colonization, Starfield is all-new territory for the studio, and no one could mistake Skyrim’s dragon-strewn tundra or Fallout’s shattered ’50s Americana for Starfield’s NASA-core, homemade Star Trek vibe, but it’s fueled by the same Principle that makes Bethesda’s other games so attractive, namely, as once proudly boasted on the back of the Oblivion box, that they allow the player to live a different life in a different world. Or worlds, in this case.

Different facets of life are simulated in Starfield, from the mundane to the adventurous – from banking to piracy to xenoarchaeology. If Bethesda can pull this off, and a delay of almost a full year is a promising sign that they might do so, Starfield could be the most complete vision of a “life in space” simulator ever released and fulfill the dream that had several games before. from Elite: Dangerous to No Man’s Sky, from X: Beyond the Frontier to Star Citizen left far behind.

And if Starfield succeeds in doing so, it’s because of its legacy: Skyrim in Space may be tossed around pejoratively in some circles, but I can’t see myself being anything but excited by the prospect. After all, Skyrim on Land is one of the most popular and successful games of all time, and for good reason: it’s brilliant.

Starfield will, of course, build on the work that makes The Elder Scrolls so compelling, but as we’ve seen from the latest footage (which was seen in previous reveals but was placed front and center in this week’s announcement video), it will also include the fantastic. Whether you call it magic or advanced alien technology, digging down impossibly ancient ruins to uncover the mystery of Big Swirly Things is an important part of the Elder Scrolls experience that survives in Starfield, and it’ll be all the better for it .