Xbox has gone through some changes. In the past few years, it’s not the same as it used to be. They used to have big, popular games like Halo, and that was what people thought of when they heard about Xbox.
But now, things have shifted. The new Halo games aren’t as popular as they used to be. The most recent one, Halo Infinite, feels a bit strange. It’s like a short story in between two bigger stories. And the multiplayer part of the game had some problems that took a long time to fix. Not many people are playing Halo these days. It’s not even in the top 25 most-played games on Xbox. There’s a new season coming, which might bring in more players, but it won’t change the fate of the character Master Chief, who used to be the face of Xbox.
Now, it’s a bit confusing. We’re not sure when or how Master Chief will come back in a big way. The team at 343 Industries had to let go of some people who were working on more single player content for Halo Infinite. It was supposed to be a big thing for both single and multiplayer gaming. But right now, it seems like Master Chief is stuck in a kind of frozen sleep, only making appearances in the not-so-great Halo show on Paramount Plus.
Halo343
Enter Starfield.
I think we’re caught up in a competitive atmosphere, especially on platforms like Twitter, where people talk about the Starfield game. Some see it as just an okay game with a not-so-high review score and hidden sales numbers. However, all the information I come across suggests that it’s actually a very successful game. It’s consistently one of the most popular games I discuss here, even more than almost anything else.
Even after a month since its release, Starfield is attracting around 81,000 players on Steam. This is quite surprising for two reasons: A) It’s a single-player game, and the only one with more players is Baldur’s Gate 3, which is much longer and expected to be Game of the Year, and B) you could technically play Starfield “for free” on both PC and Xbox through Game Pass, yet so many people are choosing to buy it on Steam. We haven’t seen such high numbers with other big Xbox games. For instance, with Halo Infinite, the number of players on Steam was about 100,000 less than Starfield, and it dropped rapidly when the multiplayer had issues, and it never really recovered.
Even after a month since it came out, Starfield is still the fifth most popular game on Xbox. That’s kind of surprising because it’s a single-player game, and it’s quite lengthy. A “quick” playthrough takes about 50 hours, a long one about 150 hours, and you can keep playing forever thanks to its New Game Plus feature. They made it so you can keep enjoying it, and the folks at Bethesda planned to keep adding new stuff and updates to the game. They’ve even announced an expansion that’s on the way.
Starfield BETHESDA
I think Starfield could become Xbox’s new main game because it’s different from other series they just bought. They own games like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, and others now, but these games may never really feel like true Xbox games. For example, Call of Duty is much bigger, but it’s been around for a long time, so it won’t become an Xbox game like Master Chief and Halo. Also, Xbox promised to keep Call of Duty available on other platforms.
One thing to note is that Starfield doesn’t have a central character like Master Chief. In Starfield, you create your own character, so there isn’t a famous face on the game cover. That’s a bit unusual.
But I believe Starfield is the best choice. Xbox exclusively owns it, and it’s the first game in a new series that has never been anywhere else. It’s more popular than you might think, and Master Chief is not in the spotlight right now. So, that’s where I think we stand.
