Starfield At Gamescom: Todd Howard And Phil Spencer Take Center Stage

Starfield garnered a huge presence at this year’s Gamescom, with both Xbox Studios head Phil Spencer and Bethesda Games Studio head Todd Howard on hand to talk about the game.

As Microsoft reveals in their latest Xbox Wire, the actual Starfield presentation was 15 minutes long, including a 2 minute live action trailer, fitting for any space exploration themed movie like Gravity. They also presented gameplay of the opening minutes of the game.

What Gamescom attendees got to see from that 13 or so minutes was the very start of the game itself. As any developer knows, it’s that very start of the game that creates the impression that fans will carry with them throughout their playthrough.

The player is actually in the middle of a mining operation, central to the narrative surrounding the game, before it throws to the character creation process. For the purposes of this demo, that creation process was breezed through quickly for fans to see more.

And that ‘more’ included segments of on-foot and space combat, meeting companions, and even that trademark Bethesda ‘stepping out’ moment. This preview ends with a scene we have also already partly seen in the Starfield Direct earlier this year: the first time the player character meets Sarah Morgan.

As we had alluded to, both Todd and Phil were at this event, with this being Todd’s first Gamescom, and the first one Phil attended since 2017.

Here’s what Phil said when introducing Todd Howard, about the man, his studio Bethesda Games, and Starfield:

“Two things when Todd talks about Starfield: ‘Over 25 years in the making’, which isn’t the development schedule – that’s how long Bethesda Games Studios has been around. And he also calls it ‘irresponsibly large’. For those who begin to play and see what he and the team have been building, you’ll see just a massively epic game, so please join me in welcoming Todd Howard to the stage.”

In turn, Todd had this to say about connecting Bethesda’s history with Xbox, that brought them to this moment:

“The other thing to say is how great it’s been to be part of Xbox – coming here and seeing this giant booth and their support. Like Phil was saying, we’ve known each other for a long time, we started working together over 20 years on the original Morrowind on the Xbox. So it’s been this long journey, and it feels like… culminating on a game like this, that I think in many ways we couldn’t have built without doing these other games. So we hope you like it!”

Starfield will be releasing on September 6, 2023, on Xbox Series X|S and Windows via Steam. It will also be Day One on Game Pass. You can watch the live action trailer below.