Bethesda’s massive open space scifi RPG Starfield has not broken past the 300K concurrent player record days after the full release. (Images: Bethesda Softworks)

Starfield is struggling to break the 300 thousand concurrent Steam player mark, even days after the full release of the game.

While Starfield saw over a million players in Early Access divided between Steam and Xbox sales, it seems Bethesda's newest baby isn't heating up Steam concurrent player charts. Of that number, the Starfield Early Access saw over 230,000 concurrent players on Steam. Thus, expectations were high that the numbers would increase dramatically after the game officially launched on September 6th. But it appears that is not the case days after that launch date and going into the first weekend of Starfield's release.

According to the data provided by SteamDB, Starfield's peak on its launch date last September 6th was 250,823 concurrent players.

📈 @StarfieldGame has released, and the Steam player count has barely went up compared to early access so far pic.twitter.com/q96IhNTci0

— SteamDB (@SteamDB) September 6, 2023

Since that time, Starfield has reached an all-time peak of 269,177. The number of Twitch viewers has also dropped off from 186,289 during launch to averaging below 100K. Considering the marketing and promotional blitz that Starfield received leading up to its big debut, this apparent lack of interest among the video game community is surprising.

However, it should be noted that this still makes Starfield the third biggest Steam launch for a Bethesda game thus far. Fallout 4 still has the distinction of having the biggest Steam launch, with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim taking the second place. Moreover, it was earlier touted that Starfield is the biggest overall launch for a Bethesda game surpassing 6 million players.

It should be noted that the Steam concurrent player count is only for that platform and not including Starfield's statistics for the Xbox Network and Game Pass. Given that it was reported by Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, that Starfield surpassed 1 million total concurrent players on all platforms, this would likely mean over 700 thousand concurrent players were recorded outside of the Steam numbers.

Assuming this is accurate, it should still be concerning for Bethesda that their biggest new game launch, and the first original IP in 25 years, is running behind other recently successful AAA games. Consulting the SteamDB information charts (as of the time of this writing), Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 is still ahead of Starfield's concurrent player count in terms of peak and average numbers. And yet that game has been out for over a month.

A growing number of players have expressed criticisms that the overall gameplay experience of Starfield is boring. Specific concerns have pointed out the lack of imagination with the procedurally generated planets. Others have mentioned the dull and unmemorable NPCs that populate Starfield's locations and ships.

Could these critical reactions to the features and mechanics of Starfield have contributed to the lack of interest as far as Steam concurrent player numbers? Can Starfield get an upswing with the help of positive word-of-mouth from fans who are enjoying the massive exploration and wide variety of options it offers? Share your thoughts on what the future might bring for Starfield from potential updates and improvements.

About Starfield:

Starfield is the first new universe in over 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey to answer humanity's greatest mystery.

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, Starfield is available on Steam and the Xbox Network and can be played on Windows PCs and Xbox Series X/S platforms.