Friday, December 22nd 2023
Starfield Played By 13 Million Players and Bethesda Promises Updates Every Six Weeks Next Year
Bethesda has released its "end of the year update" for Starfield, as well as shared some statistics from the game, including the fact that it has been played by 13 million players. In addition, Bethesda has also promised updates every six weeks, starting in February next year.
While the published statistics do not give a lot of details and those 13 million players do not translate to actual sold games, mostly due to the Xbox Game Pass, it does have some fun facts, including that the game has over 22 million days played, with 40 hours as an average playtime per player, and that players have visited nearly 2 billion planets. As of February next year, Bethesda's new updates for Starfield will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates. Bethesda has also promised the all new gameplay options, as well as the official mod support with the launch of Creations. The first major expansion for the game, Shattered Space, is also under development and more information should be available next year.
Source:
Bethesda
While the published statistics do not give a lot of details and those 13 million players do not translate to actual sold games, mostly due to the Xbox Game Pass, it does have some fun facts, including that the game has over 22 million days played, with 40 hours as an average playtime per player, and that players have visited nearly 2 billion planets. As of February next year, Bethesda's new updates for Starfield will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates. Bethesda has also promised the all new gameplay options, as well as the official mod support with the launch of Creations. The first major expansion for the game, Shattered Space, is also under development and more information should be available next year.
28 Comments on Starfield Played By 13 Million Players and Bethesda Promises Updates Every Six Weeks Next Year
2024 - since it worked lets milk those idiots even more.
Shame on us!
Far Cry 5 (in fact, all Far Cry titles) are RPGs with one or two FPS elements. Far Cry has created a grey area because while they do only have first-person view, they also have all of the elements that make up open-world RPGs. It's an open-world, story-driven narrative in which you have to upgrade your stats and weapons, gather special items and use special abilities, which makes it an open-world RPG. I don't think that anyone knows more about video games than IGN and they do refer to Far Cry 5 as an RPG:
"Ubisoft has announced that its open-world RPG Far Cry 5 will get a 60fps patch for the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 to help celebrate its fifth anniversary."
Then you say that Assassin's Creed: Odyssey isn't an RPG which is absolutely ludicrous. Once again, IGN has no issue using "RPG" to describe a game that you claim isn't an RPG, but other respected publications get in on the fun as well (in other words, there were a lot more articles about Odyssey and FC5).
IGN beginst with this descripton of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey:
"This epic-scale action-roleplaying game shines as a grand adventure through a magnificent and beautiful open world on a scale we've rarely seen."
Then Polygon chimes in with this lovely tidbit:
"I think “odyssey” also refers to the meta-journey taken by Ubisoft, since the first Assassin’s Creed launched more than a decade ago. In this new game, the series has completed its twisty-turny trek from stealthy action adventure to fully-grown role-playing game. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a deep, playful fantasy, in which we give ourselves over to another world."
CD-Action, a gaming magazine from Poland (that has been around since 1996), has this to say on Metacritic:
"If someone had told me couple of years ago that Assassin’s Creed would become a full-fledged action RPG that would not look out of place on a shelf next to The Witcher 3, I would have snickered. But here I am, over 80 hours into Odyssey and still unable to believe that really happened."
For a gaming magazine from Poland to put AC: Odyssey on the same level as The Witcher 3 is high praise indeed because The Witcher comes from Poland.
You'll excuse me if I (and probably everyone else as well) takes the word of respected and established gaming publications like IGN, Polygon and CD-Action over the word of some anonymous user in the TechPowerUp Forums. That's why I don't just say something without being able to back it up. I don't do the "trust me bro" BS that so many do.
I always say "don't take my word for it" because who am I? I'm just another anonymous user on TechPowerUp, so don't take my word for it. Take theirs.You could be right, but, this "unfinished" game has given me more hours of enjoyment than most "finished" games. Now, to be fair, I have a very high-end gaming rig and that could be why I've enjoyed it. From what I've seen, this game has been pretty daunting for CPUs below the R7-5800X3D and that can really make it untenable for most people. In that regard, I completely agree with you that the game is terrible and should have been optimised far more than it has been before it was released into the wild.
However, the sheer scale of the game's map means that there's not a chance in hell that anyone could have anything other than mostly empty planets. If Bethesda had, say, half of the systems in the Starfield galaxy having planets with cities on them, this game would probably be ~2TB in total size. Try downloading that from Steam in less than a week with anything slower than Gigabit Internet. :laugh:
Just because there is a narrative with a few sprinkles of progression doesnt make it an RPG. AC nor Far Cry are RPGs. They have borrowed and then simplified a few concepts that are reminiscent of it, at best. But at their core and gameplay Far Cry is a shooter and AC a third person action game. The rest was tacked on to create a dopamine cycle of progression bars and gacha game-like triggers.
The Witcher 3 is much closer to an RPG; while BG3 is an RPG for the full 100%. here the action elements are not what defines the game, but rather its narrative. Surely youre not going to defend the powerful storytelling and many branches of quests of Far Cry now, I hope... FC and AC stories are linear; they guide the rest of the game. An RPG tries to avoid that entirely: the roleplay determines the course of the story.
Still though I get what you say. Thing is, it all depends on what started the RPG for you. If the entry point is, say, Skyrim, almost everything could be an RPG these days. The lines are vague. But Skyrim et al are already very far away from what real RPGs are and do. A lot of the focus is shifted away from branching stories (and making your own) and towards action.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game
Interesting read for perspective on the (mis-)use of genres.