If you've been online this week, you've probably seen the discourse heating up around one game that spent two and a half years locked to Xbox and PC: Starfield. According to a report published today by French gaming outlet Dealabs, Bethesda's sprawling sci-fi RPG is set to launch on PlayStation 5 on April 7, 2026, with pre-orders expected to open as early as March 17 or 18. Kotaku, IGN, and GameSpot have all corroborated the report.
The leaker behind the Dealabs post, billbil-kun, has a well-documented track record of accurately reporting PlayStation Plus game lineups and release dates ahead of official announcements, lending the report significant credibility. Bethesda and Microsoft have not yet issued an official statement, but Dealabs says the pre-order window is imminent, suggesting a formal reveal is close.
Cheaper than the Xbox launch
One detail that stands out is the pricing. According to Dealabs, the PS5 Standard Edition will cost €49.99 / £44.99, with the Premium Edition going for €69.99 / £59.99. That is a meaningful discount compared to what Xbox players paid at launch in 2023: as IGN reports, the Standard Edition currently sits at £59.99 on Steam and the Premium Edition at £85.99. The reduction is said to be as much as €40 on some editions compared to original Xbox pricing.
For Australian players, no local pricing has been confirmed yet, but if European pricing is any guide, expect the Standard Edition to land somewhere around the AU$90-100 mark, assuming typical regional conversion rates. Bethesda has form with price reductions on older titles, and the lower entry point makes sense for a game that arrived to mixed reviews nearly three years ago.
Both a digital and a physical edition are confirmed for Europe. Interestingly, the Premium Edition on PS5 will reportedly not include early access, which billbil-kun suggests could point to a shadow-drop style release or simply reflects that early access is pointless for a game already widely available elsewhere.
What to expect from the game itself
The PS5 announcement is expected to coincide with a significant content update for Starfield. Bethesda game director Todd Howard has confirmed the studio is working on a major update, though he has been careful to manage expectations. As reported by IGN, Howard told Kinda Funny: "if Starfield is something that didn't connect with you right away, or you bounced off it, or found it boring in places, I don't think this is going to change that fundamentally."
That is a notable admission. Starfield launched in September 2023 as Bethesda's first new IP in 25 years, reaching 15 million players but drawing criticism for its procedurally generated planets and the poor reception of the Shattered Space expansion, which carries a 'mostly negative' user score on Steam, according to IGN. The community response to the update's scope has been, predictably, split: some fans are excited for any new content, while others feel the game's structural problems require more than a patch to fix.
Xbox's ongoing platform shift
This move fits a clear pattern from Microsoft. Since acquiring Bethesda in 2021, Microsoft has progressively brought its catalogue to PlayStation. Titles like the Oblivion Remaster have already made the leap, and GameSpot notes that Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition recently launched on Nintendo Switch 2 as well. The Starfield PS5 port was long rumoured; at this point it reads more as confirmation of a strategy than a surprise.
As for a Switch 2 port of Starfield, that appears to be off the table for now. Both GameSpot and The Gamer report that the Switch 2 version has been indefinitely delayed and may not release at all, a sharp contrast to the robust support Bethesda has otherwise shown for Nintendo's platform.
Let's be real: the arrival of Starfield on PS5 is less a triumph for the game and more a signal of just how much the console exclusivity model has changed. For Australian gamers, the catch is that no local pricing or release details are confirmed, and Bethesda's track record on AU pricing can be uneven. Keep an eye on the expected mid-March announcement window for the full picture. If the pre-orders land as Dealabs predicts, there will not be long to wait.