Starfield: Shattered Space has less people playing it than Skyrim-Kenneth Andersen-Entertainment – Metro

A space traveler in Starfield in front of a House Va’ruun shrine (YouTube/Bethesda)

Bethesda’s first major expansion for Starfield has been called a ‘boring mess’ and ‘waste of money’ by fans, as its Steam player numbers fail to impress.

There were sky high expectations for Starfield, before it came out in 2023, but it never really took off, as many criticised it for unengaging missions and mediocre combat.

Bethesda no doubt hoped that its newly released expansion, Shattered Space, would breathed new life into the space role-player, but if anything it’s only highlighted the game’s many issues.

According to player numbers, critic reviews, and fan feedback, Starfield: Shattered Space is a flop and can’t even beat the player numbers of 2011’s Skyrim, while fans slam it as a ‘boring mess’.

How many people are playing Starfield: Shattered Space?

Since Shattered Space came out on September 30, the most fans who have played Starfield on PC at the same time is 21,792, but that number is dropping quickly, with a peak of 17,074 playing it in the last 24 hours.

Currently, there are 11,961 fans playing, which is much lower than Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Special Edition at 17,145.

Shattered Space is also beaten by 2015’s Fallout 4, which has 12,512 fans playing it right now, according to SteamDB.

Starfield’s all-time player record on PC, of 333,000 concurrent players, is higher than Skyrim though, at 70,000, but it never reached the heights of Fallout 4’s record of 470,000 players.

The £30 expansion has also launched to mostly negative reviews from fans on Steam, where only 719 out of 1,255 are positive.

‘No new features, no fixes to the fact that this game is STILL a boring mess, not even an attempt to fix the game’s core issues,’said Galahad. ‘What a joke.’

Teepo’s review was equally scolding, saying, ‘Please don’t buy this DLC. It’s way too short, boundlessly lazy, addresses/acknowledges nothing, fixes nothing, and at $30 is a complete waste of money.’

One positive reviewer said: ‘If you can stomach Starfield in the first place, then Shattered Space makes it better,’ adding ‘If you dislike the base game, then just stay away.’

Starfield wasn’t just an important title for Bethesda, who had worked on it for seven years, but also for Microsoft and Xbox and the sale of their consoles.

Although it sold decently well at launch, especially in the US, Xbox console sales actually dropped in the month Starfield was released.

Based on player numbers and reviews, it very much looks like Shattered Space has failed to resurrect Bethesda’s space explorer; especially as critic reviews have been equally harsh.

The game currently has a Metacritic score of 54 out of 100, based on seven reviews (the DLC was not sent out early to reviewers), and a user score of 6.1 out of 10 based on 288 reviews.

The majority of Shattered Space would’ve been designed before the original Starfield even launched, so there would’ve been little chance for it to address any of the complaints levied at the parent game. Not that that makes things any better.

Bethesda aren’t going to be happy with those numbers (Metacritic)

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