Following six days of “early access” for $100 Premium Edition owners, Starfield launches for all owners at 5 pm Pacific today, as well as for Game Pass subscribers. A lot of people are going to race to launch Bethesda’s big space RPG at that moment, but when they do, they could get an error message. If that happens to you, take some comfort in the knowledge that this was anticipated, and may be resolved quickly.
We saw this happen during Starfield’s first launch last week: After preloading Starfield and waiting for the appointed hour to come, a number of players were confronted by a “you’re too early” error message. The issue was short-lived, and Microsoft is bracing players for the chance that it’ll make a comeback during today’s full launch.
“If you experience any issues getting into Starfield today, please note that we are rolling out the game and it may take time to propagate through the system,” wrote Xbox Support today. “If you receive an error message such as ‘do you own this game or app?’ or ‘are you too early’—please be patient and try again shortly.”
“It may take time to get into the game, do not worry if it takes a few tries to get in,” said a community manager on the Bethesda Discord. “We appreciate your patience!”
I have a feeling that a lot of people have been waiting for this moment to play Starfield. The early launch last week required either spending $100 on the Starfield Premium Edition, or adding a one-time payment of over $30 to this month’s Game Pass bill to get the Premium Edition Upgrade. $100 is a lot of money, and over $30 to upgrade a game you don’t even own is a tough sell.
That won’t necessarily lead to Starfield launch errors lasting longer this time around. Xbox Support makes it sound like the issue will be the speed at which information moves within its servers, not the volume of players trying to launch Starfield at the same time. Starfield isn’t an always-online game like Diablo 4, so once Steam and the Microsoft Store have sorted themselves out after the switch is flipped, there shouldn’t be any further server-related hurdles.
Then again, who knows? Stuff goes awry when big games launch. We’ll update this article should any persistent issues arise. And once you’re in and creating your character, check out our guides to Starfield backgrounds and Starfield traits to know which ones are worth taking and which ones are kinda worthless.