Starfield is now available for owners of the Premium edition, already attracting hundreds of thousands of players. Let’s take a look at the game’s early launch numbers and how they compare to other titles from Bethesda.
On September 1, players who pre-ordered the Premium edition got the opportunity to start playing Starfield five days before its full launch. According to SteamDB, it took the game just a couple of hours to peak at 234,502 concurrent users (CCU).
Xbox users can also get early access to Starfield, but it is impossible to check the CCU numbers on the platform.
Of course, we will likely see even more impressive numbers next week, but Starfield’s 234k peak was already enough to secure its place on the list of most played Steam titles of 2023.
Hogwarts Legacy and Baldur’s Gate 3 remain the undisputed leaders this year in terms of peak CCU. Starfield is currently ranked fourth, between Sons of the Forrest and the Resident Evil 4 remake. However, it has every chance to break into the top 3 after its full launch on September 6.
Top 10 Steam games of 2023 by peak concurrent players*:
- Hogwarts Legacy — 879,308 CCU;
- Baldur’s Gate 3 — 875,343 CCU;
- Sons of the Forest — 414,257 CCU (Early Access title);
- Starfield — 234,502 CCU;
- Resident Evil 4 — 168,191 CCU;
- Armored Core VI — 156,171 CCU;
- Remnant II — 110,856 CCU;
- Dave the Diver — 98,480 CCU;
- BattleBit Remastered — 87,323 CCU (Early Access title);
- Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty — 75,906 CCU.
*Excluding free-to-play titles and Tale of Immortal (it launched globally in May 2023, but reached its peak of 184,171 concurrent players three years ago).
Starfield is also already ranked third among all games developed or published by Bethesda, but it may eventually overtake both The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (287,411 peak CCU) and Fallout 4 (472,962). The top 10 also includes DOOM Eternal (104k), Fallout: New Vegas (51k), and TES Online (49k).
Top 10 Bethesda games on Steam by peak concurrent players
Starfield is the first new IP developed by Bethesda in 29 years. The game received positive reviews from critics, with an average score on Metacritic ranging from 87 (Xbox) to 88 (PC). On Opencritic, it has a “Mighty” rating (88/100), with 94% of critics recommending it.
Many journalists called Starfield an ambitious RPG and a true system seller for Xbox, praising its beautiful aesthetics and space exploration. Some critics complained about the bloated open world, plus opinions about the combat system are very divided. However, most reviewers agree that Starfield is the ultimate Bethesda RPG, with all the pros and cons.