Starfield fans despair after it's a complete no-show at the Xbox Games Showcase: 'This game is done'

An awful lot of games turned up during today's big Xbox Games Showcase, but one game did not, and its absence has fans pretty unhappy. Yes, I'm talking about Starfield, whose complete lack of visibility at the event did not go unnoticed—or unmourned—by the community.

It did not take long for things to go south.

"Well... this game is done," one thread in the Starfield subreddit moans, and while the original post was quickly deleted by s, it attracted hundreds of upvotes and replies before it was gone.

And there are others, like "What a complete disappointment," and "I had so much hope for today's Xbox show, but no," which remain intact, perhaps reflecting the mods' surrender to on-the-ground reality: The people are bummed, and they seek commiseration.

"I've never been more disappointed in a showcase before," one redditor wrote. "Whoever is in charge of communication at Bethesda needs to get their shit together because this ain't it. They made a statement about having 'lots of exciting things planned' so to show absolutely nothing at all during the one event it would make the most sense to do it is just a slap in the face."

"I am a huge Starfield fan and hearing nothing at the event just confirms to me that the game is actually abandoned," another contributed. "I've basically lost all hope at this point."

"Oh but THANK THE HEAVENS I can fish in Fallout 76 and have a pet cat in ESO! It’s what we’ve all been waiting for!" a third wrote in what I'm guessing is a not-entirely-sincere expression of enthusiasm.

There is some pushback against the doom and gloom from fans who point out that Bethesda just released an update for Starfield in May—albeit not much of one—or, more optimistically, that it may have something big in the works that it doesn't want buried by other games. But that's not washing with everyone.

"It’s complete disrespect to their fans," Fun-Distribution4776 wrote. "They promised monthly updates, then backed away from that without a word. They knew we expected news at this event, and made no effort to tamp down those expectations."

In retrospect, the letdown shouldn't really come as a surprise. Ahead of the Xbox Games Showcase, Starfield fans were getting themselves hyped up for a possible announcement of new DLC: One especially optimistic redditor took it as a good sign that they were receiving marketing emails about the showcase from Bethesda, leading others to express their own hopes for more Shattered Space-style expansions.

To be fair to Starfield fans, they're in a tough spot. Player numbers on Starfield are nowhere near where anyone expected them to be—concurrent player counts on Steam are just a fraction of the numbers on older games like Skyrim and Fallout 4—which has the community on edge to start with; coupled with underwhelming updates and a relative lack of communication from Bethesda, you can understand why some people would consider today's event a make-or-break opportunity—and that the complete lack of even an acknowledgement of the game's existence represents an absolute break.

"Bethesda’s silence and lack of community engagement has been insulting to the fanbase," redditor Algorhythm74 wrote. "Whether they have or haven’t given up on the game—they are signalling they don’t care if we know or care. And that sucks."