Starfield, one of the most anticipated games of recent times, finally saw a full release on September 6, and true to hype, it has captured much attention from the industry. Its early access — which came out on August 31 — had also attracted numerous users and top streamers, including creator partners and premium edition owners, helping it reach tens of thousands.
Returning to yesterday's official launch, the long-awaited open-world space action RPG hit 2.4M Hours Watched and 184.4K Peak Viewers. Thus, this Bethesda Game Studios offering became the third-most watched and third-most popular gaming category on Twitch for Wednesday, also climbing to fourth in both metrics when counting overall segments.
What happened during Starfield’s early access?
On August 31, a week before its official release on PC and Xbox, Starfield's first streams began appearing on Twitch after the developers handed out its early access. It did 3.5M HW and 550.6K PV, higher than another much-awaited title's corresponding stats.
Baldur's Gate 3, a strategy adventure game launched a month before, recorded 3.7M HW and 481.5K PV. These were more than first-week viewership retention numbers of other highly-anticipated newcomings from earlier this year like Hogwarts Legacy and Diablo IV.
Compared to the other major releases of 2023, Starfield beat Diablo IV by HW but was far behind by PV, with Blizzard Entertainment's game registering 941.5K PV on Day 1. Another big name that remained unmatched was Hogwarts Legacy, which still retains the record for peak concurrent viewership among single-player titles on the purple platform with 1.27M viewers.
What can be ascertained from these numbers is that thanks to its announcement, all the way back in 2018, the hype for Starfield's arrival has been pretty great. Considering its current trajectory, its one-week stats should also be solid enough to give the other titles mentioned a run for their money.
What about the activity of streamers?
Shroud was by far the busiest influencer when it came to watch hours for this game. He hit a massive 185K HW, a full 74.5% more than the next-best entry. The former CS:GO pro is a name that immediately comes to mind when thinking of the most famous gaming creators around, and he has played a major role in taking many of the games mentioned here to audiences worldwide.
Most watched and popular content creators for Starfield on its official launch day
CohhCarnage, the most viewed broadcaster on the release day of the early access, had to settle for second here, but he has also undoubtedly played a huge role in gaining millions of viewers for the game. Interestingly, he was also number one during the first week of Baldur's Gate 3 launch, showing himself to be quite the force to be reckoned with.
Zackrawrr, the alternate account of the highly-followed streamer Asmongold, was joint-second. The American is known for his love for all things MMORPG; his knowledge and nous regarding these games are well-respected by his peers and fans, so it's not surprising to see him make it so high on this list.
The other names to make it to the top five are Fextralife, a gaming organization, and MOONMOON, renowned for his playthroughs and gameplay of games like Overwatch, Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and Daddy Dating Sim. IlloJuan, HoneyMad, summit1g, JenFoxxx, and Roier complete a pretty cool list of content creators to have attracted the most watch time on September 6.
The rankings for the most popular Starfield influencers on its first day contain most of the same names as the HW one. However, the leader here is Fextralife, with IlloJuan next and Roier finishing third. HasanAbi, another famous streamer, especially in the IRL segment, was fourth, showcasing his range and the clout he possesses among gaming fans despite not always making content in that category.
Even when looking at the peak channels, which take into account the maximum number of concurrently streaming channels, Starfield finished in the number one spot for Wednesday. Fortnite, a game that usually is at the top or near this list, be it all-time or monthly/weekly/ had to take a backseat for once, finishing second with 8K such channels.
Interestingly, the graph with the game's growth over the week leading up to its official release shows that while the viewership almost remained unchanged, the number of channels streaming it saw a huge increase on the release date. This is more or less keeping in line with the other releases that have been talked about in this article and perhaps the biggest takeaway from the first day of its launch.
Day 1 comparison to other major releases
Rounding back to the first-day performances of the major releases this year, the best performer is Diablo IV, which notched 12.7M HW and 688.1K PV. Hogwarts Legacy is a close second in terms of the former with 12.4M HW but is the runaway leader regarding peak online viewers with 1.3M people.
Next is Baldur's Gate 3, which reached 3.7M HW and 481.5K PV, followed by Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the action-adventure game that produced 2.6M HW and 238.8K PV. Then comes Starfield, the first new universe in more than 25 years from Bethesda Game Studio that takes place in a space-themed setting.
Finally, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — another title that received much fanfare during launch — gained 1.2M HW and 185.9K PV. As the follow-up to 2017's highly successful The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which many consider the best video game of all time, this action RPG, open-world outing has much to live up to and has done a decent job so far.
It is clear from these numbers that Bethesda's highly-followed game has received the appropriate attention for the amount of excitement it generated since being announced and over the days leading up to its release. How it does after a week and the subsequent interest it manages to retain among audiences and streamers will go a long way in establishing its legacy, something Hogwarts Legacy can testify is not the easiest of tasks.
