Starfield release date updated on Steam, but there is no need to panic

It’s actually good news

Marco Wutz | Jan 13, 2023

Starfield release date updated on Steam, but there is no need to panic /

The release date of Starfield is one of those secrets many gamers would love to get their hands on right now. While the space RPG will miss Microsoft’s Xbox Developer_Direct showcase on January 25, 2023, the developers at Bethesda will hold their own event dedicated to their project shortly afterwards, so it’s possible that we’re not very far away from getting a confirmed launch date.

In the meantime, there is some confusion because Starfield’s Steam page was updated with the release date changing from “Coming in 2023” to “Coming soon” – so what does that mean?

Well, it might actually be good news, despite the new timeframe seeming a bit more vague than the old one at first glance. If a game is listed as “Coming in 2023” on Steam, the release date in the backend is set to December 31, 2023. The same goes for ranges like “Coming in March 2023”, “Coming in Q3 2023”, and so on – Steam always uses the last possible date in the backend. With “Coming soon”, however, that is no longer the case.

Basically, this all confirms what Bethesda has been saying for a while now: Starfield is due to release in the first half of 2023, and now Steam’s backend data no longer contradicts this.

While we still don’t know when we will get a confirmed date for the highly-anticipated space game, we do know that a release date for fellow Xbox and PC exclusive co-op title Redfall and a few other games will be announced at Developer_Direct.

Published Jan 13, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg