Starfield Early Access: How You can Play Before Release

By Alex NeyAugust 25, 2023

Starfield is available in Early Access, if you’re willing to dig deeper into your pocket for Bethesda’s space role-playing game. Here’s all the info on the purchasable Early Access.

Play Starfield before release? Yes, you can, because Bethesda is offering an Early Access option to space cowboys. For cash, of course. Specifically, the Maryland game developer is offering “up to 5 days” of early access, which could start on September 1, 2023.

But wait a minute – “up to”, “could”? What’s that supposed to mean? Well, with this wording, Bethesda is legally safeguarding itself against “force majeure”, for example. This means that “the actual game duration (…) depends on the purchase date” and “may differ under certain circumstances due to possible outages and time zone differences”.

So, in plain language, Starfield’s Early Access will definitely start on September 1, at least for those who are at least in possession of a Digital Premium Edition. This practice is already known from other games like Diablo 4 and Hogwarts Legacy, and the price for the earlier start of play is also comparably high for Starfield.

Play Starfield in Early Access: This is What it Costs

Starfield Early Access 01 — In Starfield, besides New Atlantis, a universe of about 1000 planets awaits you.

Pre-access to Starfield is thus firmly linked to the special editions of the game. So if you just own the base game, you’ll have to wait until the official release on September 6 to play. Early Access participation is included in the following editions or upgrades:

Upgrade to the Digital Premium Edition for 35 US$ (PC and Xbox Series)
Digital Premium Edition for 100 US$ (PC) and 110 Euro (Xbox Series) respectively
Constellation Edition aka Collector’s Edition for about 300 US$ (PC)

Starfield Early Access 03 — The Digital Premium Edition of Starfield contains a lot, but that is also reflected in the price.

However, if you are content with September 6 as the launch date, you could also consider playing Starfield with a Game Pass subscription. There, the space trip also starts on September 6, so you can more or less save the 70 dollars for the Standard Edition.