Daily Briefing: Wednesday 10th November

Forza Horizon 5 is Xbox's "biggest ever launch day"

That's according from Xbox main man Phil Spencer who, taking to Twitter to have a bit of a celebration, confirmed that the newest entry from Playground Games is the "largest launch day" in the history of Xbox Game Studios. Spencer also highlighted that the game is currently tracking much more strongly than its predecessor, Forza Horizon 4, thanks to Xbox's ongoing strategy to have players across different devices.

• Spencer wrote that the team have "invested for years in Xbox so more people can play. With 4.5+ million players so far across PC, cloud, and console, Forza Horizon 5 shows that promise coming to light." There's no denying that Forza Horizon 5 really is putting up the numbers, the game only officially launched on November 9th but over a million players were already playing via early access. It was also on Xbox Game Pass on launch day, too, which obviously helped.

Bethesda want to get Elder Scrolls VI "right"

Speaking in a recent interview with IGN, Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard said that he wishes the company could release The Elder Scrolls VI sooner than what is currently planned, but they want to take the time to "get it right." The interview was primarily focused with the tenth anniversary of Skyrim which is happening this week, but conversation inevitably turned to the rather large gulf between mainline entries.

• While Howard admits in the interview that, while the extended wait between Elder Scrolls titles isn't ideal, the enduring popularity of Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls Online means that the franchise has remained "healthy" even through the quiet years. This, in turn, has meant that Bethesda have had the time and the resources to branch out and work on new things, like the upcoming Starfield. Howard said back in June that The Elder Scrolls VI is still in the relatively early planning stages, which suggests that it's likely still a good few years away. Howard thinks it will be worth the wait, though.

Cloud Imperium Games to open new mega studio

The Star Citizen developer announced this week that they plan to open an enormous new studio in Manchester. The new premises is set to open sometime in May 2022 and will rehouse the company's current 400-person team, while a new five year plan will see the team grow to 700 people by 2023, and then 1,000 by 2026.

• This is a huge amount of staff and would easily constitute one of the UK's biggest development studios. As for how Cloud Imperium Games can swing all this extremely expensive evolution, well they have Star Citizen to thank for that. The still-unreleased space sim has amassed over $350m in player funding over the years, while a single-player adventure called Squadron 42 is still apparently in the works. This is some serious growth, though. Cloud Imperium Games currently hire around 700 in offices around the world, but these new plans will see vastly more than that number working in the UK alone.