Bethesda’s Starfield shot for the stars but it’s falling down the Steam player ranking fast.
Ever since Starfield was announced in 2018, hype for the role-playing sci-fi game has been immense but as soon as it was released, that excitement seemed to deflate like a balloon.
Despite what Microsoft would’ve been hoping, the Xbox exclusive doesn’t seem to have had a significant effect on console sales, with the Xbox Series X/S coming last in US sales charts in October.
To add insult to injury, more people on Steam are playing Bethesda’s much older game The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim than Starfield. Although in a way, that may hint at a future redemption for the sci-fi game.
Right now, 20,628 people are playing either Skyrim’s original 2011 release or its 2016 Special Edition, while only 16,438 are exploring space in Starfield.
Starfield is currently number 67 in the Steam charts, just above the the 13-year-old Civilization 5. At the same time, contemporary Baldur’s Gate 3 is still in the top 10.
On the first Sunday after launch, the concurrent player record for Starfield was 330,723, which had fallen to just 37,429 by last Sunday.
Starfield was lauded as Bethesda’s biggest launch ever, but it’s telling how quickly interest has dropped since then.
It doesn’t help that Starfield only received one nomination for The Game Awards this year, for best role-playing game, and not for Game of the Year.
These numbers are only accounting for Steam users, not those on Xbox, but as grim a picture as it paints what is really turning off PC users is the lack of official mod support.
Mods are being made but not many, and they usually don’t work that well, but once Bethesda start supporting them properly next year interest in the game is likely to sky rocket on the PC.
That’s what’s kept Skyrim relevant all these years and while it certainly has had a poor start, Starfield’s best years are almost certainly ahead of it.
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MORE : Starfield fans put out their own mod patch to fix Bethesda’s bugs
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MORE : Starfield has become Bethesda’s lowest rated game on Steam
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