Every QA tester at Microsoft is working on Starfield, according to Phil Spencer

Starfield crew — (Image credit: Bethesda)

Xbox boss Phil Spencer says that "every QA person in our entire company is playing Starfield right now," meaning the Bethesda title is being put through its paces ahead of release.

During Summer Games Fest 2023, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer and head of Xbox Games Studio Matt Booty sat down to chat with Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb and co to talk about the company's upcoming games.

During this chat, the topic of Starfield came up - which makes sense considering we had the Starfield Direct over the weekend. It's here (timestamped video below) that Spencer reveals that Starfield was originally supposed to release much sooner than it is now.

"Truth be told when the acquisition closed, this game had a significantly earlier ship date than where we're actually launching," Spencer reveals, "so sitting down with Todd [Howard] and the team and explaining that we want to give this team the time; I think Matt [Booty] says every QA person in our entire company playing Starfield right now, looking at bug counts, looking at quality, and where we are."

Now we're not calling Phil Spencer, or Matt Booty, a liar but it's probably a little bit of an exaggeration that every single QA tester at Microsoft is working on Starfield. What about all the other upcoming Xbox Series X games currently in development? Either way, it seems fans shouldn't worry too much about Starfield's release, clearly Microsoft has a lot of eyes on the game and want it to perform well straight out the gate.

We certainly got what we were asking for this weekend, as the Starfield Direct answered just about every question imaginable about the upcoming game. There's so much to unpack, but some of the more interesting reveals include the fact that Starfield's New Atlantis is"the biggest city" Bethesda's ever built. Considering the scope of the developer's previous games, this is saying something.

It was also revealed that players will be spoilt for choice when it comes to purchasing Starfield. Aside from picking up the game on its own, Bethesda is also giving fans the choice of a Starfield Collector's Edition and Starfield Premium Edition - both of which come with a number of extras including a real-life smartwatch, five days' worth of early access, DLC, and more.

Want to know what's on the way over the next few months? Take a look at our video game release dates guide.

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.