As Fallout (the TV show) continues to rack up millions of views on the digital charts with nothing to offer gamers but a disappointing “next gen” patch — Bethesda is out here still putting time and money into Starfield.
I guess I sort of get it. They were clearly hoping that the game would become a third pillar to stand alongside the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises. They sank almost a decade into its development and had all this pedigree and sales success behind them. What could go wrong, right?
Well, for a whole variety of reasons, Starfield captivated a decent-sized audience at launch and then lost most of them. As of the second I’m writing this on a random Monday afternoon, it has 6,133 concurrent Steam players. That’s not the worst until you look at Bethesda’s other games. Fallout 4 is up at an astounding 101,800. The initially-beleaguered Fallout 76 is still going strong from the new popularity wave at 40,100. Even the ancient and endlessly re-released Skyrim is sitting at a cool 18,208.
Steam numbers aren’t everything, and many of Starfield’s users might be on Xbox or Game Pass, but the Steam ecosystem is broad enough to more than adequately serve as a representative sample of the whims of the gaming community.
