Starfield has been out for just three years, and players are already talking about a sequel. But former Bethesda Lead Systems Designer Kurt Kuhlmann just threw a bucket of cold water on those hopes. In an interview with FRVR, he said he’d be “very surprised” to see Starfield 2, and more bluntly stated that Starfield was “nowhere near successful enough to justify Starfield 2”.
It’s Not Saying the Game Lost Money — Bethesda’s Sequel Threshold is Just That High!
This doesn’t mean Starfield was a commercial failure. Bethesda stated in July 2026 that Starfield has accumulated over 17 million players with nearly 1 billion hours played, and remains part of the company’s future plans. The issue is that Bethesda’s previous titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4 were phenomenon-level successes, meaning sequels receive massive investment — the standard isn’t just “it made money.” Kuhlmann was sharing his personal judgment on whether investing years into a sequel is worth it, not revealing any official sales figures.
Could Starfield 2 Get Closer to Todd Howard’s Original Vision?
Kuhlmann isn’t simply dismissing Starfield — in fact, he believes if a second installment ever happens, the experience gained from the first game could help Bethesda create something closer to Todd Howard’s original vision. He stated that Starfield 2 could theoretically learn from the first game’s lessons and deliver the space RPG players “can imagine.” However, he believes there’s currently no possibility of Bethesda launching a sequel. In other words, the saddest part isn’t “it wasn’t good enough to make” — it’s that he thinks the first game may not have earned enough goodwill for a sequel to happen.
Bethesda Currently Has a Lineup of Major Titles
Bethesda’s current development schedule also makes Starfield 2 look less likely to make the priority list. The company has publicly stated Starfield will continue receiving content, while The Elder Scrolls 6 remains a core project, and the Fallout series continues to receive attention. To make matters worse, Bethesda’s large-scale RPGs require very long development cycles. Under these circumstances, allocating another team to work on a Starfield sequel would definitely run into resource and time constraints. At least for now, Bethesda hasn’t officially announced Starfield 2.