Phil Spencer wants Starfield to be a 12-year hit, just like Skyrim
Dec. 4, 2023The Microsoft Gaming CEO has big dreams for Bethesda
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Whether you’ve been playing it for 200 hours or decided it wasboringafter 200 minutes,Starfieldis nonetheless one of the most important video game releases this year. Since it’s Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda’s first new IP in decades, the intergalactic role-playing game was born wearing giant shoes to fill and debuted to ecstatic, unquenchable fanfare.
After being asked if he envisions players obsessing over Starfield even 12 years after its release, like Skyrim, Spencer said “That’s [Microsoft’s] goal.”
“Skyrim is such an amazing hit fromBethesda Game Studios, and talking to [director] Todd Howard and the team — really, what they wanted to do [with Starfield] is [to give] people who love space and space exploration […] that same opportunity,” Spencer said. “So, we’ve already announced that we’ve got our next expansion coming,Shattered Space. We’ve already told the community that they’ll get all the mod tools, so they can go and create their own content in Starfield, which has been soimportant to Skyrim.”
“So, a ton of confidence that, for many, many years, Starfield will be [the] same, very high in the gameplay,” he continued.
That’s Spencer’s hope, but Starfield’s reality is more muddled.
At CCXP, Spencer mentioned that the spacefarer RPG, released in September, has earned more than12 million playersand is currently part of Microsoft’s top 10 most popular games. But, despite astronomical sales, Starfield has already dipped 30 spots below Skyrim on Steam’s livemost-played games chart, with around 13,000 current players compared to Skyrim’s nearly 20,000. Starfield seems to be faring a bit better on Game Pass, ranking higher than Skyrim according to Microsoft’s"most played games" filter, but Game Pass does not reveal precise concurrent player numbers.
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Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.
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