At Over 6 Million Players, Starfield Is Bethesda’s Biggest Launch Ever

08.09.2023 - 10:11 / gameranx.com / Phil Spencer

Bethesda has recently revealed some new metrics for their latest release, Starfield, that’s taken the company to the moon.

The company revealed on the official Starfield Twitter account that they have now reached over 6 million players. In their words:

“As of this morning, #Starfield has already surpassed 6 million players, making it the biggest Bethesda game launch of all time.”

Dexerto helped us put context on this with Bethesda’s other heavy hitters. The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, which launched in 2011, sold 3.4 million units in two days of its release. Fallout 4, on the other hand, released in 2015, and sold 5.2 million units in its first week.

To recap on Starfield’s own performance, the game had reached a peak of 245,000 concurrent players on Steam before the official launch, while it was on Early Access the week before. A company called PlayTracker estimated that after the launch, Starfield had as many as 1 million players each on Steam and on Xbox (they included Xbox account users on PC and Xbox console owners).

And right before this announcement, Phil Spencer revealed that Starfield had reached a peak of one million concurrent players, across all platforms.

As Dexerto had pointed out, those numbers were likely raised up by gamers who had Game Pass, and would be able to play the game on launch day without paying any additional amount. Bethesda’s prior performance to this, however, suggested that the company could have matched or gotten close to this number even If the game was not on Game Pass.

In any case, it stands as a significant landmark for the company. It highlights that Starfield has the potential to be as big or bigger as its prior games.

Of course, it’s good news for Microsoft too. We don’t have the exact numbers but there are plenty of gamers offhand who have revealed that they or their friends bought and Xbox Series X|S console for the purpose of playing Starfield.

Notably, Starfield can be purchased on Steam, outside of the Xbox ecosystem. The fact that gamers are buying consoles anyway is an indication that it has done its job of selling Xboxes, and the Xbox ecosystem, to people who still aren’t Xbox customers.

That system seller title will still have to be tested in the coming months. If Starfield has the staying power to be a selling point for Xbox, it will be remembered as the game that sold the Xbox Series X|S.

As of this morning, #Starfield has already surpassed 6 million players, making it the biggest Bethesda game launch of all time. pic.twitter.com/4yZa1lAYjW