"Uncle Phil release Starfield gameplay" - Fans anticipate official gameplay release as hype builds up

Starfield comes out this November, exactly 11 years after the original Skyrim release.

Since Fallout 4 came out, Bethesda has not made a single-player game in over seven years. Fallout 76, the developers' first foray into making an in-house game focused on multiplayer, was not well received. Beyond all the PR disasters related to the rollout of the game, the chief reason for its failure arguably has to do with factors outside the game.

The Bethesda fan community wants what the studio has traditionally been well-equipped to deliver: a single-player RPG experience. The void that seven years of no proper Bethesda RPG have brought is now filled with two things: a bustling modding community and bubbling anticipation for the next game. The wait is made all the more agonizing by the fact that Starfield is Bethesda's first new IP outside of The Elder Scrolls. Moreover, there isn't a single glimpse of gameplay available regarding this completely new franchise.

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With Summer Game Fest over a month away, fans may not get to see Starfield gameplay soon

Bethesda is not known to keep fans waiting. The longest wait players had to endure that comes to mind was for Skyrim, which was announced roughly a year prior to its memorable 11.11.11 release date. More recently, Fallout 4, the only single-player Bethesda Game Studios title to drop in the last ten years, had an even shorter six-month period between reveal and release.

Starfield, being a completely new franchise, seems to be the only exception to this rule. The game was announced all the way back in 2018, and the name was trademarked much earlier, back in 2013, the year that Skyrim: Legendary Edition hit the shelves.

Starfield, as Todd Howard disclosed in an interview, went out of pre-production and was in a playable alpha even before its first reveal teaser in 2018. It is, therefore, safe to assume that the game has been in development for at least five years now.

Fallout 76, as badly as its nosedive tarnished Bethesda's reputation, served as a diversion maintained by a skeletal crew, while a large portion of the development resources was sunk into Starfield behind the scenes.

In a Washington Post interview shortly after E3 2021, Howard established his confidence in the release date of 11.11.22. "Otherwise, we wouldn’t be announcing it," he remarked. Why, then, is there no gameplay trailer in sight?

It is likely a part of Bethesda's marketing strategy to stall the gameplay reveal as the hype continues to grow. The developers seem to have always believed in a tight but robust promotional itinerary, something that has already proven overwhelmingly successful in Fallout 4. And it looks like the people at Bethesda have decided to play their cards so close to their chest, keeping silent on new gameplay opportunities the title may bring to the table.

In the wake of a canceled E3, the only good opportunity Bethesda will have for their big gameplay reveal is the Summer Game Fest, conveniently timed just five months before the release of the title.

Until then, unfortunately, all the community can do is consider the endless possibilities, such as manual space flight.