Starfield is a roleplaying game set amongst the stars, where players can explore with unparalleled freedom as they embark on an epic journey to answer humanity’s greatest mystery. After five years of anticipation, legacy fans were excited for launch. But to achieve Starfield's ambitious sales goals, we needed to tap into a broader audience beyond core roleplaying game fans to create universal appeal.

When it comes to video games set in space, the industry is filled with the familiar. Masked super soldiers. Terrifying alien invaders. Heroic quests to save the galaxy.

But Starfield was different. For its first new universe in over twenty five years, Bethesda Game Studios set out to do more than entertain. They had an ambition to inspire the next generation of explorers, dreamers, and creators.

So, instead of focusing on a typical hero’s journey, we built a campaign centered on Starfield’s most powerful element: its optimistic, hopeful concept of humanity’s future.

Gamers are a sophisticated audience likely to do extensive research on a game before making a purchase. Increasingly, we are competing for their Share of Day in addition to their Share of Wallet. Is this game worth their precious gaming hours? Bethesda Game Studios built its world-class reputation by creating game worlds with unparalleled immersion and freedom. As the studio’s first new franchise in over 25 years, Starfield had to prove it was the next evolution of that legacy and establish its voice in a saturated science fiction genre.

After nearly five years of anticipation, our launch campaign kicked off in June 2023 with Starfield Direct, an unprecedented gameplay deep dive that revealed the full extent of the game. Tens of millions tuned in across YouTube and Twitch, with many millions more watching replays.

Having pulled in a new audience, we release The Settled Systems, an anthology of animated shorts that introduced gamers to the worlds of Starfield and gave a taste of the audiences and choices that awaited them.

At gamescom Opening Night Live, one of the most watched events in gaming, we debuted a live action film that captured the universal desire to imagine our place among the stars.

As launch day approached, our campaign extended across entertainment, culture, and science through partnerships and our brand visuals were inescapable across paid and earned media globally.

The results were stellar.

We became the most talked about topic globally and soared past every brand metric target including unaided awareness, brand recall, and purchase intent.

At launch, Starfield became Bethesda’s biggest release in its storied history, set a record for the most new Xbox Game Pass subscriptions in a single day, and drove Xbox’s largest Q1 revenue ever.

We celebrated Starfield’s unapologetically optimistic vision of the future, and over 13 million players responded.