Starfield has seen more than 10 million players since it came out on September 1 in paid early access form, Bethesda has announced. The impressive milestone means Starfield remains the biggest launch in Bethesda history after shooting past six million players on September 7.
The sci-fi role-playing game launched on PC and Xbox Series X and S, and day-and-date on Game Pass as perhaps Microsoft’s highest-profile first-party release since 343’s Halo Infinite came out in December 2021.
Neither Microsoft nor Bethesda are yet to announce sales. We do know Starfield hit a peak of 330,723 concurrent players on Steam 10 days ago. Data from SteamDB shows Starfield sitting in 27th place in Steam's all-time list, while Bethesda’s Skyrim is in 31st. Skyrim's record peaked 12 years ago at 287,411, but Starfield fell short of Fallout 4, which sits in 16th place overall with 472,962.
Like-for-like comparisons with Bethesda’s previous games are difficult given the Game Pass effect. According to GamesIndustry, Starfield was the best-selling game across Europe during its launch week, becoming the fastest-selling new intellectual property (IP) of the year, and the fifth fastest-selling game of the year overall.
Its European launch sales are ahead of those of Final Fantasy 16 and Resident Evil 4, but behind Hogwarts Legacy’s, Diablo 4’s, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s. According to GI, Starfield is just ahead of Playground’s Forza Horizon 5 as the biggest Xbox launch this generation across Europe.
IGN’s Starfield review returned a 7/10: "Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist."
IGN has a number of helpful Starfield guides, including best mods, best traits and backgrounds, and best ship build. We’ve also got a list of all Starfield Item IDs.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
