Microsoft claims Starfield will have the fewest bugs of any Bethesda release
Microsoft Game Studios head Matt Booty has tempted fate by claiming that Starfield will launch with fewer bugs than any other Bethesda game. Notably, he only says it will have fewer bugs, not necessarily that the bugs will be less severe, but it's still a bold claim for a studio that's become notorious for its extremely buggy games at launch.
"We have an awful lot of people internally playing it," said Booty on a Giant Bomb livestream (as spotted by VGC). "Working with Todd and the team, I see bug counts and just by the numbers, if it shipped today, this would have the fewest bugs that any game from Bethesda has ever shipped with."
However, this will be the first game released by Bethesda Game Studios since its acquisition by Microsoft in 2020. Phil Spencer, speaking on the same livestream, said that they pushed back Starfield's expected release date after the acquisition and have been prioritizing squashing bugs.
"Truth be told, when the acquisition closed, this game had a significantly earlier ship date than where we're actually launching it," Spencer said. "I think Matt said we have every QA person in our entire company playing Starfield right now, looking at bug counts, looking at the quality of where we are. The nice thing about what we showed today from my perspective is: that was the game. We've been playing the game for quite a while and that's the game."
With Starfield launching on September 6, 2023, Microsoft only has a few months left to finish squashing bugs if they want to make good on this promise.