Starfield, a game mainly about space travel/exploration, couldn’t convince a chunk of its players to leave the surface of the tutorial planet.
Starfield has been out for long enough now that anyone interested in playing it likely already has. But just how many of the game’s millions of players stopped playing before finishing the first mission?
Well, according to achievement stats from TrueAchievements, around 25%! The For All, Into the Starfield achievement is awarded the first time you go to space, which happens maybe 30 minutes into the game. After a brief tutorial and some combat, you meet one of the game’s major NPCs, and he gives you his ship.
As soon as you leave the surface of the planet and take to space, the achievement should unlock. According to the numbers, however, 75% of players did that, which seems a little low considering how early into the game that happens, and how practically unavoidable the achievement is.
Achievement % stats are so comically skewed by various factors that they mean basically nothing. There’s an achievement in Minecraft for literally just opening your inventory for the first time but only 60% of Xbox players have it.
There’s an achievement in Minecraft for literally just opening your inventory for the first time but only 60% of Xbox players have it.
12,7% of Amid Evil players are in-game forever:
That achievement is likely to gather more accurate statistics due to the problems you mention. The Amid Evil devs can now confidently say that 12.7% of players who own the game have never started it. Meaning they can subtract that number from other achievement percentages to get a better idea of how many people are progressing certain ways.
The same is likely true for Minecraft’s inventory achievement, though that’s slightly less useful, as some players may make it a little further without opening the inventory and then stop forever.
Leaving the first planet in Stafield takes a little more effort, but not much. It’s safe to say that some of the 25% of players who haven’t done it haven’t ever opened the game. But that number will probably be close to 10%.
I think the percentages are calculated from players that actually launched the game, not from people who own it.
Steam does not count games that have never been launched. For 12.7% of the players the game probably quit under a bit different circumstances: game crashed or they lost internet connectivity.
Or they killed the application, or potentially alt-f4d depending on how well the game handles that.
Starfield has been out for long enough now that anyone interested in playing it likely already has.
Not even close, especially not in the year that also brought us Baldur’s Gate and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. How much free time does this writer think everyone has?
Yup, definitely interested in Starfield. But at the moment still enjoying Act I of BG3, Cyberpunk 2077 patch 2.0 and DLC are right around the corner and after I’ve finished those Cityies: Skylines 2 will be available. So I’ll probably have time for Starfield somewhere early 2024, depending on if my recurring Satisfactory itch hits before that. But by that time more official and unofficial bugfixes and QoL mods will be available, so I’m fine with waiting a bit longer to play. This year is just filled with too many goodies. 😁
I’ve played Starfield (did not purchase it on Steam…) and it’s alright. I haven’t finished it, and I won’t be for a while. It’s is missing so much QoL and so many thing will need the mod toolkit for modders to fix, which isn’t available yet. It should not be purchased by anyone at the moment. You’ll have a better time in several months, and it’ll quite possibly be cheaper.
There’s so much else to play. I’m wanting to get around to Armored Core 6 sometime, but Payday 3 is coming out, and Cities Skylines 2 and Counter Strike 2 (both CS2, and cities dropped it’s ‘:’ to add to the confusion) are coming soon. I may hop back into Cyberpunk if I get around to it, but it’s on the lower end of the list. There’s literally no reason for anyone to bother purchasing Starfield for a bit.
It’s a Bethesda game. In a year most of the bugs will be fixed by the Unofficial Starfield Special Edition Patch, and it’ll be on sale.
They were actually fairly accurate that it’s their least buggy title yet. That’s not to say there are none, but they are few and far between. The game just isn’t that fun for now. Animations take too long (currently already mods to fix most of them), traveling is boring, outposts suck, and just so much QoL changes are needed. Bug fixing isn’t really required from my experience. Plenty of other fixes are though.
I haven’t even got around to Sea of Stars, for pity’s sake
As much as they do, probably
Yeah this one is most definitely back burnered cause it didn’t launch with DLSS and Bethesda always has a million bugs. I’ll wait for the mods to fix everything and play the polished games first.
Why buy then? Wait for a sale and buy then.
Has this writer never used Steam or is he just unaware how many people buy games they don’t actually play
Has this writer never used Steam or is he just unaware how many people buy games they don’t actually play
Firstly: If you had ever used Steam, you’d know that Steam differentiates between “have game in the library” and “have previously played a game”. A bought game that was never launched, doesn’t show up in these stats.
Secondly: It’s clear you did not bother to read the article. “The numbers take into account players on Xbox, as well as those playing the Game Pass/Windows Store version of the game on PC.” The 25% number isn’t even from Steam.
I have used steam for 12 years and I never knew that.
In the Steam client, you have this box on the right:
And when you click on View All, you get something like this:
Dont think I ever read those then again I mainly just play games and collect a million unplayed ones
gamepads makes it a lot easier to start then get bored too
Oh, the irony. Steam achievements only count for players who have started the game.
Download game
Launch it
“Great it works I’ll play it tomorrow”
Never open it again
Dude, I put like 60 hours into Skyrim my first time before I thought “hey… where’s my shout powers and all the dragons?” Because as soon as Hadvar said “we should split up to avoid suspicion” I unchecked the active quest, said “adios!” And vanished into the trees. I had to come back at like level 30 or something to do the entire MQ from Riverwood to the end.
That’s just how a lot of people play these. I don’t wanna follow their story; I wanna make my own.
Edit: Oh and this is all besides the fact that not only do mods disable achievements, so now do console commands in Starfield. I’ve had to no clip a few times to get unstuck while jumping around with low gravity and ending up places I shouldn’t be, so there are probably some achievements I didn’t get simply because that command likely disabled them (it just gives a generic warning that some commands will disable them, but not which ones).
I think that 25% would be comprised of people that bought the game and haven’t had much time to play, or use console command right away and disable achievements. Speedrunners, modmakers, and general hackers would use console commands liberally as they should be the same as Fallout/Elder Scrolls games.
The article says mods disable it unless you add an extra mod to re-enable them.
That’s really all the explanation you need to throw out the usefulness of the numbers completely.
Yeah, for a Bethesda game, 25% of people using mods right out of the gate is frankly totally believable.
And while starfield isn’t perfect, people not finishing the first mission would hardly be an indictment against the game itself, who judges if a game is worth playing in the first mission? Usually - and especially in games like this - the first mission has practically nothing to do with the standard gameplay
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s higher; there are people who mod who will also go out of their way to get achievements and people who don’t care about achievements at all.
I personally love the game for what it is. There’s no one else out there making anything all that similar to a Bethesda RPG. I do think that some portion saw the performance and set it aside for that reason, though. Especially gamepass people.
I definetely fall under that umbrella, I’ve got mods downloaded, but didn’t bother with the achievement mod. I downloaded my mods after the first mission though.
I’m enjoying starfield for sure, but I think it does have a fair few faults, though I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of them are subjective. For instance I can’t stand bullet sponge enemies and the bullet sponge is strong with starfield. Drives me crazy when I can literally empty an entire magazine of an auto shotgun pointblank into an enemies face, and have it only take them down to like 40% health lol. I grabbed a mod that helps with it, but its still pretty bad, even with that mod, and it breaks the balance a bit. Hoping that once proper mod support is in we get something better.
I also think the whole “spaceship” part of the game is pretty half-baked, I wasn’t expecting E:D levels of piloting immersion, but I’d have hoped for more than basically a series of menus and loading screens for interstellar travel. Additionally ship combat balancing is pretty rough, all the encounters I’ve done so far have felt comically easy, or ridiculously hard (The final mission of a certain UC Vanguard mission comes to mind…)
Overall though I’m definetely having a lot of fun though, and while there are bugs, it’s definetely one the least buggy Bethesda titles we’ve seen so far, and definetely less buggy (in my experience) than BG3
So the way I play, I bought a silenced rifle early and spent my perks on stealth and ballistics. Most humans a few levels above me are single headshots from stealth or 2-3 shots once they know where I am. To me, that TTK feels pretty good, and I tend to be able to use space to attack at range and the boost pack for position.
I could see other approaches feeling less good, but that specific style feels pretty comparable to the later Deus Ex games I liked or Cyberpunk, but with better mobility.
I don’t love the spaceship combat, at least that I’ve played so far (though it’s been kind of minimal through 20 hours), but I don’t like many. The only exception I can think of that really clicked for me was star citizen with a full stick and throttle, and I don’t love most others, so I can’t really evaluate that super well. I definitely don’t think it’s the focus, but it’s weird that people expected stuff that only a very small handful of pretty pure space sims do and they never promised (flying down to planets). I don’t love the number of loading screens, but on steam deck the length isn’t awful, so I live with them.
That would probably help, but I find stealth builds to be really dull in Bethesda games. I do agree though that the mobility is great, I just wish there was zero-g combat (if there is, and I haven’t gotten there yet, no spoilers plz)
And yeah star citizen has the best flight model and ship combat mechanics imo - it’s a shame about the rest of the game… And to be fair there, there’s only so much you can do that with a flight model when it’s primarily going to be played on KBM or a game pad, but some games manage to do pretty damn well (Everspace comes to mind as a game with really excellent gamepad controls for spaceflight)
to be fair regarding what was promised, the vast majority of gamers arent out here reading every interview about the game ahead of time, so you can’t blame them for seeing a game that takes place in space, with stuff like ship building being one of its big selling points, and then blame them for expecting it to have features on par with the other big name space games from the last decade. Just because it’s not promised, doesn’t mean it’s not missed 🤷🏼♂️ like I said though, it’s really not a deal breaker, it just would have been a big selling point for me personally.
There’s some zero G combat areas you can come across. Like other Bethesda games, the main quest isn’t where you have the best interactions.
Level up the ship building skills and turrets will kill in space battles sometimes too fast. I rarely get the chance to board and steal the ships unless I scale back and turn off weapons.
If you want to stay in the game, you can target planets and moons from the cockpit to travel without opening up the Star map. Only scanning has to bring up the map. Random space encounters can be more enjoyable than some of the Fallout 4 ones.
Just be careful not to kill the nice granny
It’s not something that’s close to regular for space games, either. I can name one game off the top of my head that has it (No Man’s Sky), and there’s very little else going for it. That one feature combined with endless planets less interesting than Starfield’s is close to the whole game.
Especially on the first days - driver bugs, enable/disable features, QoL fixes, etc.
I already had mods that disabled achievements by then just to fix this mess.
Runs and looks great now, ~15 mods to get there.
What hardware are you running on? Pure vanilla and I’ve gotten a stable 100fps since release with everything on Ultra at 1440p.
Look at this guy with his dual 7900 XTX over here
I got a 7800x3d and 6950 xt. I played with performance boosting mods on medium settings
I kept dropping to 40fps on 1440p and ended up refunding
Damn, our hardware is so similar. I’m running a (single) 7900 XT and a 7600X. I’m also running on an nvme ssd, but presumably with your hardware you are too.
I wasn’t trying to be an ass with my question about your specs, it’s just that my hardware isn’t particularly high end, so I was confused at why so many people are having performance issues.
Your hardware is quite high end actually. It’s not a 7900 xtx or 4090, but it’s close. (Yes, I have a 980 pro 2tb)
I wonder why you run it that much smoother than I do then
1440p thats your problem
let me put these 28inch rims on my Toyota Carolla
absolute testament to the game that it runs smooth now on your pc at 1440
1440p isn’t that high. You’re thinking about 4k.
And, as I said. It’s not running smooth. It’s barely running at all. It keeps dropping as low as 40fps
I would have liked to have finished the first mission but the game crashes after roughly 5 minutes every time I try to play. Sort it out Bethesda.
I don’t have this game yet but I know out of the box modding any of the Fallout or Elder Scrolls games disables achievements (but you can get around this with other mods), so I assume it’s the same here. Bethesda games being some of the most modded games of all time I wouldn’t be surprised if even a lot of first time players were using one or two mods and having their achievements disabled.
People do play games offline. Personally, I don’t care about achievements. They mean nothing to me, except knowing that the game developer is tracking my play through, which I hate.
People play offline and they also mod games (especially Bethesda games and especially this one). In order to get achievements in Starfield you either need to play (mostly) vanilla or install an extra mod to re-enable them. This is a dumb article and should be downvoted. There are many reasons why the claim is likely wrong.
I really wanted to but my game kept crashing like right after the part where you create a character. Maybe that has something to do with it.
My first game had achievements deactivated from the beginning. I had to ditch that game. Then download a mod to activate achievements, and start over.
Terrible article they misses so many factors that play into this.
For what it’s worth, I am one of these people. I’d already watched a couple of streamers play random sidequests, but when I saw the early game I just couldn’t stomach playing any further.
If I use a sample size of me and use my library of a measurement, it’s probably more than 25% of games I haven’t even launched let alone completing the first mission.
People who have never launched the game aren’t counted in these statistics.
Sure, same here, but how many of those did you pay $70 for less than two weeks after it released?
Undoubtedly a significant number of these non-achievers are Gamepass subscribers.
Possibly a few (though to not finish the first quest would be unusual).
Given that they have you meet a cowboy at the end of that mission, it is kinda understandable. I wonder who thought that having a cowboy as a main character would be a good idea for people outside of the US.
Whats wrong with a space cowboy? His faction is often referred to as lawless and wild. They believe in a wild sort of freedom. Astronauts are kinda space cowboys anyway. Also space cowboys are not a new concept in media. What about a cowboy would make people not get the tutorial?
It certainly put me off. Personally, I hate it when sci-fi writers use worn-out stereotypes in futuristic settings. Like the ‘Irish, but not Irish’ episode of StarTrek TNG.
I’d already seen a couple of streamers play random side quests, and this intro just made me definitively realise that this was not the game for me.
Cowboys could easily appeal to people from Canada, Mexico, and Argentina as well. I’ve come across a disturbing number of British men who harbor secret fantasies of being wild west cowboys, so probably them too.
I remember reading about a growing cowboy obsession going on in China a bit before COVID too lol
Oh shit, you’re right. They had a huge amount of photoshoots or ads or something all dressed up in cowboy clothes lol
I wonder who thought that having a cowboy as a main character would be a good idea for people outside of the US.
What’s wrong with cowboys? The US was one of the first countries into space (2nd) and space explorers are often thought of as “space cowboys.”
🎵It’s been a long road🎵
deleted by creator
It’s a classic figure in western culture… and a fitting character given his story and the planet he’s from. We’ve had plenty cowboys in movies, comic strips and I’m from europe… Not my favourite setting but it works…
They were absolutely trying to appeal to Americans by making a cowboy character. Americans go nuts for cowboys. Everyone is downright obsessed with them. You can’t find a single home in the country without seeing cowboy memorabilia and they watch cowboy movies on the weekends, it’s crazy
As an American… what the fuck are you talking about? I don’t know anyone who watches cowboy movies or have cowboy stuff in their homes. That would be fucking weird.
And I live in fucking Texas of all places.
I don’t know anyone who watches cowboy movies or have cowboy stuff in their homes. That would be fucking weird.
“Nah, that hat and those boots don’t count. Those are everyday items.”
I’m joking because the guy implied cowboys are for American appeal
Oh, I guess it went over my head.
Be honest, do you actually live in the US? lol
I live in CA, literally entrenched in the history of “the old west” and I can honestly say not a single person I know has any cowboy memorabilia in their homes lol.
My dad had a little cast iron statue of a cowboy wrangling a bull on his desk at work growing up (a gift from a client) , but that is literally the only instance I can think of lol
And I also don’t know a single person who regularly watches cowboy movies, I can’t even remember the last time a cowboy movie was made in the US… I think that remake with Chris Pratt?
I was being sarcastic. The guy is saying that cowboys don’t appeal to non-americans…as if Americans love to see cowboys or something
Well shit, guess I got wooshed lol
Yup. Wednesday is national cowboy day.
Every week.
