Despite new Shattered Space DLC, Starfield’s player count is neck and neck with Fallout 4 — a 9-year-old game
Starfield’s concurrent player numbers suggest Shattered Space hasn’t generated strong player interest.
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TheShattered Space DLCis the biggest addition Bethesda’s made to its 2023 space exploration RPGStarfieldyet, having released earlier this week on September 30 on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC. However, despite Bethesda’s efforts to hype up the expansion and market it as a deep, enticing roleplaying experience, the game’s player count suggests it’s struggling to drive fans to actually check it out.
At the time of writing,SteamDB dataindicates only 14-16,000 Steam users are playing Starfield at any given time, with the concurrent player count after Shattered Space’s launch peaking at 21,792 on Monday night. This puts the game just slightly ahead of 2015’sFallout 4— a game that’s nine years old — whichis averaging13-15,000 players right now and had a recent spike up to 20,326 on Sunday evening. And yes, Fallout 4 benefited hugely fromthis year’s wildly successful Fallout TV show, but even so, Starfield should be doing far better than it is.
Itdoesseem to be faring a bit better on Xbox and the Microsoft Store — notably, Starfield is onXbox Game Pass, even though Shattered Space itself is not — though it’s still not in the top 25 most-played Xbox games. According toMicrosoft’s official list, it falls just short in 26th place, with Fallout 4 at the 35th position.
While I never expected the arrival of this story expansion to rival the numbers of Starfield’s full launch last year, I certainly expected more for a game that peaked at 330,723 players on Steam at release. And compared to other recent AAA titles likeElden RingandCyberpunk 2077that skyrocketed up to 781,261 and 274,526 concurrent players when their respective DLCs came out, it’s clear that Shattered Space has failed to generate strong player interest.
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The expansion’s underwhelming performance comes asits reviews plummet to “Mostly Negative"on Steam, with only 35% of them giving it a Positive rating. By and large, most players cite a short runtime and an overall lack of content as the DLC’s biggest issues, expressing disappointment in what it brought to the game. Going into Shattered Space’s release, expectations were fairly high, as Bethesda advertised it as a meatier, more bespoke release compared to normal Starfield and its huge number of large, but arguably shallow worlds that were scarcely home to handcrafted locations.
I’m sure the DLC’s poor reception hasn’t done its attachment rate any favors, especially since it has an MSRP of $29.99 — nearly half of Starfield’s full price (it’s discounted to $26.79 on CDKeys, notably). Indeed, $30 for an expansion that’s got just 5-15 hours of content is a tough ask when the similarly pricedElden Ring: Shadow of the ErdtreeandCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Libertydeliver double or triple that,along withsignificant changes, additions, and improvements to their base games.
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At the end of the day, I’d argue Bethesda has made the right call opting to build deeper, more handcrafted Starfield experiences, but it needs to domore— deliver releases akin to Fallout 4’s excellent Far Harbor DLC, instead of underwhelming ones that leave players wanting. We know there’s at least one other expansion coming, so hopefully that one is far more substantial.
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Beyond that, one has to wonder how long Xbox and Bethesda will continue investing in future Starfield releases with The Elder Scrolls 6 and the far-offFallout 5on the horizon, especially if they perform like Shattered Space has. I expect we might get more DLC-style updates if Starfield’s next expansion is far more successful, but if it’s not? It may be time for the developers to move on.
Starfield: Shattered Space |$29.99$26.79 at CDKeys (PC, Steam)
Starfield’s first story expansion, Shattered Space, takes players to the alien world of Va’ruun’kai. The DLC is exclusively set on the mysterious planet, and gives players the opportunity to learn about and interact with House Va’ruun as it grapples with the devastation of a dangerous experiment that went horribly wrong.
Also see:Xbox version ($29.99)|Premium Edition (CDKeys, Steam, $68.29)|Premium Edition (CDKeys, Xbox, $96.49)|Premium Edition upgrade (CDKeys, Steam, $29.49)|Premium Edition upgrade (Amazon, Xbox, $34.99)
Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he’s been an avid fan since childhood. He’s been writing for Team WC since the summer of 2017, and you’ll find him doing news, editorials, reviews, and general coverage on everything gaming, Xbox, and Windows PC. His favorite game of all time is probably NieR: Automata, though Elden Ring, Fallout: New Vegas, and Team Fortress 2 are in the running, too. When he’s not writing or gaming, there’s a good chance he’s either watching an interesting new movie or TV show or actually going outside for once.Follow him on X(Twitter).
