Starfield Was Planned For PS5 Prior To Microsoft's ZeniMax Acquisition, FTC Says

gamespot.com:

Bethesda's sci-fi RPG would have come to PlayStation if not for Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax in 2021, according to the FTC.

By Cameron Koch on

Starfield, the next major Xbox console-exclusive from the makers of Skyrim and Fallout, was originally planned to release on PlayStation 5, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Documents recently made public as part of the FTC's injunction against Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard state that prior to Microsoft's $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax, both Starfield and Redfall were planned to release on rival Sony's PS5 console.

Also, can't recall if they've said this before, but the FTC believes Starfield was originally planned to also release on PS5 (seems logical given time it was in development) pic.twitter.com/Ce51btTs6j

That obviously changed once Microsoft announced it would be purchasing ZeniMax in 2020, with the deal being finalized in March of 2021. Starfield was originally announced in 2018. The game's announcement teaser does not mention what platforms the game would ship on.

Fans have long assumed that a major new game from Bethesda Game Studios would have been released on multiple platforms if not for the Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda, given that Skyrim and recent Fallout games have shipped on both Microsoft's and Sony's consoles in the past. The theory that Starfield was originally planned for PS5 received more evidence earlier this year, when it was revealed in an interview that the vampire-shooter Redfall, which became a Xbox console-exclusive, originally had a PS5 version in the works. That version of the game was abandoned after Microsoft's acquisition. Starfield is slated to release this September.

Microsoft leaders were