Successful bet for Bethesda? Starfield overtakes Skyrim in popularity on Steam

Success clearly continues to be there for Starfieldwhich even dethroned Bethesda’s most popular game on Steam.

Exactly one week after its launch, the open galaxy RPG having already motivated more than 6 million players to embark on the adventure has indeed exceeded the peak of users connected simultaneously on Skyrim within the Valve platform, according to SteamDB.

The stars are aligned for Bethesda

Whether we love him or hate him, whether we appreciate his way of approaching space travel, and despite incongruities worthy of the “uncanny valley”, it is clear that the rocket Starfield recorded a successful launch.

So much so that, at least on Steam, Bethesda’s latest title has surpassed the legendary The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimprobably the studio’s most popular game (after Morrowind, for veterans). When it was released 12 years ago, the iconic title established a peak number of concurrently active users at 287,411.

Yesterday, 10 days after the successful early access launch, both on PC and Xbox Series X|S, Starfield broke this record, with a peak of 330,723 active users at the same time (and 230,000 active players at the time of writing). An overall commendable performance, while the game is also available on Game Pass, and therefore potentially more attractive at the price of a one-month subscription than at the full price set at 70 euros on PC.

A success to put into perspective?

The fact that Starfield has exceeded Skyrim in popularity on Steam, however, is that surprising? The practice of video games has become widely popularized today, in any case much more than when The Elder Scrolls V was released 12 years earlier.

In addition, communication around games and the rise of the proverbial “hype” are a much more significant phenomenon these days than a few years ago, with publishers and studios not skimping on spending in this area. . Still, this is a great performance from Bethesda, despite some controversy surrounding Starfield.

Will the ascending star that is Microsoft’s new flagship exclusive reach the same dizzying heights as a certain Baldur’s Gate III on Steam? Note that Larian Studios’ masterpiece has a peak of active users on the Valve platform amounting to 875,343, established exactly a month ago, and around 350,000 players connected to the at the time of writing these lines… which is more than the peak recorded by Starfield.

Sources: Starfield data on SteamDB, Skyrim data on SteamDB