Canada
United States
New Zealand
Australia
Ireland
Starfield is not multiplayer by a distance. Bethesda has somewhat confirmed Starfield will not be a multiplayer with its current setup. But that doesn’t mean Starfield will never be a multiplayer, progressing to something like EVE Online and doing pretty well while at it.
Everyone who started on Starfield has already completed a couple of playthroughs and now just visiting planets to get more out of the game, Bethesda is expected to release a DLC with more content but that’s not going to keep the player count up.
Starfield is no GTA 6. It’s more compact despite the larger open-world but with much more limited interactivity, i.e., things to do.
Starfield can easily become a multiplayer, even a MMORPG. But will it?
Can Starfield Be Multiplayer?
Starfield does not support multiplayer in any capability at all. It’s only natural that Starfield remains single-player and aims to first dole out the best single-player experience possible.
Starfield does come packed with a game system that will procedurally generate worlds and interactions with the main character – you. So much so, Bethesda’s vocal about unique gaming experiences. Since it’s procedurally generated, 2 players may not have the same story or game experience at the same juncture of their storylines.
Now think about this – If 2 players don’t necessarily have the same storyline experiences, can Starfield accommodate multiplayer or co-op gaming?
Let’s just say Bethesda can.
With titles like Elder Scrolls Online under their belt, Bethesda has everything they need to make an MMORPG out of Starfield.
The game already has the necessary foundations required for multiplayer capabilities.
Huge Open World
The first prerequisite to multiplayer RPGs is a vast open world. ESO’s picked it up from Skyrim and delivered MMORPG in full.
Starfield is bigger than ESO. It might just be the largest open-world out there but that’s unconfirmed.
Multiplayer gaming needs a big enough environment to accommodate multiple live players. It’s like an interactive cloud where each player adds an interactive variable with the game system.
Unless Starfield multiplayer takes the Battle Royale route which it should not, the game can maintain separate progressions for players.
A Lot To Do
Bethesda’s almost pulled it off with open-world interactivity but feel a bit short.
You can do anything right from the character creation dashboard, on the planet you land on, wandering off the LZ to ‘explore’ the world as it is created.
Ship building is almost an endless number of possibilities and arguably the best in-game crafting setup in video game history.
There’s no map so you need to figure out what’s where, very realistic. Starfield could do with a few more NPCs and interactive options but Bethesda can add that on anytime down the line and they should.
You can take down ships in space or board-to-loot. You can create outposts scattered across planets and build a network of backup ships as well as resource generation.
Expansive Shipbuilding and Weapon Crafting
I’ll spend more time on these two than maybe roaming around in space and looting cargo ships with a fast, decked-up looter (or maybe not).
The shipbuilding UI and the weapons crafting systems are pointing more towards multiplayer gameplay, a common thematic feature of RPGs.
Bethesda wants players to create unique identities. So it’s not that far-fetched to imagine a Starfield Online where players can start from scratch, progress through quests, get ships and weapons and play their part in each faction.
Companion Setups
Let’s say Bethesda wants to go multiplayer. They can simply keep plot touchpoints on these companions as NPCs and instead of letting us add them to our crew, they can let us add our friends. Sounds simple enough!
Companions can be handy in combat and they have their own set of mechanics helping them out. This means the game can accommodate +1 player to help in combat settings.
Starfield Multiplayer Gameplay: How It Should Play Out
A Bustling Economy System
Starfield has a lot of items and a market system that can upgrade to a multiplayer setup.
Those 24/48 hours vendor restocks can easily be transformed into a full-blown market and economy system with one player dropping in items and another taking it out.
Almost all items are essential. Although Bethesda does a funny job with pricing in-game items, they can expand on it quite easily.
We even had peeps hoarding potatoes –
We do have a foundation for a Starfield Online multiplayer mode.
Factions
Bethesda has already created a basic faction-based storyline with default and custom missions.
You can get a lot more rewards playing Faction-specific missions. You can even join all the factions at once. In case you didn’t know that, here are a few more Starfield tips and tricks to help you along.
Coming back to our Starfield multiplayer reverie, a MMORPG can be built on the current system of Factions in a large enough scale. Imagine large space combat scenarios with a lot of NPCs and a couple of live players from across factions battling it out.
Servers
Starfield is big so each server can accommodate more than the 100 or 1000-player limits, common in most Battle Royales today.
And despite the complexities of it, Bethesda’s hosting servers for long enough to know how it works and how it doesn’t (ref Fallout 76).
With Starfield, I expect Bethesda to take the same route as EVE Online or No Man’s Sky. The game is designed to be a lot bigger than the individual player.
Is there a Starfield Multiplayer Mod?
There is no Starfield Multiplayer mod. Starfield is no Fallout 76 and Bethesda is unlikely to take that route with it. They are however a mod-happy studio and if you know how to run Starfield console commands, you can necessarily hack into the game for unfair advantages.
Hogwarts Legacy does have a partial multiplayer mod available but modding a game engine and system as complex as Starfield into a multiplayer is a mammoth task. There’s a slim chance since most active players are playing Starfield online with Game Pass. We’d love a multiplayer mod though. That’s what’ll take Starfield to No Man’s Sky and beyond.
Why Isn’t Starfield Multiplayer?
Same reason Starfield is not on PS5 (yet).
Multiplayer gaming requires a foundational single-player build at the bottom. Starfield is a tediously crafted and audacious project that’s hit the ground running. Although I don’t buy Bethesda spending 25 years making Starfield, I’m sure it did take a large team of devs months to create this.
Starfield is not multiplayer on launch and that’s good. Bethesda’s taking it one step at a time and that’s only natural considering the size of the game and the number of players who’ve hit Bethesda servers from Early Access. With Game Pass naturally providing the largest bulk of active players,
