Starfield is Bethesda’s Biggest Launch Ever, Surpassing 6 Million Players

It looks like Bethesda Game Studios’ latest release, Starfield, is a hit. According to the developer, over 6 million people have played the game across PC and Xbox consoles.

The game’s full launch only took place on September 6, 2023 (with a 5-day early access period for pre-orders of the pricey Premium Edition), making it a remarkable success, even for Bethesda. A post on the official Starfield Twitter account thanked the players that decided to buy and try out the game.

The massive number of players also cements Starfield as the biggest-ever launch by Bethesda Game Studios, a considerable achievement considering the developer also counts world-famous titles like Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Oblivion in its oeuvre.

It should be noted that the figure of 6 million players shouldn’t be equated to 6 million sales. Starfield was also a day-and-date release on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription service, meaning that any player with a subscription to Game Pass on Xbox, PC, or both platforms (via the Ultimate tier) would have access to the game and be able to play it like any other title in their library.

No doubt Starfield had considerable sales overall, since physical and Steam editions of the game require a full purchase, as do any attempts to play the game without a Game Pass subscription, but the real number of discrete purchases likely does not match the total count.

Starfield
Starfield courtesy Bethesda.

How Many Concurrent Players Does Starfield Have?

The 6 million player figure cited above also doesn’t reflect how many people are playing the game at the moment. For that we’re looking for “concurrent” player numbers.

Xbox head Phil Spencer was quick to trumpet that number, though, tweeting that as of launch day on September 6, 2023, “over 1 million” concurrent players were recorded across all platforms.

That means that as many as a million discrete players were playing the game at the same time (with likely more who happened to be playing offline, as Starfield does not require an always-on internet connection).

Starfield is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

Further Reading

Ready to head for the stars in Starfield? RPG Informer has a full slate of guides, features, news, and coverage of Starfield, as well as other RPGs big and small. Stay with the site to get all the updates.

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