- Starfield was the biggest Xbox title released last year.
- Many believed it would come with a lot of longevity, but the game has lost 97% of Steam players in six months.
- Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 have more players than Starfield on the platform.
Many have forgotten Starfield amid popular new releases like Helldivers 2 and Palworld. This title was Xbox’s biggest first-party release of 2022, and while it ended up being a mixed bag for many, Bethesda’s latest RPG showed a lot of promise.
Over 13 million players and several positive reviews were just a few of Starfield’s accolades in 2023. However, six months later, the game has lost its player base surprisingly quickly.
Why it matters: A game like Baldur’s Gate 3 still has over 100K concurrent players each day, making these numbers quite shocking.
SteamDB shows that the game’s players are down by 97% on the platform. Starfield has around 12K players at the time of writing, but this concurrent peak is higher due to the weekend.
The game typically stays between 7K and 8K players on weekdays. Needless to say, this is a major drop-off from the all-time concurrent peak of 330K players on the PC platform alone.
This is not the result the studio hoped for since the developers promised that the RPG would be supported for many years, making it another Bethesda release with plenty of longevity.
Comparing the game to Skyrim shows how much it has underperformed. At the time of writing, Skyrim has roughly 3x as many players on Steam, showing that Starfield failed to hit the mark Xbox and Bethesda aimed for.
Even a game like Fallout 4 has more active players on Steam. Fallout 76 also lands close to Starfield’s player count on the platform.
Considering Bethesda still has a team of 250 developers supporting this game with post-launch content and patches, it may show improvement over time. However, current trends are not very positive.
In the wake of shifting perceptions, the game’s Steam reviews have also dropped to a mixed rating. On a more positive note, Bethesda continues to release updates, launching the biggest update last month.
We hope to see the title eventually recovering from this position. Since it beat out Baldur’s Gate 3 as the most-played RPG of 2023, the game is not to be taken lightly. With enough attention and the right changes, Starfield could still make a comeback.
Recent rumors also suggested that Xbox may be planning a PlayStation release for this exclusive. Therefore, it remains to be seen what the future holds for Bethesda’s first new IP in many years.
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