Earlier this week, Ghostwire: Tokyo and The Evil Within developer Tango Gameworks managed to surprise everyone that tuned into the joint Xbox + Bethesda Developer Direct showcase. Not only did it announce Hi-Fi Rush, a game unlike anything it's ever made before, it also shadow dropped the title, making it available to play as soon as the show ended. It was a shock to pretty much everyone, apart from an insider going by the name of Horns that called the announcement and surprise release before the show even started.

Bouyed by the accurate information they received, Horns has made another claim, although this one is a lot less exciting (thanks Game Revolution). According to Horns, two of Xbox's heavy-hitters for 2023 are in pretty rough shape at the moment, those being Redfall and Starfield. They claim that both titles allegedly need more time in development than they're already getting, yet Microsoft is rushing both titles to try and mitigate the losses its suffered from its Azure cloud division.

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Horns states that Bethesda is asking Microsoft for more time with Starfield, although its unknown whether it's going to get it. Apparently, if Bethesda announces a June release date for Starfield, then Microsoft has rushed the studio into releasing the title and it will come out pretty rough. If we get a release date for some time this Fall, it means Bethesda succeeded in getting more time, although it sounds like the game might be rough no matter the case. They also claims that Diablo 4 is in a similar state, and the release date of June 6 is "questionable" at best.

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"Redfall is coming first and is in rough shape still, and probably should use more quality control, but it's still in better shape than Starfield," says Horns. "Bethesda wants more time with Starfield and if they get their way Starfield will come in the Fall 2023. If MS get their way it comes out in this fiscal year. If Starfield comes in June expect it to be in rough shape."

While we don't know the release date of Starfield, we did get one for Redfall during the showcase. Before it was announced that Redfall will be launching on May 2, it was reported that the game had been internally delayed, suggesting there might be some issues behind the scenes. Both Starfield and Redfall have already been publicly delayed once, which does support the theory that development isn't going as planned.

Both titles are hugely anticipated and both will need to stand out to help Xbox gain the same pedigree that both PlayStation and Nintendo already enjoy when it comes to their exclusives. Microsoft rushing both of them out and them being in rough shape wouldn't be too surprising if that were to happen, especially given Bethesda's track record of rocky launches. All we can do is wait and see, but fingers crossed the developers behind both aren't being forced to crunch in any way and get plenty of time to make sure they're respective projects release in the state they want them to be in.

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