Xbox boss Phil Spencer has offered some kind of reassurance to fans that Starfield will hopefully launch in a better state than this week’s Xbox console exclusive, Redfall, claiming that the publisher “did a better job” in terms of assisting on development.
Discussing the development of Redfall on a new episode of the Kinda Funny Xcast, Spencer explained how acquisition of a studio that is mid-way through development of a game – as it did with both Bethesda Game Studios and Arkane Austin, working on Starfield and Redfall respectively – can be a challenge, and that Xbox needs to improve its process.
“When we acquire studios, there are games that are in development, and then there’s things that are either really early in development or not even conceived yet. I think we need to improve in engaging with games that are mid-way through production when they become part of Xbox,” he said.
“We didn’t do a good job early on in engaging Arkane Austin to really help them understand what it meant to be part of Xbox and part of first-party, and use some of our internal resources to help them move along that journey even faster. We left them to work on the game…”
Spencer went on to say that getting in on these collaboration efforts earlier is the key to better success. “But when [Xbox Game Studios head] Matt Booty [and Zenimax president] Jamie Leder sit down, I think we can engage earlier with our different studios. And I do think there’s a difference when we come in when the creative is already set on a game – and that’s not washing our hands, every game we ship from our teams is an Xbox game, so we take full responsibility for it”.
According to Spencer, Xbox “did a better job” with Starfield because the game was “earlier on in production” when Bethesda joined Microsoft. Redfall was further along in development, and so assistance was more difficult.
Nonetheless, Spencer says “We should’ve been there for [Arkane studio director] Harvey [Smith] and the team earlier. I think that’s on us. And then through the process. It’s an Unreal game, we have a bunch of studios that have done some really great work on Unreal over the years, and I think we were too late to help in that when they had certain issues”.
Arkane Austin’s previous games were built in different engines; CryEngine was used for Prey, while the id Tech-based Void Engine was used for Dishonored 2 and its follow-up, Death of the Outsider. As such, Redfall was the team’s first major project in several years to use Unreal-based technology.
Arkane’s Redfall launched earlier this week with a variety of technical bugs and poor creative decisions, something which resulted in a variety of negative reviews including IGN’s own 4/10. For more on Xbox’s reaction to the launch of Redfall, read Phil Spencer’s apology for the release and his promise that improvements will be made.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.