Amazon has revealed the preload date and download size of Starfield, perhaps a few days or weeks too early.
As reported by Insider Gaming, the preload starts on August 9, 2023, not that long from now. You may note that Early Access is not up until September 1, 2023, meaning gamers will have almost a month in advance to prepare that preload. That may seem like a lot of time, but it will make more sense with our other information.
About the download size, Starfield sits at a hefty 125 GB. That would already put it among the top ten biggest games in terms of download size today.
To put this in context, Starfield is slightly bigger than Red Dead Redemption 2, which takes up 120 GB. It is also about the same size as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. There are few other games bigger than it, such as Final Fantasy XV at 148 GB, and Borderlands 3 at 135 GB.
There probably wasn’t much reason for Microsoft to hide this information anyway, so while it’s weird that gamers got the word from Amazon and not Microsoft, since the information is already out, those of us who heard the news can prepare a few days early for it.
One good reason for fans to prepare for this well in advance is the extra feature that Starfield has also been confirmed to have. Because of Xbox Play Anywhere, gamers won’t have to buy the game on Steam if they already have an Xbox and Game Pass. They can load up Starfield on PC via Game Pass, and play on the same save for one game on PC and Xbox.
So, for example, you have an Xbox Series S, and also an ASUS ROG Ally. You will have everything you need to play the game at home, and to continue playing it when you’re outside your home. But, given the massive size of the game, you’ll want to get your devices prepared with that preload well in advance.
Microsoft also has good reason to get the game prepared for preload well in advance. The recently released Baldur’s Gate 3 did not have preloads ready. And so, due to high demand, downloads for the game briefly took Steam itself out offline. Microsoft’s move should clear up Steam’s and Xbox’s servers for the big day at launch.
Starfield will be releasing on September 6, 2023, on Xbox Series X|S, and on Windows via Steam. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
