There seems to be some kind of a rift between Bethesda and Eurogamer over Starfield review copies. Today Eurogamer posted on its site explaining why its Starfield review will be late in coming.
The reason according to the post in because Bethesda has not seen fit to send Eurogamer a review copy of its upcoming open world(s) sci-fi RPG. While publishers obviously don’t send out review copies to every gaming media outlet, Reedpop-owned Eurogamer is certainly one of the bigger gaming sites out there.
The post goes on to state that while a review code was provided for Digital Foundry (which is hosted by Eurogamer), Bethesda explicitly instructed that “no other parts of Eurogamer were granted access.” A request which the post author and Eurogamer editor-in-chief called “unprecedented,” adding,
Late-arriving review copies are not uncommon, but access this far behind so many other outlets is extremely unusual – particularly for a game of Starfield’s promience (sic).
Indeed, Bethesda seems to have taken a hard line with Starfield pre-release coverage. Only yesterday we reported that the YouTube who leaked the first 45 minutes of the game had been arrested after allegedly trying to sell bootleg Starfield copies. Additionally, Twitch streamer Tyler McVicker seems to have had his early Starfield access revoked after sharing positive impressions of the game.
Could the Eurogamer situation be a consequence of some past embargo violation? It seems unclear at this point, though there doesn’t seem to be any such incidence in recent memory. Concluding the article the author says,
It has, thankfully, been a very long time since Eurogamer was impacted by a similar situation, and cases such as this are very rare across the industry. We look forward to playing Starfield and providing the quality and breadth of coverage you expect and deserve.
Featured image via IGN.
