Starfield is receiving an update even before it has been released

Bethesda has released the first Starfield update more than a week ahead of the release date on September 6th. Players who purchase one of the higher-tier editions of the RPG will benefit from this patch once Starfield becomes available in Early Access on Friday, September 1st.

Historically, Bethesda's AAA games have received over a dozen official patches throughout their lifecycle. The company's last single-player RPG, Fallout 4, received 17 such cross-platform updates, and even more that were specifically for PC. The first update of this kind was released one day prior to the game's official launch. A similarly early patch for Starfield has now been discovered by some players who have pre-loaded the RPG.

The very first update of the game, identified with version number 1.7.23.0, was released on August 28th. The patch weighs 13.4 GB on PC and just under 15.5 GB on Xbox Series X/S. This release does not seem to contribute to the already considerable installation size of Starfield but rather replaces some of the existing files. This update likely includes bug fixes for high-priority issues that the developer had not addressed by mid-August when Starfield was finalized, but this is currently speculative.

The newly introduced update should be automatically downloaded on any system that already contains the Starfield preload version. The first wave of preloads for Xbox Series X/S and the Microsoft Store version of the game started on August 17th, while Steam users can download the Starfield preload version starting from August 30th. Given the timing of this release, it is plausible that the patch serves as a day-one update for the Early Access version of the space RPG. Based on the update histories of other contemporary Bethesda titles such as Fallout 4 and TES: Skyrim - Special Edition, it is likely that another update will follow this pre-release patch in a few days or weeks.

While Bethesda's open-world RPGs have historically struggled with flawed releases that required intensive patching efforts from the Maryland-based developer, Starfield could finally break this unfortunate tradition. Matt Booty, the Head of Xbox Game Studios, has recently hinted at this and promised that Starfield will have the fewest bugs of any game ever developed by Bethesda.

Nevertheless, it is expected that the state of the Starfield day-one version will not have a significant impact on the early adoption rate of the game. After all, most of Bethesda's AAA role-playing games achieved immediate success despite their flawed releases.

Starfield will be released on September 6th for PC and Xbox Series X/S.