Bethesda took headline billing in last night’s Xbox Games Showcase, dedicating 45 minutes to the upcoming space-faring RPG, Starfield.
The game looks as ambitious as you would expect from the team behind Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4. And, as Microsoft now owns the studio, it will be on the company’s all-you-can-play Xbox Game Pass service on day one as part of the monthly subscription fee.
But for those who want to give Bethesda cold, hard cash directly, there are a number of ways to do so. And the most eye-catching of all is the £250 Constellation Edition, which comes with a fully working smartwatch.
“We put so much detail into our game worlds, and we love the opportunity to bring that into the real world with our collectors’ editions,” explained Bethesda director Todd Howard. “And, for this game, we’ve done a watch.”
As Howard explains, it’s not the first time that Bethesda has offered real-world collectables alongside physical copies of its game. In 2015, Fallout 4 arrived with an actual Pip-Boy — which, in the real world, was essentially a wrist-bound phone mount to turn your handset into the world’s clunkiest smartwatch. It cost £99.
For Starfield, it’s the Constellation Explorers watch. “This is the watch that you actually get in the game, that acts as part of your HUD where it’s the compass and then [provides] environmental information,” Howard continued.
“It connects to your phone to give you notifications and other information.”
What this other information might be wasn’t elaborated on, but the clips of the watch appeared to show the time (naturally) and steps on the main watchface. A second screen, captured below, shows metrics for PRESSURE, ACCEL, MAG, and TEMP.
Last year, the existence of a watch — along with its manual — was leaked, which gives a few details of what else you can expect, including flashlight mode.
The manual reveals it is made by The Wand Company, which specialises in prop replicas. Notably, the firm appeared on Dragon’s Den back in 2010, when Duncan Bannatyne offered £200,000 for a 30 per cent share, dropping to 10 per cent if they made £1.2 million — something the company easily managed.
The Constellation Edition also comes with a carry case for your wearable. According to Bethesda, it’s “inspired by the cases that the astronauts used in the Apollo era to bring back samples from the moon”, and should keep your watch safe if you don’t want to wear it day to day.
Alongside the replica timepiece, those purchasing the £250 Constellation Edition will get the Shattered Space story DLC upon release, up to five days’ early access, a skin pack, a digital artbook and soundtrack, a Steelbook case, a Constellation Patch, and a “Credit Stick with Laser-Etched Game Code”.
Starfield is currently scheduled to launch on Wednesday, September 6, but before you get too excited, it’s worth remembering that past projected release dates have been and gone.
It was originally scheduled to arrive last November, and then pushed back to the first half of 2023. Hopefully, it won’t get pushed back any further, and we’ll be exploring Space for ourselves in under three months’ time.
