To celebrate the imminent launch of Bethesda Game Studios latest RPG, Starfield, Bethesda and Microsoft brought a little bit of the Starfield universe to London by taking over the Samsung KX showroom / event space in King’s Cross and the Microsoft Experience Centre (formerly the London Microsoft Store) in London’s famous Regent Street. While players who have purchased the Starfield premium edition have been able to play the game since September 1st, the actual launch date is still September 6th for the standard edition and Xbox Game Pass. Both events were giving players a chance to get an early look at the full game, with multiple stations set up to play through as much as you can (some staff members mentioned there’s a 90 minute time limit but if it’s not very busy people could play even longer).

The Samsung KX event was modelled after the United Colonies faction, with a nice, clean layout and also had a life size statue of Vasco, your robotic companion from the game. Players at the Samsung KX event could also recieve some free goodies in addition to trying out the game, in the form of an exclusive Starfield lanyard, a Starfield T-shirt and if you have a recent Samsung phone, a Starfield Phone case.

If the United Colonies were to present peace and order, the space pirate faction, the Crimson Fleet would be the opposite and that was reflected in the extensive redesign of the Xbox area in the Microsoft Experience Centre for this event. Representing the Crimson Fleet, the Microsoft Experience Centre event reimagined the store as a run down spaceship with plenty of weathering and random debris as set dressing, setting the mood nicely. While the demo stations at the Samsung Experience Centre event were possibly running on PC (I couldn’t get a solid confirmation while there). The Microsoft Experience Centre event had the stations running on Xbox Series X consoles.

With big launch events having become less of a regular occurrence in recent years (during the lockdown and event a bit before that), it’s nice that there are still some events like this to celebrate new game launches in an interesting way.

Starfield releases on Xbox Series X|S , PC (Windows Store & Steam) and Xbox Game Pass on September 6th 2023.