Fans Are Concerned Over Starfield's Gold Status

Starfield is set to launch on September 1 for early-access players and on September 6 for everyone else. Typically, when a game's launch date approaches the developers will announce that it has 'gone gold'.

The run-up to Starfield being released has been a slow drip of information so far. We have got to see a deep dive into the game with a direct back in June, since then though, information has been thin on the ground.

Credit: Bethesda

Going gold

So, what does the term 'gone gold' mean for video games? What this means is that the development cycle has ended, and the game is ready to ship. The publisher has deemed the current version of the game good enough to be shipped to stores ready to be sold.

This means that the development teams allocated time working on the game is over. Sometimes games will go gold too soon, and those, unfortunately, ship in a poor state, often riddled with bugs and glitches. If the team working on them is lucky enough, the time before the game is sold can be used to release a day-one patch to resolve some issues day one.

Credit: Bethesda

The concern

So, what is the concern with Starfield and its gold status? Fans over on the Starfield subreddit have been showing concern at the lack of a gold announcement. What they are really worried about is another potential delay.

Starfield has already been delayed, Xbox themselves granted an extra year for bug fixing and polish. That may be all fine and well, but does the lack of an announcement that Starfield has gone gold matter?

Yes and no, we aren't overly concerned that the team at Bethesda hasn't made this announcement public. It is possible that the game actually attained gold status last year, and Xbox gave them a whole year just to polish it.

Unfortunately, we will not know until they make some sort of official announcement, but keep in mind that it isn't mandatory for a company to announce when a game has gone gold. For now, just look forward to playing the game on September 1 or September 6, we can't picture any further delays with the release date of Starfield.

While you are here, why not check out some of our other guides and articles like Starfield - Food & Drink, or Play Starfield Without a Console or PC?

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