Bethesda’s next two big games, Starfield and Redfall, delayed simultaneously

Enlarge / This promotional image for the June 12 Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase now looks a bit like an eclipse of bad news about Starfield's delay into 2023. (credit: Xbox)

Last year, Microsoft and Bethesda made a surprising announcement: Its upcoming open-world space-exploration game Starfield would launch on November 22, 2022. While the resulting "11-22-22" release date looked nifty at the time, it wasn't meant to be.

On Thursday, Bethesda announced via social media that Starfield would be delayed to the "first half of 2023," and it would be joined by Redfall, a vampire-themed co-op shooter that was previously pegged to a "summer 2022" launch window.

30-day countdown begins

There has been no new footage of either upcoming game since the last time Xbox hosted a lengthy first-party game-preview presentation... all the way back in June 2021. Starfield, developed by the core Bethesda Game Studios team, has received a few peeks into its behind-the-scenes process, but they have been limited to concept art and developer interviews. Arkane Austin's Redfall, meanwhile, has been even more mysterious, with only a single alpha test leak from September 2021 showing anything resembling real gameplay.