Bethesda Announces Delays for Starfield and Redfall

In May 2022, Bethesda quietly dropped the kind of news that makes gamers clutch their controllers a little tighter:
both Starfield and Redfall were being delayed. Instead of anchoring Xbox’s big
2022 lineup, these two highly anticipated exclusives were pushed into the hazy “first half of 2023.” Cue the memes,
the hot takes, and the collective sound of pre-order hype hitting the brakes.

But behind the frustration was a more complicated story about modern AAA game development, quality control, and
the pressure on Bethesda and Xbox to deliver. In this article, we’ll break down what happened with the Starfield
and Redfall delays, why they mattered so much to Xbox’s ecosystem, how the final releases actually turned out, and
what players and developers learned from the whole rollercoaster.

Setting the Stage: Why These Two Games Mattered So Much

Starfield: “Skyrim in Space” and Xbox’s Shiny New IP

Starfield wasn’t just another game on the schedule. It was Bethesda Game Studios’ first new IP in over
two decades and was billed as a massive, single-player, spacefaring RPG with deep exploration, factions, and
ship-building. Marketed as “Skyrim in space,” it quickly became the poster child for Xbox Game Pass and
the proof that Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda wasn’t just for show.

Originally, Starfield had a very symbolic launch date: November 11, 2022exactly eleven years after
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Bethesda leaned into the symmetry, and fans circled the date on their
calendars like it was a national gaming holiday.

Redfall: Arkane’s Co-op Vampire Shooter

On the other side of the ring, you had Redfall, a co-op, open-world vampire shooter from
Arkane Austin, the studio behind immersive sims like Prey and Dishonored. Redfall promised
a quirky blend of Arkane’s trademark level design and powers with looter-shooter vibes and four-player
vampire-slaying chaos.

It wasn’t just another shooter; it was one of the rare Xbox console exclusives in a generation where
exclusives are the main weapon in the platform wars. Xbox needed Redfall and Starfield to show that its
investments in studios were turning into playable results, not just cinematic trailers.

The Big Announcement: Delays for Starfield and Redfall

The Statement That Shook Xbox’s 2022

In May 2022, Bethesda released a statement announcing that both Starfield and Redfall would be delayed from their
planned 2022 launch windows into the first half of 2023. The company cited the need to deliver the “best, most
polished versions” of both games, emphasizing the teams’ ambition and the importance of quality.

Arkane Austin echoed this in its own message about Redfall, saying the team needed more time to “bring the game to
life” and calling it their most ambitious project yet. For Starfield, Bethesda Game Studios expressed gratitude for
fan support while basically admitting: “We need more time.”

Why the Delay Wasn’t Just Another Delay

Delays aren’t new in gamingif anything, they’re becoming standard as development cycles stretch and expectations
soar. But this particular double delay had extra weight:

• Both games were tentpole Xbox exclusives. Losing them in the same year left a noticeable gap.
• Starfield had a heavily marketed date. Moving a “Skyrim anniversary” style launch day sent a clear
  signal that the game just wasn’t ready.
• Game Pass strategy took a hit. Big, day-one first-party releases are core to Xbox Game Pass’s
  value proposition, and suddenly two of the biggest vanished from the calendar.

Industry analysts and commentators immediately started asking uncomfortable questions: Could Xbox deliver a strong
first-party lineup? Were publishers now announcing release dates too early just to generate hype? And how much of
this was fallout from the pandemic’s impact on remote development?

The Fallout for Xbox’s 2022 Lineup

A Barren Blockbuster Year

The double delay left Xbox’s 2022 looking pretty thin in terms of big, exclusive AAA games. Without Starfield and
Redfall, the platform had to lean more heavily on third-party titles, indies, and ongoing service games. The Xbox
ecosystem still had plenty to play, especially via Game Pass, but it lacked that one big headline release you could
point to and say, “This is the reason to own an Xbox right now.”

Fans expressed frustration, not just with the delay itself, but with a perceived pattern: exciting announcements
followed by long waits and shifting dates. For players who had bought into the Xbox Series X|S early, partly on
the promise of games like Starfield and Redfall, it felt like an extended teaser trailer that never quite ended.

Short-Term Pain vs. Long-Term Reputation

On the other hand, many gamersespecially those who had been burned by buggy launches in the pastvoiced cautious
approval. The logic was simple: better a delay than a broken game. With the industry still recovering from several
high-profile technical disasters at launch, “take your time, just don’t ship a mess” became a common refrain.

For Bethesda specifically, the stakes were high. The studio has a reputation for ambitious, sprawling RPGs that are
also, let’s say, “charmingly buggy.” Delaying Starfield and Redfall sent the message that Microsoft and Bethesda
were at least trying to prioritize polish over rushing to hit a marketing date.

What Happened Next: From Delay to Release

Starfield’s Journey From 2022 to 2023

After the delay, Starfield resurfaced with a new release date: September 6, 2023. That meant the game not only
missed 2022 entirely, but actually launched in the second half of 2023later than the original “first half of 2023”
target. The upside? When Starfield finally arrived, it was a full-featured space RPG with a massive amount of content.

Critics generally praised Starfield’s world-building, soundtrack, and the sheer scale of its galaxy, even as debates
kicked off about its pacing, menus, and exploration systems. Reviews and player reactions were mixed-to-positive
rather than universally glowing, but the game undeniably felt like a substantial, finished product.

From an “is the delay justified?” perspective, Starfield’s launch landed somewhere in the “this clearly needed the
extra time” category. There were still bugs and quirks, but not the catastrophic kind that define a generation’s
meme culture.

Redfall’s Rough Landing

Redfall, meanwhile, released on May 2, 2023, and its story is… less uplifting. Despite the delay, the game launched
with technical issues, inconsistent AI, repetitive missions, and design choices that baffled long-time Arkane fans.
Performance problems on consoles and the lack of a 60 FPS mode at launch became major talking points.

Reviews came in mixed to negative. Players criticized everything from the world design to the loot systems, and Redfall
quickly became a cautionary tale about how even a delay doesn’t guarantee a polished or cohesive final product. The
disappointment was strong enough that Xbox leadership publicly acknowledged that they had “let a lot of people down.”

Redfall did receive patches and updates after launch, but by then the initial perception had hardened. For many
players, it became a symbol of how risky live-service and co-op-focused pivots can be, even for a studio known for
tight single-player experiences.

Lessons From the Starfield and Redfall Delays

Lesson 1: Delays Are Necessary, but Not Sufficient

The most obvious takeaway is that delaying a game can help, but it’s not magic. Starfield’s delay
appears to have helped Bethesda deliver a more stable, feature-rich launch, even if not everyone agreed on its design
choices. Redfall, on the other hand, shows that if a project has deeper structural problemsunclear vision, shifting
goals, or mismatched expectationsextra time may not fix the core issues.

Lesson 2: Communication Matters Almost as Much as the Delay

Bethesda’s messaging around the delays was relatively straightforward: they needed more time to hit their ambitions.
However, many fans still felt blindsided because release dates had been heavily pushed in marketing. Going forward,
gamers are getting more skeptical of announcements made too early, especially when they’re wrapped in cinematic
trailers with no gameplay.

For publishers, the Starfield and Redfall situation is a reminder that managing expectations is a continuous process:
don’t just announce a dateexplain the risks, the progress, and the reality of development when things change.

Lesson 3: Platform Strategy Is Tied to Release Timing

Xbox has positioned Game Pass as a core pillar of its ecosystem, and flagship titles like Starfield are the marquee
attractions. When those games slip, it creates visible gaps in the platform’s narrative. While smaller titles and
surprise hits can help, there’s no true substitute for a giant first-party blockbuster.

In that sense, the delays forced Xbox to stretch its content strategy, lean on third-party partnerships, and
emphasize the long-term vision rather than just the current year’s lineup.

Real-World Experiences: Living Through the Delays

How Players Reacted (Beyond the Memes)

If you were active online when Bethesda announced the delays, you probably remember the emotional arc in real time:
initial shock, a wave of jokes (“guess we’re playing our backlog after all”), then a more sober discussion about
quality vs. deadlines. For a lot of players, the news landed like this:

• The optimists said: “Take your time. I’d rather wait than play a broken game.”
• The skeptics worried this was a sign that Xbox’s first-party pipeline was in trouble.
• The exhausted shrugged and said, “It’s 2022, everything is delayed.”

Many long-time Bethesda fans had been through this before with games like Skyrim and Fallout:
ambitious launches, lots of bugs, and years of patches and mods. For them, the delay felt like a studio finally
learning from its history. Others, especially newer Xbox players, simply felt like they’d been promised something
big and then had the rug pulled from under them.

The “Backlog Era” and Shifting Gaming Habits

One unexpected upside of the delays was that a lot of players suddenly had less FOMO about chasing the “latest,
greatest” release. With Starfield and Redfall pushed back, some gamers turned to older titles, indies, or games
they’d been meaning to try on Game Pass but never had time for. The meme of “finally clearing my backlog” became a
bit more real for once.

This highlights a subtle trend: in an era where there are constantly more games than free hours, a delay doesn’t
always mean people stop playingit just means they play something else. For some, the Starfield delay was an
excuse to replay Mass Effect, try out No Man’s Sky, or finally see what the fuss was about
Dishonored and Prey before Arkane’s new title dropped.

Developers’ Perspective: Time, Pressure, and Creativity

From the development side, the story looks very different. Delays can be a lifeline: a chance to fix bugs,
rework systems, and avoid shipping something that will haunt the studio’s reputation. But they also come with
huge pressure. Teams may still be working intense hours, just over a longer timeline. Morale can swing between
“we’re saving the game” and “will this ever end?”

Starfield’s eventual release suggests that extra time can help a team land a more stable, feature-complete vision.
Redfall’s struggles, meanwhile, hint that no amount of extra calendar time can fully solve deep design conflicts,
unclear goals, or production challenges rooted in earlier stages of development.

What Players Learned About Managing Hype

For players, one of the big takeaways from the Starfield and Redfall delays was a new level of skepticism toward
early hype cycles. Cinematic trailers and far-off release dates now trigger more cautious optimism than blind
excitement. Many gamers now wait for:

• Extended gameplay demos instead of only CGI trailers.
• Hands-on previews and technical breakdowns.
• Post-launch impressions and patch notes before fully committing time or money.

That doesn’t mean the hype is gonethis is gaming, after allbut it’s more tempered. Players who pre-ordered based
on Starfield’s early date learned patience. Those who eagerly awaited Redfall and felt burned learned to listen to
their inner “maybe wait and see” voice next time a big co-op title is announced.

Looking Forward: How These Delays Will Influence Future Launches

The saga of “Bethesda announces delays for Starfield and Redfall” will probably be studied for years as a case study
in modern game production: one delayed game that launched solid and became a major platform pillar, and another
that struggled despite the extra time. Together, they underline a simple but powerful truth:

Delays can buy time, but they can’t buy clarity, creativity, or a guaranteed hit. Those still have
to come from the messy, human side of game development. For players, it’s a reminder to stay excitedbut also to
stay realistic. For studios and platforms, it’s a nudge to announce dates more carefully, communicate more clearly,
and treat each delay not as a failure, but as a chance to get things right.

And in the meantime, there’s always the backlog.