Starfield preloads begin on Steam before Early Access starts for the Bethesda title

Steam's PC gamers who have been waiting to play Starfield can now start pre-loading the long-awaited sci-fi RPG from Bethesda Game Studios via Valve's digital store. Reports of Steam players downloading the game's files have been posted on the Steam forums.

Reports say the size of the Starfield preloads is pretty high at 116GB. If you bought the $99.99 Premium Edition, you can start playing the game tomorrow, August 31, starting at 8 pm Eastern time (5 pm Pacific time). Standard Edition players have a bit more time to download the game, as it won't unlock until September 5.

Currently, Steam's top 100 sales charts has Starfield as the number one game on the service before the Early Access time period begins. It will be interesting to see how many players will be online on Steam playing the more expensive Premium Edition when those gamers are allowed to play on Thursday.

Microsoft started preloads for the game earlier in August on the Xbox Store for Xbox Series X and S gamers, along with the Microsoft Store for PC gamers. Preloads are also available for subscribers to Xbox Games Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Earlier this week, a 15GB day-zero patch for Starfield was released ahead of the Early Access unlock, with a number of bug fixes.

The game can also reportedly be run on portable gaming PCs like Valve's Steam Deck and the more recent ASUS ROG Ally, according to a report on Inside Gaming. However, it's currently unclear just how well Starfield can run on those devices.

The review embargo for Starfield is scheduled to lift at Noon Eastern time on August 31. You can expect game streamers who got early access to the game to start streaming live gameplay a few hours before Early Access starts.

Not all major game outlets got a chance to get copies of the game ahead of time. Eurogamer posted word on Tuesday it had yet to get an early review code from Bethesda, for currently unknown reasons. However, it later posted an update stating the review code had indeed been sent.

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