The player count for Starfield has now surpassed more than 12 million players since the game’s launch on September 6, 2023. This is according to Xbox CEO Phil Spencer who recently announced the metric at CCXP23. That might come as a surprise to some after reports noted that Starfield “could be in trouble” due to its decreasing concurrent player count. But there’s one thing to remember in the face of these reports. Starfield is a single-player game. A massive one, sure. But a single-player game nonetheless. And nearly three months after launch, it’s safe to say that a decent portion of players have moved on to other games.
Other factors are surely at play here. For players that have moved on, it’s likely that they’ve already beaten Starfield’s main campaign and wish to play something new. There are a lot of excellent games that have come out this year, after all. It’s also possible that players simply need a break even if they haven’t finished everything they plan to do in Starfield’s expansive universe. That’s understandable. Starfield has a campaign that lasts for upwards of 40 hours for one single playthrough. Once you’ve accomplished this feat, you can jump into the new game+ mode to continue leveling, take on new quests, and acquire new gear.
On top of all that, there are 10 levels of new game+ and each one offers new unlockables that weren’t available in the previous tier. So, yeah. There’s a lot to do and it can feel a little overwhelming at times. Naturally, players might need to step away from time to time and come back. While it’s unclear if this is what players have done, I’d bet a large portion of players have done just that.
Starfield is a tremendous hit following a 12 million+ player count
Spencer unsurprisingly didn’t mention everything about Starfield’s metrics. For instance, IGN notes that he doesn’t mention how much money the game has made from sales or how many people play via purchased PC and Xbox copies vs Xbox Game Pass subscription access.
What Spencer does mention is that the game has had plenty of success since its launch. “Starfield has now had over 12 million players since the launch of Starfield,” Spencer says. He also notes that Starfield has made it into the list of top 10 most-played games from titles that were developed and published by first-party studios.
Spencer wants people to play Starfield for the next 10 years
It’s no secret Bethesda’s games have a huge cult following. Starfield is really no different. And Spencer wants to tap into that player loyalty that people have had for hits like Skyrim. Which to this day still has people playing it with new mods and experiencing new adventures.
According to Spencer, he wants Starfield to be the next game that has players diving in for the next 10-year haul. To do that of course, the game will eventually need some new content. Even if the multitude of new game+ tiers can offer up new interactions. The good news is that Starfield will have new content. Bethesda has confirmed at least one DLC for the game and Spencer confirmed during CCXP23 that more content is coming.
While not DLC, Starfield has received numerous updates to improve the game with new features and bug fixes. Just a couple of weeks ago it finally received support for NVIDIA’s DLSS. So if you use a PC that has an NVIDIA RTX graphics card in it, you can now take advantage of those improvements. Of course, you could also just play the game via GeForce NOW if you don’t have a high-powered PC.