Starfield is one of the biggest game developed by Bethesda in years. However, neither it’s getting good reviews on Steam, nor do gamers seem to be playing it.
Starfield was one of the most wanted game a from the time it was announced by Bethesda. Despite being delayed many times, people eagerly waited for its release.
However, when it got released, it got rather mediocre reviews from the critics. It currently has just 83 points on Metacritic – relatively lesser than other Bethesda games like Skyrim and Fallout 4. The user score is even lesser, at 6.9 out of 10.
Metacritic isn’t alone in this. On Steam, it’s even worse for the game. Steam is continuously getting bad reviews for Starfield. Currently, Starfield has just 62% good reviews overall on Steam. Recent reviews stand at just 40%.
Most complained about how empty the game feels. It’s vast but shallow. Making it not enjoyable for the players. For example, there are many complaints that the planets in the game feel completely empty.
If that is not enough, then the officials from Bethesda have blamed the gamers rather than the game. Saying that planets are meant to be empty. Suggesting that players should have fun on empty planets.
All this doesn’t seem to go well with the players, it seems. The numbers prove it.
Less than 10,000 players
As per SteamDB, Starfield these days is getting less than 10,000 players per day. Which is way lesser than the peak of 330,723 players it had on a single day, which just four days after its release.
While it’s understood that single player games do not continue to get high amount of players months after their release. It’s also expected that the number of players for a single player game do decrease over time. However, the amount of decrease of players that Starfield has seen is massive.
Compare that to Baldur’s Gate 3, which has 133,749 peak daily players currently. Even a 9-year game, Grand Theft Auto V gets 142,262 peak daily players. Likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 too, which was released 4 years ago, gets a peak of almost 35,000 peak players daily.
Forget about other developers. Bethesda’s own games, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition gets near 26,000 thousand peak players every day. Even Fallout 4 is getting 17,500 peak players per day.
Point being, single player games do get some amount of players even years after their release. This should especially be the case for big games. However, Starfield isn’t able to attract players.
Conclusion
It’s not that Bethesda isn’t doing anything to improve Starfield. It’s releasing update after update for the game. Players are reporting how the game looks better and even performs better.
Today it was announced that Starfield is getting FSR 3 support in the Beta version of the game, something that gamers were asking from months now after DLSS was added. Though we don’t know when the FSR 3 will come out of Beta and get available in the release version.
Having said, despite all the improvements, not many are playing the game on Steam. Yes, it’s possible that it’s being played on subscription on Xbox for PC. But those numbers are usually not that high.
So it’s quite possible that Bethesda isn’t doing enough to convince the gamers. Maybe it needs to improve the gameplay further to make sure planets and game itself doesn’t feel empty.
Many games in the past have improved themselves after a bad launch. There’s no reason it cannot happen to Starfield. But, Bethesda needs to better to improve the game and bring back the gamers playing it. Maybe a massive update with a complete overhaul in the game too can help it a lot.
