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You don’t need an Xbox Series X to play Starfield. Here’s how

Tomas Franzese
By

Starfield is the highest-profile Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S game since Halo Infinite, but the game isn’t locked to those two consoles. Thanks to cloud gaming and Microsoft’s more open-ended mentality of making its games available on a wide variety of platforms, you don’t have to own one of Microsoft’s current-gen systems or have the Xbox app installed on your PC.

No, it’s not on PS5 or Nintendo Switch, but if you want to play Starfield while it’s at the center of the video game industry zeitgeist, here are some places where it’s playable other than the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series X, and Xbox PC app.

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Steam

Starfield's Steam page.
Tomas Franzese / Valve

The most obvious choice if you want to play Starfield elsewhere is to pick it up on Steam. While Microsoft does have a proprietary PC launcher of its own, Microsoft now consistently releases its own games through Valve’s launcher. Bethesda joined Xbox Game Studios in 2021 and has a long history of making its games available on Steam as well, so it’s not too surprising that Starfield is available on the platform.

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Starfield already proving quite popular on the platform too, having peaked at 266,000 concurrent players, according to SteamDB at the time I’m writing this. If you’re looking for a way to play Starfield natively on the hardware you own without using a Microsoft platform or service, this is your best option. It’ll run on Steam Deck too, although that’s not the only way to experience Starfield on the go.

Xbox Game Pass app on Android

Starfield on the Xbox cloud gaming app.
Tomas Franzese / Microsoft

While Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, the Xbox PC app, and Steam are your primary options for playing Starfield natively, Microsoft’s heavy investment in cloud gaming means that there are plenty of other devices where it’s playable remotely. The primary place is through the Xbox Game Pass app on Android, which lets Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers play games from the cloud. After downloading this app, players can find Starfield on it and play as long as a Bluetooth-compatible controller is connected. 

Get a solid mobile controller like a Backbone One or Razer Kishi V2 or a dedicated cloud gaming device like the Logitech G Cloud Handheld and install this app, and you’ll have an easy way to play Starfield via Xbox Cloud Gaming, even if you’re not at home or don’t own an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S. This app isn’t the only place where you can utilize Xbox Cloud Gaming to try Starfield, though.

Web browser

Starfield playable through web browser.
Tomas Franzese

Apple doesn’t let cloud gaming services like Xbox Game Pass onto its App Store. That said, iOS and Mac owners who also have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription can still play Starfield via a web browser. All you have to do is go to Xbox’s play site and sign into your Microsoft account, and then you can stream Starfield through the cloud like Android users would.

Keep in mind that the quality of your cloud game streaming is dependent entirely on the quality of your internet connection, so double-check your Wi-Fi or ethernet setup before playing Starfield this way. This method also works on Windows web browsers. That said, Windows users are better off playing the game natively through Steam or the Xbox app, the latter of which also provides a more stable Xbox Cloud Gaming connection than a web browser. 

Nvidia GeForce Now

Veronica asking if you're ready to change your life in Starfield.
Bethesda Softworks

As part of a commitment made during Microsoft’s process of acquiring Activision Blizzard, first-party Microsoft games will become compatible with Nvidia GeForce Now. GeForce Now is a cloud gaming service that allows players to stream supported games they own on PC over the cloud.

Nvidia claims that Starfield will run at up to a 4K resolution and 120 frames-per-second GeForce Now for ultimate members, making it one of the best cloud gaming options if you’re most concerned about stream quality. 

Samsung Gaming Hub

A still from Samsung's commercial about Starfield being playable via Samsung Gaming Hub.
Samsung

If you don’t want to play Starfield on a small phone screen or at your computer, check if you own a Samsung TV, monitor, or Freestyle 2nd Gen Projector that supports Samsung Gaming Hub. Xbox Cloud Gaming is part of the Samsung Gaming Hub that functions not too dissimilarly from the Android App. All you have to do is boot up the Xbox app, sign into your Microsoft account with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and connect a Bluetooth controller; after that, you can easily play Starfield on your TV via the cloud.

This is the best option if you don’t own any Microsoft consoles and prefer to play video games on a TV. This only works if you own one of the many supported Samsung devices from 2020 onwards, though. If you don’t, it’s best to try one of these old methods … or maybe dig out an old console. 

Xbox One

An Xbox One X console.
Microsoft

While Starfield has been heavily billed as an Xbox Series X/S exclusive — and Microsoft certainly wants people to upgrade their console for it — the game is playable on Xbox One. Xbox Cloud Gaming is supported across the Xbox One and Xbox Series family of devices, and while its most common use is for people to play cloud-supported games while they’re installing, it also means that every cloud-support Xbox Series X/S exclusive on Xbox Game Pass is technically playable on Xbox One.

Navigate to the Xbox Store on your console, find Starfield, and choose to boot it up like you would with any other cloud-supporting Xbox One game. Doing so will replicate the experience of playing Starfield on an Xbox console, even if it’s not technically running natively. If nothing else, it should now be clear that there are quite a few ways to play Starfield, even if you aren’t using an Xbox Series X or S.

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Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Turn your Xbox Series X into a Starfield machine with this console wrap
The Starfield Xbox Series X Console Cover.

Microsoft announced that official Xbox Series X Console Wraps will come out later this year. Three of these are already available to preorder, including one based on Bethesda Game Studios' highly anticipated Xbox console exclusive Starfield.
Following in the footsteps of customizable PlayStation 5 console covers, Microsoft is finally giving people more options to customize their normal Xbox Series X series. That comes in the form of Xbox Series X Console Wraps, which Microsoft says are "made with solid panels and an engirdled fabric," and are "designed to perfectly surround your Xbox Series X" without blocking the console's vents and airflow like some of the other current third-party options. The first Xbox Series X Console Wrap to release is based on Starfield and will come out on October 18.

Its design lines up with the special Starfield headset and controller and is based on the avionics modules players will encounter during the game. The Starfield Console Wrap will cost $50 when it launches in October, but two more Consoles Wraps launching a month later will come in slightly cheaper at $45.
Those two Console Wraps use soft microfiber fabric and feature designs based on camouflage, with the Mineral Camo Console Wrap using blues and purples and the Artic Camo Console Wrap featuring gray and white tones. Both Camo Console Wraps release on November 10, the three-year anniversary of the Xbox Series X launch.

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The impending Xbox 360 Store closure makes me wary of Game Pass’ future
The Xbox logo.

I'm an avid Xbox Game Pass user, often trying almost every game that comes to the service and closely following the games coming to and leaving the service each month. Following some recent announcements by Microsoft, though, I've been thinking a lot more about something else about Xbox Game Pass and Microsoft's current digital-focused Xbox storefronts and ecosystem: what happens when it all goes away?
Microsoft announced last week that it will shut down the Xbox 360 Store in July 2024. After that day, it will be impossible to buy games, movies, or TV shows digitally on the Xbox 360 store; it's just like what happened with the 3DS and Wii U eShops earlier this year. That announcement also came not long after Microsoft revealed it would replace Xbox Live Gold with Xbox Game Pass Core in September. With these changes, Microsoft is stamping out any support or focus its giving to the Xbox 360's era as a platform. As someone who grew up mostly playing Xbox 360, seeing these things I grew up with go away is saddening. It's also making me think about the day this will eventually happen to Xbox Game Pass or the store on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

Frankly, I'm not as concerned that Microsoft is going to do it anytime soon. Microsoft has given no indication that it plans on abandoning Xbox Game Pass. It's a really successful subscription service heavily integrated into all of its current platforms, there are titles confirmed to launch day one on it into 2024 and beyond, and Xbox initiatives like Play Anywhere and Smart Delivery ensure that at least some version of most Xbox games are available on other platforms. While I expect it to be the primary part of Microsoft's gaming strategy over the next decade, as someone who mainly played Xbox 360 growing up and is now seeing its storefront and subscription service go away, I'm now thinking about what the end of the Game Pass era will look like.
These recent actions have indicated that Microsoft will eventually be willing to do the same to the storefronts and subscription service we're currently using. Even after the backlash PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox all faced from these announcements, Sony is the only one that has backtracked its plans to close down older digital storefronts, at least temporarily. Xbox Game Pass is the current hotness for Microsoft, but what happens come the day it isn't? A lot more games are digital-only or tied to a subscription this generation, and those are the games most at risk of being lost if a digital storefront shuts down.
What happens to the Xbox console versions of games like Pentiment or Immortality on Xbox once Xbox Game Pass and the current iteration of the Xbox Store are shuttered? Yes, they can be played on PC, but the Xbox console version will be lost forever. And right now, it doesn't seem like Microsoft has any publicly shared plans to permanently preserve those experiences, nor has it done so for all of the Xbox 360 digital games going away. Game preservation is a significant problem facing the game industry, and Microsoft has just made a move showing that it's on the wrong side of that effort. 

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Starfield’s file size is massive no matter what platform you’re playing on
A spacecraft in Starfield.

The file sizes for Starfield finally appeared across some of the storefronts it's available on now that it's available to preload. As a result, we've learned just how massive the game is.
On Steam, Bethesda recommends that players have 125 GB of space for the game, but Microsoft's own launcher shows an even bigger PC install size of 139.84 GB for Starfield. That size is only slightly smaller on the console, with the Xbox Store showing me that the game will take up 117.07 GB on my Xbox Series X. It's now very understandable why Microsoft is launching a 1 TB version of the Xbox Series S around Starfield; still, the game will even take over a tenth of that system's memory if players aren't expanding it at all. 
This 110+ GB file size across all platforms for Starfield demonstrates just how big Bethesda's upcoming sci-fi RPG will be. It also follows a recent trend of even single-player taking up gigantic chunks of your game system's memory. This year alone, we've seen Star Wars Jedi: Survivor take up over 130 GB of space on consoles, while Baldur's Gate 3 clocks in at 125.14 GB currently. As games get bigger with more detail, it's clear that our gaming platforms will be able to accommodate fewer and fewer games on their SSDs going forward. 
At least you can play the game via Xbox Cloud Gaming if none of your platforms can accommodate that file size. Starfield will be released for PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6. Those who pre-order the Premium Edition will get access on September 1, though.  

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