We shouldn’t be surprised to see that Starfield’s player count is already ridiculously high, just hours after the game hit early access.

Starfield is the first major game from Bethesda Game Studios since Fallout 76 back in 2018, and it’s the first new IP from the studio in 29 years. There’s good reason for fans to be excited.

What’s more, the game has been reviewed extremely well, currently boasting a score of 88/100 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic.

But to say that Bethesda’s new release is a success would likely be an understatement, as Starfield’s player count is hitting major figures only hours after the release of early access.

How Many Players Does Starfield Have?

Starfield’s player count is already enormous, with over 230,000 concurrent players jumping into the game on Steam within hours of early access’ launch.

That’s not counting what is likely the majority of players on Xbox, or those users using the Xbox app for PC.

Starfield Player Count on Steam
Credit: SteamDB

After all, although Starfield early access isn’t available on Game Pass outright, a subscriber that purchases the Premium Edition Upgrade ($34.99) can start playing right now, without having to shell out the full $99.99.

Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn’t give us a way to track total player figures on Xbox platforms. However, going by the number of players on Steam alone, we’re likely in for an enormous launch.

What’s interesting, is that Steam also showed just over 230,000 people played Skyrim concurrently on its first day of release. Could this mean that Starfield is to see similar success to the Elder Scrolls title?

The player's ship doing a grav jump in Starfield

Back in 2011, Bethesda sold over 3.4 million physical copies of Skyrim in just two days, with 7 million shipped by the end of the first week. In December 2011, over 10 million units were shipped, and by June 2023 the game has sold over 60 million units.

It remains to be seen just how high Starfield’s player count will get, but in this age of digital downloads, the title is certainly easier to obtain than Skyrim was at launch.

On the other hand, thanks to Game Pass, Starfield’s sales may not ever reach anything close to Skyrim’s levels – but its player count could surpass it quite handily.