Starfield’s UK Launch Is Headed By The Crimson Fleet

Bethesda UK have planned something quite interesting for the Starfield launch event over at their neck of the woods.

This is what the official Starfield Twitter account announced with a tweet:

“ The Crimson Fleet have captured the Microsoft Experience Centre! Get hands-on with #Starfield at @Bethesda_UK’s launch event in London’s Oxford Circus, through to Tuesday.”

As you can see from the images in the tweet, Bethesda have the Microsoft Experience Centre decked out in all red, with various graffiti and imagery used by the Crimson Fleet airbrushed all over the location. It’s a nice little bit of immersion for UK fans, in the middle of one of London’s busiest business districts.

In fact, there’s something special about Starfield being in the UK in general. While much of our coverage of the UK on this site has lately revolved around the CMA’s regulation of the Microsoft Activision deal (yes it’s still ongoing), UK is more than that.

Some fans will know about UK’s long history of video games. The two biggest success stories of the country in console gaming, Rare, and Rockstar North, only hint at the wealth of talent and history that the country has in this industry. But that’s not all that’s going on here.

UK, matching or possibly even more than the US, is a deep deep well of science fiction. From films like The Quatermass Experiment, to long running TV series Doctor Who, to the broad influence of many British authors, to America and the rest of the world, including the likes of H.G. Wells, Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, and George Orwell.

Interestingly enough, UK also has a particular predilection for post apocalyptic futures, from films like The Day of The Triffids, Children of Men, The Earth Dies Screaming, 28 Days Later, and possible the most shocking of them all, Threads. It’s hard not to imagine Fallout existing if it wasn’t for the influence of British science fiction.

While the UK state hasn’t really developed a space program, plenty of British writers have imagined going to space. It’s not necessarily the worst thing if the most famous of these forays is Adams’ satirical Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but you can bet the British have a taste for serious science fiction as well.

And so it’s not hard to imagine that Starfield is going to be quite a hit in the UK when it launches in a few days. UK Xbox fans are eager to finally get a must have Xbox game after waiting for maybe too long. But no worries, because this one is coming home soon.

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.