Starfield is a mere week away, next Friday will see droves of hungry Bethesda fans feasting upon the galactic content. Usually when something simple is shown, like a start menu for an upcoming game, no one bats an eyelid. For a Bethesda game like Starfield, a start menu and its responses from the fans are enough to garner a response from Peter Hines himself!
Starfield launches for everyone on September 6, Early Access begins next Friday, September 1. Get ready for launch, and learn about the latest Starfield drama, right here.
Starfield Start Screen
The start menu for most video games won't even be spoken about throughout the lifecycle of the game. When it comes to Bethesda games, fans are hungry for more content the closer it gets to launch. Why not get the game ready to rock and preload it in plenty of time before release day?
Here is a look at the Starfield start menu that all the drama has been around -
A simple yet effective menu screen if ever we saw one. Genuinely did not predict what would come next.
Ex-Blizzard Dev Lashes Out
The Starfield start menu was criticised on X.com by user @Grummz. This account is owned by ex-Blizzard developer Mark Kern, former team lead for World of Warcraft. Mark posted the following regarding the start screen:
"The physiognomy of start screens. The start screen of a game can reveal a lot about how rushed the team was and how much pride they took in their work. Starfield's start screen either shows hasty shipping deadlines by a passionate team overworked, or a team that didn't care."
Really quite a ridiculous statement to make when similar games have been packed with content that will take up potentially decades of player time. The look of the start menu for Starfield is not exactly something that will even register for most players, some may never even see the end of the main questline.
Peter Hine
Peter Hines, the head of publishing for Bethesda, had his own reply for this outlandish comment directed towards the start menu:
" Or they designed what they wanted and that’s been our menu for years and was one of the first things we settled on. Having an opinion is one thing. Questioning out a developer’s “care” because you would have done it different is highly unprofessional coming from another dev "
We do agree that a start menu will be no indicator of the quality of the game overall. Perhaps Mark Kern is just very passionate about start screens in games, we don't recommend using them as a measuring stick for quality though.
If you are looking for more juicy content on the road to launch, check out our pieces on the leaked space magic that is in the game, or try to get yourself prepared with our beginner's guide.