Despite new Shattered Space DLC, Starfield’s player count is neck and neck with Fallout 4 — a 9-year-old game


What you need to know

  • Shattered Space is a DLC for Bethesda’s space exploration RPG Starfield. Having first been announced when Starfield released, Shattered Space finally launched on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC earlier this week.
  • However, all signs indicate Shattered Space hasn’t generated significant player interest, with Starfield’s concurrent player count only rising slightly in the wake of its release.
  • Specifically, since the expansion launched, Starfield has been averaging 14-16,000 concurrent players on Steam — far fewer than other recent AAA games and their DLCs like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077. It’s likely doing better on Xbox and the Microsoft Store (it’s on Game Pass, but Shattered Space isn’t), though it still isn’t in the top 25 most-played Xbox games.
  • This just barely pushes the game past 2015’s Fallout 4 — Bethesda’s previous single player RPG. At the moment, it has about 13-15,000 Steam players at any given time.

The Shattered Space DLC is the biggest addition Bethesda’s made to its 2023 space exploration RPG Starfield yet, 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 data indicates 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’s Fallout 4 — a game that’s nine years old — which is averaging 13-15,000 players right now and had a recent spike up to 20,326 on Sunday evening. And yes, Fallout 4 benefited hugely from this year’s wildly successful Fallout TV show, but even so, Starfield should be doing far better than it is.



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