Starfield recorded a peak player count (via Steam Charts) of 330,723 galactic explorers this past weekend, smashing through the concurrent peak player record for Skyrim set back in 2011. Skyrim's peak player count at launch on Steam was around 287,411. What makes this an even more impressive feat is that this doesn't include Xbox Game Pass players on PC - which will be another sizable chunk of spacefarers.

Ahead of this new record, Bethesda announced that Starfield is the studio's biggest launch to date, drawing in over six million players - more than Fallout and Skyrim. As a brand-new IP, this is great news for the team as Starfield was more of a gamble than simply releasing a new Elder Scrolls or Fallout title - though we should expect new entries in both sometime in the future.

As of this morning, #Starfield has already surpassed 6 million players, making it the biggest Bethesda game launch of all time. pic.twitter.com/4yZa1lAYjW

— Starfield (@StarfieldGame) September 7, 2023

That said, it still has a few ways to match Fallout 4's peak of around 473,000 concurrent players back in 2015 or Baldur’s Gate 3, which hit an impressive peak concurrent player count of around 875,000 just this past month. It would be nice to be able to combine Steam and PC Game Pass numbers to get a better picture - but the big takeaway for Starfield is that it has been a massive success for Bethesda and Microsoft on PC.