Starfield has gone gold ahead of its highly-anticipated release, Bethesda announced today, and preloads are going live sooner than you likely thought—although Steam users face a longer wait.
Releasing Oct. 6, Starfield is Bethesda’s first new IP in over two decades, and the excitement for its arrival continues to grow. With over 1,000 planets to explore, companions to meet, enemies to defeat, and quests to complete, Starfield is set to offer plenty and, as such, is expected to come with a hefty download size of 125 GB.
Fortunately, you’ll be able to preload the game way ahead of release to ensure you are ready to go as soon as the game drops—and you have plenty of time to prepare.
Bethesda announced that preloads on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC will be live as of Aug. 17, almost three weeks before Starfield’s full release and two weeks before the early access period begins on Aug. 31.
Related: Starfield will let you purchase for Xbox and play on PC for no extra cost
But Steam players face a much longer wait and, if you have preordered the Digital Premium Edition on Steam, you will have only a 24-hour window to download Starfield before the extra five days of access kick in as preloads on Steam are available as of Aug. 30.
While the preloads will be available in plenty of time for the full release, we always recommend keeping an eye out for any updates and patches that may be implemented before launch day so that you’re not caught off guard.
Unfortunately, the early preload does mean I’ll have to see Starfield taunting me on my Xbox dashboard every day until release.
