Microsoft is betting big on “Starfield”, its “Hollywood” video game which is released this Wednesday [Vidéos]

A role-playing game set in a sci-fi universe, “Starfield” was created by studio Bethesda, which Microsoft acquired in 2020 as part of a total investment of some $7.5 billion, to help it compete with Japanese Sony’s PlayStation. The American giant does not intend to stop there and is negotiating the purchase, for 75 billion dollars, of another major studio, Activision Blizzard, which notably has “Call of Duty” in its catalog.

Good reviews

Expectations around “Starfield” have gone up a notch, after the good reviews from the specialized press. On the Metacritic aggregator, it posted an average score of 88/100 on Tuesday. Referring to cult sagas like “Star Trek”, “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner”, the reviews point out that the game has an epic dimension, with an interesting story and a successful combat system.

These qualities make these games real “interactive films”, underlines Simon Little, the boss of Video Games Europe, an organization which brings together European developers.

Other recent games are in the same vein, like “Hogwarts Legacy”, created by the teams of Avalanche Software, owned by producer Warner Bros., which plunges into the world of Harry Potter, and “Baldur’s Gate 3”, a role-playing game created by Larian Studios. The latter obtained the score of 96/100 on Metacritic in its version for PC. Its adaptation on PlayStation 5 comes out on Wednesday, the same day as “Starfield”.

70 € approximately to purchase

In addition to the purchase of “Starfield” separately for around 70 euros, it will also be possible to access it via Game Pass, Microsoft’s online game library whose subscription starts at 9.99 euros per month. With this mode of distribution, the American group hopes to benefit from recurring income by encouraging players to remain subscribers, thanks to updates or the launch of new productions.

“A video game is never completely finished”

“Unlike a book or a movie, which is written, finished and nothing else, a video game is never really finished”, explains Simon Little. “It is always reinforced, modified, extended, just to arouse the curiosity and the interest of the participants to continue the game”.

The Bethesda studio has already launched many games whose universe has been developed little by little, such as “Skyrim”, still as popular twelve years after its release. In many ways, it served as a benchmark for “Starfield.”

“If you look at our player count on ‘Skyrim’, let’s say last month, and how many millions of people have already played this game, you realize that this is not a game that is measured in hours spent watching it,” says Bethesda Vice President Peter Hines.

Over 1,000 planets to explore

The studio thus hopes that “Starfield”, which has more than 1,000 planets to explore, will display a substantial longevity, thanks to multiple updates, while its main story already requires several dozen hours to be completed.