Bethesda Isn’t Happy About ‘Starfield’ Leaks From Review Copies

Forbes Innovation Games Bethesda Isn’t Happy About ‘Starfield’ Leaks From Review Copies Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. Following Aug 20, 2023, 09:19am EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Starfield Bethesda This week, I’ve noted that Bethesda is doing something pretty unusual for its history, giving out review copies of Starfield a full two weeks early, and giving them to a lot of big and small content creators, as well as press.

But with two weeks to go and all those copies out there, there are going to be some Starfield leaks, and however minor, Bethesda is still not pleased they’re happening at all. Matt Frary , Senior Director of PR at Bethesda, tweeted the following yesterday: It’s not quite clear what he’s referring to exactly, however the discourse yesterday became very stupid around the title screen of the game leaking which is…a planet, the Starfield logo and some menu options. This may be the type of “small and meaningless” ones he’s referring to here.

Mark Kern, ex-Diablo 2 dev, most recently fired from Red 5, maker of Firefall, tweeted about how the simplistic title screen represented “hasty shipping deadlines” or a “team that didn’t care” and everyone proceeded to roast him all day. Some PlayStation fanboys also seized on the leak to make similar points. This was of course extremely stupid, and everyone started sharing title screens of loads of other games from Skyrim to Elden Ring with simple title screens no one cares about.

The only other recent drama I can remember seeing was a creator (who I will not name) sharing impressions of the first 15 hours in the game in a Discord that leaked (which I will not discuss). Supposedly there have been some story leaks floating around but I haven’t read them, nor plan to, so I don’t even know how accurate they are. MORE FOR YOU The Good, Bad And Ugly From The Green Bay Packers’ Loss To The New England Patriots Twitter Deletes All User Photos And Links From 2011-2014 Trust’s Incorrect Tax Form Forfeited Large Tax Refund Claim: A Lesson For Trustees Starfield Bethesda While this was sort of inevitable with so many review copies out for so long, I hope Bethesda doesn’t change this very good policy of how these codes were distributed.

Burn those who leaked, sure, but this was a great way to give enough time to review the game. As I’ve said before, the only thing people with review copies are allowed to share at all is the embargo date, August 31 at 12 ET. No impressions, no screenshots, including title screens, however small that may be.

Because as you can see, even a title screen can create very stupid drama around a release when people are going nuts over any morsel of content from such a big game. I hope we do not see more leaks in the next ten days here, though I would not be terribly shocked. If there are any, hopefully they remain minor, not major.

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