Starfield was a big hit when it launched in September, but two months later, its popularity is already slipping on Steam. The new game now has fewer active players on that platform than Skyrim: Special Edition.
Starfield has fewer players than Skyrim: Special Edition
The website SteamCharts collects data on the active players in Steam games. This includes Betheda’s Starfield, which had an all-time peak of 330,597 on September 9, the Saturday after its release. However, while there were a few spikes on the following weekends, the game experienced a steady decline in player numbers. Last weekend’s peak was only 37,379 on Sunday. Meanwhile, Starfield’s average concurrent players fell from about 145,883 in September to 29,242 in November. That is a decline of 80% in just over two months.
By comparison, Skyrim Special: Edition, which includes the Anniversary Edition, recorded 33,500 concurrent players during peak hours on Sunday. The 2011 version of Skyrim had about 3,537 players at that time, for a total of 37,037. As of this writing on Wednesday, November 15, Starfield has about 20,665 active players. Meanwhile, Skyrim SE has 21,279 active players, or about 24,008 for both versions combined.
Granted, that’s not a huge gap, and Skyrim: SE’s average monthly players are still below Starfield’s. However, Skyrim gained players since Starfield’s release, while Starfield is losing them rapidly. Furthermore, Skyrim benefits from a pre-existing player base and over a decade of fan-made content. Meanwhile, many developers would kill for their games to be almost as popular as Skyrim. Still, an 80% drop is a bad sign for a game that Bethesda hoped would rival Skyrim’s longevity.
