Starfield is 100% finished and has gone gold – preloads start this week-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Starfield – lift off is imminent (pic: Microsoft)

There’s now zero chance of a delay for Xbox exclusive Starfield, as it’s gone gold and will be ready to download from Thursday onwards.

Like most pandemic era games, Starfield has been delayed multiple times and while at one point it was supposed to be out last year that got put back all the way till September 6 – a date that it will now definitely make.

Developer Bethesda has announced that the game has gone gold, the stage at which a game is considered complete and sent off to be manufactured at a Blu-ray factory. Even though most people buy games digitally now, the term has stuck and means that everything is done except for the inevitable day one patch.

To emphasise the fact that there’ll be no more delays, Bethesda has also announced that you’ll be able to preload the game for Xbox Series X/S from Thursday, August 17 and on Steam from August 30.

If that seems surprisingly early for preloading the release date is a little more complicated than it first seems, as if you buy the Digital Premium Edition or Constellation Edition you’ll be able to play it five days early, starting from September 1.

It’s not a small game either, as it weighs in at a hefty 125GB of hard drive space, which is going to take quite a while to download for those on slower broadband connections.

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Starfield is an incredibly important release for Microsoft, as after years of disappointing first party games this one not only has a substantial amount of hype behind it but judging by how it looked at the Xbox Games Showcase it does seem to be a genuinely good game.

It’s a little worrying that Microsoft hasn’t allowed any hands-on previews before launch, though, as not only was it not playable at the summer showcase but it’s also not going to be at Gamescom later this month.

Hopefully that’s just them being overly cautious though and 2023 can add another classic game to its collection.

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