Bethesda has a track record of waiting and then blowing it out with game play. Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Doom, Doom Eternal, Wolfentstein 2 all followed this cycle.
Yes covid could throw a wrench into things. But it very well could have a short reveal to release launch cycle.
Ya I acknowledged that and I stated I remembered Fallout 4 having a relatively short time between reveal and release. I’m not sure exactly how much time there was in between reveal and release for Fallout 76, Doom, Doom Eternal, and Wolfenstein 2 though. Did they all have just a few months in between reveal and release date?
It just feels very unlikely that a game on the scale of Starfield releases this year with almost every game development seeing the impacts of Covid. I’m sure June will be the time we’ll found out though.
Edit: I did a little digging on those other titles you mentioned and it doesn’t seem like they released so quickly from their reveal as you mentioned. Doom Eternal was first announced at E3 2018 and unveiled at Quakecon 2018, but did not release until March 2020.
The 2016 entry of Doom was actually announced all the way back at Quakecon 2007 and in 2013 Kotaku described it as trapped in “development hell”. Seems like it took a very long time from reveal to actual release for that one. It looks like they scrapped the whole thing and started fresh sometime in 2011 but that is still a very long timeframe.
Wolfenstein 2 was originally revealed at Bethesda’s E3 press conference in 2016, and then was released October 2017, so approximately 16 months from reveal to release there.
Fallout 76 fits your description as it was revealed in May 2018 and then released in November 2018, but lets be honest that game should NOT have released at the date it did considering its myriad of technical issues at launch. It pretty much released in a beta state.