Gamers will forever remember the month of September as when Starfield launched. With the imminent release of the Bethesda title just around the corner, a number of players have already begun their journey across the stars, and the numbers registered so far are nothing short of astounding.
Eager gamers who bought the Premium Edition or the Constellation Edition were granted a 5-day head start with an early access code. This enabled them to embark on their interstellar adventure starting on August 31.
What’s surprising is that a couple of hours after the game’s launch, Starfield skyrocketed to an impressive peak of 234,502 concurrent players, as reported by SteamDB. This remarkable achievement now places the new Bethesda IP as the sixth-highest game in terms of concurrent player count within a 24-hour span.
Before you shrug off this impressive milestone, you’d do well to remember that the game has yet to officially launch. Only players who forked out at least $100 have had the exclusive opportunity to start their galactic voyage well ahead of Game Pass subscribers and Xbox users. Additionally, if we factor in the Game Pass subscribers who paid the $34.99 asking fee for the Premium Edition to access it early, there’s a good chance that this figure is much higher.
To truly underline the magnitude of this accomplishment, let’s take a look at the previous Bethesda titles. In terms of peak player counts, Starfield firmly holds the third spot (with just early access), trailing only behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with 287,411 concurrent players and Fallout 4 with 472,962 concurrent players.
When compared to games released in 2023, only Hogwarts Legacy and Baldur’s Gate 3 outperform Starfield, boasting 873,308 and 875,343 concurrent players, respectively. The race for the coveted Game of the Year award is bound to be fiercely competitive, and though Starfield might not emerge victorious, it is now poised to give Baldur’s Gate 3 a run for its money on Steam once it’s released.
At the time of writing, there are 198,367 concurrent players on Starfield, a statistic we can now monitor thanks to an anonymous person gifting SteamDB’s bot the premium edition of the game.
Starfield will officially launch on September 6 (or September 5, depending on your region).
If you’ve already commenced your campaign, you can check out our guide on how to use fast travel to rapidly move between planets and star systems.
