Starfield Delays Release of Big New Update

Bethesda has delayed the major Starfield update that was supposed to drop on January 17. This turn of events will come as a disappointment to fans who are still waiting for the developer to fix some notable Starfield bugs that persisted following its latest patch.

The newly delayed release was originally announced on January 12. Touted as the biggest Starfield update to date, the patch promised to include over 100 bug fixes and other improvements to the galaxy-hopping RPG. Bethesda's original plan was to release it to Steam users in beta before rolling it out to the Xbox Series X/S and Microsoft Store—i.e., PC Game Pass—versions of the game.

The studio has now delayed its major Starfield update a day ahead of its planned beta debut. Taking to the company's official Discord server, a Bethesda community manager explained that the developer identified a new issue that it wants to address as part of the upcoming patch, hence the postponement. While the official did not elaborate on the nature of the problem, whatever it is cannot be too serious because Bethesda is still aiming to release the game's first 2024 update before the end of the week. The studio also repeated the same promise on Twitter.

Looking at Starfield's version history, all of its updates rolled out during the workweek, predominantly on Monday. In light of Bethesda's latest status update, it would appear that fans can count on the upcoming patch to roll out no later than Friday, January 19, because pushing out such a release over the weekend would be an unprecedented move for the company. All of the past Starfield updates spent around ten days in beta before rolling out to everyone, suggesting that the now-postponed patch is still on course to hit the stable channel by late January.

Version

Date (2023)

Day

1.7.23

August 30

Wednesday

1.7.29

September 13

Wednesday

1.7.33

September 25

Monday

1.7.36

October 9

Monday

1.8.86

November 20

Monday

1.8.88

December 11

Monday

This minor delay should not meaningfully affect Starfield's 2024