Bethesda Game Studios Director Todd Howard says that Starfield's main storyline will be 20% longer than Skyrim and Fallout 4.
Howard first revealed the news in an interview with IGN. "This one's ending up a little bit longer [than our previous games] and we may tune that some still," he said. "It's more quests, so it might be 20% more than our previous ones." Howard also estimated that Starfield's main story "might be in the 30s, maybe 40" hours total.
For years, not much was known about the game, except a short teaser trailer at E3 2018 confirming its production, occasional concept art and concerning news of Starfield being delayed until 2023. Bethesda Game Studios' delay of the space-focused RPG may not surprise many, as it sports a long-running history of postponements and subpar launches, even stretching back to 2002's The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, which was expected to come out a year earlier. The 2022 Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase finally put a face to the name, showing off an impressive, 15-minute gameplay video of Starfield, full of beautiful landscapes, new characters and intriguing space dogfights.
Howard also confirmed that Fallout 5 won't start development until after The Elder Scrolls VI releases. It's worth noting that Fallout's release could still be plenty of years away, as the sixth installment in The Elder Scrolls series has no release date despite an announcement at E3 2018. The Elder Scrolls VI's slow production has frustrated many fans of the franchise, as the last release in the series, Skyrim, was released in November 2011.
Bethesda Game Studios is an American-based video game developer formed as a division of Bethesda Softworks. The studio has won multiple awards and is often referred to as one of the gaming industry's premier developers due to its involvement with the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series. In 2021, Microsoft acquired Bethesda Game Studios after a $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda Softwork's parent company, Zenimax Media. The acquisition made headlines in the gaming world, with further tension built in the community after Microsoft confirmed many future Bethesda games would be Xbox and Windows exclusives.
Starfield is expected to launch in 2023 and will be available to play on Windows and Xbox Series X|S.
Source: IGN