Starfield rumor claims Tom Cruise is starring in Bethesda's new game

A new Starfield rumor claims none other than Hollywood powerhouse Tom Cruise is starring in the game.

Earlier today on May 18, a pretty perplexing rumor started doing the rounds over on the Gaming Leaks and Rumors subreddit. Buried within a compilation of previous Starfield rumors, was a claim that Hollywood star Tom Cruise was starring in the upcoming space-faring game from Bethesda.

In short, the claim comes from three self-professed Starfield "insiders," each of which claims that Bethesda has recruited Tom Cruise for their new game. Additionally, the insiders point to the 2018 tweet from the Bethesda Game Studios Twitter account just below, as a hint that the actor actually has signed on to star in the new game.

It's an extremely eyebrow-raising claim, that's for sure. We've seen various claims around Bethesda's upcoming game so far, including when it'll launch (not this year, apparently), to how it'll launch (only on Xbox and PC, supposedly), so there's been no shortage of "insider" claims surrounding Starfield.

Perhaps Bethesda could be looking to get in on what Keanu Reeves did for Cyberpunk 2077 at E3 2019? Bringing the Hollywood star onstage to reveal his role in the game stole headlines for developer CD Projekt, so it's not exactly unthinkable that a gaming powerhouse like Bethesda could be recruiting a similar caliber of Hollywood talent to promote their new game.

What we do know about Bethesda's new game is precious little, though. Earlier this year, the developer/publisher announced that they would be holding an auction that would let the winner design their very own Starfield character, and last year, a Bethesda employee revealed that the new RPG would have an entirely overhauled animation system compared to past Bethesda games like Fallout 76.

We ultimately don't know when Bethesda plans to launch Starfield, or what platforms they're going to launch it on. In the aftermath of Microsoft's monumental acquisition of Bethesda last year in September 2020, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan revealed that he had no idea if the space-faring RPG would be coming to PlayStation platforms. As for Microsoft, Xbox boss Phil Spencer previously said that Bethesda will operate "semi-independently" from its new owner, and that Xbox would uphold previous exclusivity deals for Bethesda games like Deathloop.

For a list of games penciled in for release this year, you can head over to our full new games 2021 guide for more.