Starfield Seems to Have Baldur’s Gate 3 Beat in 1 Category

Highlights

• Starfield surpasses Baldur’s Gate 3 in total playtime with 534 million hours compared to 452 million hours.
• Starfield’s inclusion in Xbox Game Pass, along with its pre-release hype, contributed to its massive player base and record-breaking launch with over six million players in one day.
• Starfield’s weaknesses led to a decline in player numbers, and it currently has fewer players than Skyrim on Steam.

Starfield has Baldur’s Gate 3 beat in one major stat, total hours played. While many consider the Dungeons and Dragons-like RPG to be superior to Starfield in many ways, a couple of factors led the Bethesda game to outperform Baldur’s Gate 3 in a key category.

For some Bethesda fans, the studio’s newest game did not live up to the hype, as Starfield‘s Steam rating continues to fall. The ambitious sci-fi game was still impressive in many regards, but failed to keep users’ attention due to problems like extensive loading screens, disappointing cities, and procedural generation. It didn’t help that Baldur’s Gate 3 released shortly before Starfield, with the former becoming regarded as one of the best RPG games ever made. However, Starfield can still hang its hat on one impressive statistic.

After Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 each released their total playtime statistics, it became apparent that Starfield‘s total playtime of 534,823,944 hours easily outpaced Baldur’s Gate 3‘s total playtime of 452,556,984 hours, despite Baldur’s Gate 3 releasing a month earlier. It should be noted that Bethesda reported its playtime hours for Starfield on December 20, and Larian Studios reported its playtime hours for Baldur’s Gate 3 on December 5th, bringing the month-long gap between the two games’ time in the market closer to half a month in regard to this statistic. So, while it’s not a perfectly fair comparison, the significant difference between the two games’ total playtime is likely still true. It should also be emphasized that Baldur’s Gate 3‘s 452 million hours of playtime is still a massive number and incredibly impressive, despite falling short of Starfield‘s playtime, which benefited from a couple of factors.

Starfield vs. Baldur’s Gate 3 Total Playtime Statistics

• Bethesda reported a total playtime for Starfield of 534 million hours
• Larian Studios reported a total playtime for Baldur’s Gate 3 of 452 million hours

Starfield released on Xbox Game Pass, allowing its massive subscriber base to play the game at no extra cost. In comparison, Baldur’s Gate 3 cost $70 once it was released on consoles, in addition to its $60 price tag on PC. Also, in the months leading up to its release, Starfield had massive amounts of hype surrounding it.

The sci-fi RPG was so highly anticipated that Starfield‘s launch broke records for Bethesda, amassing over six million players in one day. However, Starfield‘s weaknesses led to the game being unable to maintain this momentum.

Less than three months after its launch, Starfield had fewer players than Skyrim on Steam. Bethesda’s Skyrim was released in 2011, and although the older title is one of the most popular RPGs in recent memory, this is still a somewhat embarrassing stat for Starfield. At the time of writing, this gap has only grown on Steam, as Skyrim’s Special Edition‘s 24-hour peak of over 27,000 players easily outpaces Starfield‘s 24-hour peak of over 13,000 players.