Starfield Is the Biggest Game for Xbox Since Halo 5

ign.com:

We are now less than one month away from the launch of Starfield, the new space-exploration RPG from Bethesda Game Studios – makers of The Elder Scrolls series as well as Fallout 3 and 4. And after an excellent and very well-received 45-minute Starfield Direct presentation in June, hype is running high. This is the first game from this team, led by decorated game director Todd Howard, in eight years (Fallout 4). It’s topped the Steam wishlist charts for the past two months. It is, by the developer’s own account, the biggest game it’s ever made (and for what it’s worth, from the hour I got to play it with Howard – first from the beginning and then quickly jumping between a couple of other save files – I saw nothing to doubt the team’s claims). And as the Xbox’s first-party/exclusive game journey continues to carve out its strange and unforeseen path, it’s turned out to be the most important launch for the platform in a long time.

And that’s what I wanted to talk about today. I don’t want to get into the tired old discussion about the lack of blockbuster Xbox exclusives again. But I do think it’s interesting, without dwelling on that, to see how far we have to walk back to get to a game launch as notable as the one Starfield is about to have. It’ll provide some good context for why Starfield matters so much.

First, let’s look at the existing Xbox Series generation. I’d argue that Starfield’s launch trumps anything we’ve had over the past (almost) three years. Halo Infinite in 2021 is probably the game you’d think of first, and while Halo 6 was certainly a big deal – it had been six years since the previous mainline Halo game was released, and it was excellent! – I’d argue there was way too much baggage weighing down