Starfield off to impressive start on Steam and Twitch
Lift off.
Starfield may be Microsoft's big Xbox console exclusive for the year, but it's already off to an impressive start on Steam.
The game released overnight for those who purchase its pricey £85.99 premium edition, which allows access ahead of the release on 6th September.
Already, Starfield has reached a peak of 234,502 concurrent players, according to SteamDB. At the time of writing it's the sixth most played game on the platform, behind only heavy hitters like CS:GO, Dota 2, and Baldur's Gate 3.
We can certainly expect that number to skyrocket next week after release day, not to mention all the players on Xbox.
Over on Twitch it's popular too. Streamers have already racked up 3,577,958 hours of Starfield watched, with a peak concurrent viewership of 552,031 (according to SullyGnome).
It's now in the top 10 most watched games on Twitch and will likely rise over the weekend as interested viewers watch streams ahead of release.
The critical reception to the game has been mostly positive, though Eurogamer's Starfield review will be coming in late. In the meantime, check out Digital Foundry's technical verdict on Starfield.
You can also read Victoria's chat with Emmet Fletcher of the European Space Agency on what video games get right and wrong about space, as well as Fletcher's thoughts on NASA-Punk.