Starfield, Bethesda’s first big RPG since 2015’s Fallout 4, is less than two weeks from release, and chatter about the game is quickly reaching critical mass. Not all of it is positive, however, as designer Mark Kern, best known for his significant contributions to Blizzard classics like World of Warcraft and StarCraft, recently took to social media to deride, of all things, Starfield’s title screen.
Kern called out the minimalist title screen as “hasty,” describing it as a symptom of either an overworked team or one that simply didn’t care. Although Bethesda’s start menus have historically been similarly sparse—Skyrim’s, for instance, consists of little more than the game’s logo and a set of options—Kern dug in his heels all the same, describing detractors as “triggered” and decrying the old adage “never judge a book by its cover” as a “huge myth.”
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Almost immediately, the thread went viral, racking up more than six million views at the time of writing. It didn’t take long for Bethesda’s head of publishing, Pete Hines—who has always been willing to engage with things people are saying about his company, for better or worse—to chime in. He defended the title screen as one of the very first things that was finalized during Starfield’s long development and called Kern’s behavior unprofessional.
Ultimately, the title screen of what promises to be one of the biggest RPGs in recent memory seems an odd thing to fixate on, especially given that Bethesda’s last 20 years of title screens have followed the exact same minimalist trend. Kern certainly wasn’t making snide comments about Skyrim’s title screen when it became one of the most massive games of the 2010s—clearly, something is being done right, even if Starfield’s title screen lacks the grandeur and intricate detail of, say, Baldur’s Gate 3’s.
