Bethesda’s new title, Starfield, is currently only available for players who bought the premium edition, but that hasn’t stopped it from being played by over 200,000 concurrent users.
There are more people playing Starfield right now than there are populating the city I live in. That’s not entirely surprising, as it’s one of the most anticipated releases of the year. It’s always a big event when Bethesda drops a new open-world title, whether it’s Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or a new IP like Starfield.
However, for comparison, right now as I write this, last month’s big game, Baldur’s Gate 3, has over 400,000 concurrent players. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, on the other hand, has 1.2 million people on its servers right now. That’s obscene. Does this mean that Starfield isn’t as nova-hot as many expected? No. Right now, a lot of people are waiting for the Xbox Game Pass version to play or were simply unwilling to pony up for the Premium Edition.
I sure as heck wasn’t. I’ve not played the game yet, though I hear it’s fantastic. I’m just not that hyped for it. I probably would be over-jazzed if it was Elder Scrolls or Fallout, but those are universes I’m already well-invested in. I’ve played space exploration games before and still do occasionally. I’ve never thought to myself, “this would be better if it was more like Elder Scrolls.” That’s not to say I don’t think Starfield will be good, or that I’m not at all interested in playing it – I’ll definitely be firing it up once it’s on Game Pass.
What I am saying is that I’m more likely to be found playing the games I’ve pulled out of a dumpster than one that clocks over 200K users at once. In other words, I have no taste.
Starfield will be available for PC and Xbox on September 6, 2023. However, you can be like the 200,000 people playing it right now if you pay for the Premium Edition.
