Bethesda’s Starfield did reach heights upon its release but fell drastically as it entered 2024. The space exploration game isn’t as large as Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky, but it does justice to open-world games with regards to vastness. At the same time, it also failed to hook players. Many have expressed that the real fun in the game begins after the 12-hour mark.
Perhaps that is why its once jammed servers are craving more players now, which is why they have turned their backs. Gaming database SteamDB sets forth the game’s user decline with just over 6K of them playing the game at press time. Just five months ago, it was user-packed, with over 330K players enjoying it.
Starfield is Not the Only One with Barren Lands
No Man’s Sky has worse statistics, with only 4.5 users playing currently. It peaked at 212K users eight years ago, around its release. This is why tech giant Microsoft is, maybe, considering moving Starfield, alongside Gears of War, to PlayStation. Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, acknowledged the users on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
The post reads,
We’re listening and we hear you. We’ve been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned.
Although the game will likely go multi-platform and still be available on Xbox. However, the move could prove uplifting for the game, as the PlayStation 5 has just double the users as the Xbox Series X/S. Moreover, it is anticipated that PS5 will have the highest install rate globally, reaching 67 million by 2024. A potential price drop could draw an upward sales curve for the console by the year’s end.
Bethesda Would Not Want to Lose the Coming Awards
The game came with a lot of bugs initially, but many of them were resolved. Some, for instance, shaking non-playable characters (NPC), remain. It would be a good start for the studio, though, to restore the game’s glory. To do them a world of good, Bethesda teased new features coming in as part of future updates.
Or perhaps a prospective price drop may help put a boost on sales. Be that as it may, that does not solve the active user issue. Users could still push the game away if the in-game bugs persist. So the best shot Bethesda can give is to improve the overall experience.
Starfield won the Xbox Game of the Year during the Golden Joystick Awards 2023 and the accolade for Most Innovative Gameplay during the Steam Awards this year. The game is yet to appear in several ceremonies in 2024, where they would not want to be left behind by dint of in-game bugs.
Apart from that, players got to have fun. Given the customization feature, they opened up their creative horizons to create in-game versions of actors like Willem Dafoe and Ryan Gosling. Also, Starfield‘s latest update arrived earlier in February 2024; the next is likely to arrive in April 2024.
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