The space-based role-playing game Starfield, Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years, was officially released on September 6 and has already become the studio’s biggest game launch ever. Players have praised everything from the graphics and space combat to the feeling of exploration and even Starfield’s refreshing sense of humor in the highly anticipated and long-awaited title.
That allure has attracted players from around the world, a large number of whom got to give the game a shot five days ahead of schedule by buying the Premium or Star grouping Versions. The game had more than 200,000 concurrent Steam users during the early access period. This was especially noteworthy because, in addition to Grand Theft Auto 5 and Baldur’s Gate 3, the other games that ranked high on the list were free-to-play multiplayer games. The momentum continued even after that. A remarkable milestone was reached on launch day when Starfield reached one million concurrent players across all platforms.
Bethesda has now disclosed that Starfield has reached over 6 million players as of September 7, one day after its official launch. As a result, it is the studio’s biggest ever launch. It’s important to remember that Bethesda’s latest RPG, Starfield, is only available on the Xbox One. This means that a lot of people who liked the developer’s previous games can’t play it. Because of this, one has to wonder how much more successful the launch would have been if the game had also been available on PlayStation 5.
When Starfield was first revealed in 2018, gamers on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were understandably thrilled. The game was originally intended for a multiplatform release. However, in November of that year, it was confirmed that the game would be exclusive to Xbox consoles after Microsoft acquired Bethesda in March 2021. Since then, this has been a topic of discussion on social media, with even Sony commenting on Starfield’s Xbox exclusivity. This left a significant portion of the player base feeling excluded.
However, Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard has stated that Starfield was enhanced by Xbox exclusivity, noting that the development team was able to concentrate on optimizing for Xbox Series X/S and PC instead of three platforms. In an interview with the BBC, the executive stated that this “always yields a better product.” It’s likewise not really something terrible for an IP to be related with a solitary stage, said Howard, bringing up that “when you consider Zelda, you consider the Switch.” Similarly, gamers think of Xbox when they think of Halo, and Starfield now plays that role as well.
