Starfield hits 10 million players, is Bethesda’s biggest launch ever

Starfield has officially hit 10 million players, according to Bethesda.

A tweet from the official Starfield account on Tuesday acknowledged the milestone, saying: “Thank you to more than 10 million Starfield explorers for creating the biggest launch in Bethesda history.”

While it may have broken a record for Bethesda, it appears that Starfield has failed to do the same for Xbox Game Studios as a whole.

In 2021, Microsoft said Forza Horizon 5 reached more than 10 million players in its first week, making it the biggest first week in Xbox history.

By comparison, Starfield has seemingly taken nearly twice as long to reach the milestone.

It should be noted, however, that Starfield was released on Xbox Series X/S and PC, whereas Forza Horizon 5 was also released on Xbox One, meaning it had a larger userbase.

Earlier this week it was reported that Starfield was the fifth fastest-selling game across Europe this year, based on launch week performance.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, the game was “just about” the biggest Xbox launch this generation across Europe in terms of game sales, coming “just ahead” of Forza Horizon 5.

These figures don’t take into account Xbox Game Pass downloads, however, where it would appear Forza Horizon 5 excelled.

Over six million people played Starfield by the end of its first official day of release, including more than one million concurrent players, according to Microsoft.

Its release also helped propel Xbox Series X/S consoles to their two biggest sales weeks of the year in the UK.

VGC’s Starfield review called it “the ultimate Bethesda game”, saying it “takes what people loved about Fallout and Skyrim and casts it across an enormous galaxy”.