Microsoft Has Purchased Starfield Ad Time for 2021, Insider Says

It’ll soon be three years since Bethesda unveiled Starfield, their sci-fi RPG and Bethesda Game Studios’ first new intellectual property in a long, long time, and in all the time that’s passed since then, we’ve seen or heard next to nothing about the game from its developer or publisher. Many have been guessing (and hoping), however, that that’ll be changing soon, and sure enough, reports and rumours have suggested that Starfield might launch this year.

Xbox insider Shpeshal_Ed has frequently said that he believes Starfield might launch this year as well, and recently, during an Xbox Era podcast episode, he elaborated on that. He explained that one of the reasons he believes so is that Microsoft has purchased ad space for Starfield for 2021, and while that doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything concrete (as he points out, Microsoft had also purchased ad time for Halo Infinite last year, which promptly got delayed into 2021), he does suggest that purchasing ad time for a game with no release date in the midst of a pandemic might hint at Microsoft being fairly confident that the game is closer to launch than many would expect.

Of course, this is unverified information, so take this with a grain of salt for now, but it does seem to fall in line with other reports of similar nature. Recently, we’ve also heard that Starfield might show up at E3 next month, and if that does happen, and if it is indeed pegged for a late 2021 launch as some reports have said, that would explain why Microsoft has seemingly bought ad time for the game.

We’ll keep an eye out for more new details, of course, so stay tuned for all the updates.