It doesn’t matter how good your team is, or how much time you all put into a project, if the fans aren’t vibing with it, it’s going to lose players fast. This is what’s happening to Bethesda’s Starfield. Once dubbed the ‘next big thing’ for the studio, it landed generally warm reviews, though many were quick to jump in a point out a wealth of missing features that would have elevated the game.
Along with this, players were finding ‘cut and paste’ outposts, lacklustre space exploration, and a relatively dull story. Whereas Bethesda has always known long-running success with games such as Fallout and Skyrim, they can’t seem to keep hold of Starfield players. In less than six months, Starfield has lost over 97% of its players.
Starfield promised so much but fans have jumped ship to other RPGs
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It may not come as a surprise to most. Not only were fans finding things that didn’t sit right, but Starfield also had to deal with an RPG juggernaut in Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s been a tough journey so far, and things aren’t getting any better. Upon launch, the game saw plenty of players with around 330,000 concurrent players on Steam. However, fast forward to now and there are less than 5,000 people playing, as first spotted by PCGamesN.
Over on Reddit, where the news is being discussed, one user actually pointed to Baldur’s Gate 3 saying, “Now that we’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3, the expectations for any other RPG are much higher.” Many Redditors aren’t surprised at all, citing things like Starfield being a “very soulless game at times” or featuring “Rinse and repeat missions” plus the damning, “useless low-quality dialogue.”
It’s clear that Bethesda needs to inject the game with something new if they want to bring players back. As someone who played it for over 60 hours and has largely forgotten the game, I’d love to be pulled back by better exploration and an engaging set of quests. Or perhaps Bethesda should just focus on Elder Scrolls VI, now.