Bethesda's Head of Publishing hits back at Starfield's start screen criticism

Bethesda's Head of Publishing Pete Hines hit back at criticism that labelled Starfield's start screen as being designed by "a passionate team overworked or a team that didn't care".

Former Blizzard developer Mark Kern tweeted a screenshot of Starfield's start screen, saying: "The physiognomy of start screens. The start screen of a game can reveal a lot about how rushed the team was and how much pride they took in their work.

"Starfield's start screen either shows hasty shipping deadlines by a passionate team overworked, or a team that didn't care.

"Start screen are often done at the very end of development. Teams are too busy making the core game. It's quite common for the start screen to completely change once the game is shipping or on patch 0.

Teams that take pride want to put a good face forward and will often redo these just prior to game going live," Kern's comment concluded.

Hines responded to the accusation earlier today, insisting that that had been the game's menu "for years, and it was one of the first things [the team] settled on".

"Having an opinion is one thing. Questioning out a developer's 'care' because you would have done it different is highly unprofessional coming from another 'dev'," Hines added.

At the time of writing, Kern has yet to acknowledge Hines' response, but has replied to several commenters who took umbrage with his statement.

In related news, the full Starfield achievement list recently leaked online.

As first reported by InsiderGaming, the list of 50+ achievements reveals the rewards for completing some of the key story beats, as well as others for attaining certain levels, aligning yourself with particular factions, and completing notable tasks.

As you may well imagine, some are a little spoilery, so now may be the time to mute certain words and phrases to avoid getting spoiled. I won't ruin anyone's day by posting the list here, but you're curious, head on over to Insider Gaming to see the full list.

Starfield is now available to preload on Xbox Series X/S consoles. It'll take up 100.19 GB for the Standard edition, or 117.07 GB for the Premium, which includes a digital artbook and soundtrack, skin pack, and the Shattered Space Story Expansion upon release.

On PC, the game is 139.84 GB, but pre-load doesn't kick off on Steam until 30th August.

The game will be available to play on 6th September, unless you bought the Premium Edition which offers access five days early.

Starfield remains a bit of an enigma even this close to launch, although some new details emerged last week courtesy of a Discord Q&A. We now know more about its housing system, its jail, and the fact players can expect 20 companions to join them on their journey through space.

For all the details on Starfield's release, check out our Starfield launch guide.