Twitter’s already bickering about a game that isn’t out yet. And it’s not just fans: it’s involving higher-ups and professionals.

Former World of Warcraft director Mark Kern tweeted a screenshot of the Starfield title screen on Saturday (which is somehow leaked) and suggested that not enough time has been spent on it.

“The start screen of a game can reveal a lot about how rushed the team was and how much pride they took in their work.

Start screens are often done at the very end of development. Teams are too busy making the core game. It’s quite common for the start screen to change completely once the game is shipping or on patch 0. Teams that take pride want to put a good face forward and will often redo these just prior to the game going live.”

The physiognomy of start screens.

The start screen of a game can reveal a lot about how rushed the team was and how much pride they took in their work.

Starfield's start screen either shows hasty shipping deadlines by a passionate team overworked, or a team that didn't care. pic.twitter.com/Ok4gzQ3DVo

— Grummz (@Grummz) August 19, 2023

This philosophy drew ire from many, including Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines. He refutes Kern’s suggestion.

“Or they designed what they wanted and that’s been our menu for years and was one of the first things we settled on.

Having an opinion is one thing. Questioning out a developer’s “care” because you would have done it different is highly unprofessional coming from another ‘dev’.”

Or they designed what they wanted and that’s been our menu for years and was one of the first things we settled on.

Having an opinion is one thing. Questioning out a developer’s “care” because you would have done it different is highly unprofessional coming from another “dev”

— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) August 20, 2023

Guess we’ll have to wait until 1st September to see if the game holds up to the hype. Stay tuned for our review until then. Starfield will be out for Xbox consoles and PC on 6 September. You can preload the game now for Xbox; you can only preload the PC version on 30 August though.