Well, that didn't take long. Just days after teasing an impending update for Starfield, Bethesda has officially rolled it out in Steam Beta on PC.
Bethesda Game Studios director and executive producer Todd Howard teased the update this week, saying it will feature some improvements to the map as well as "great stuff for shipbuilding." In reality, it contains so much more than that!
The highlight of the update is, of course, the improved surface maps. The new surface maps feature much more detail and utility so that you should actually know where you're going and what's there.
"We took what's there, we blew it all up and instead we have a whole new aesthetic to the surface maps," explained Art Director Istvan Pely. "You can see the terrain, all the detail in the terrain, trees, rocks, all the structures in the loading zone. It's a lot easier to navigate and we also made it easier to get around the cities. You can see markers for all the shops, the enhance boutiques, restaurants, you name it. It's a lot easier to get around now."
In addition to the improved maps, there are now new gameplay options available in the settings menu that allows you to tune your overall gameplay experience. Players can adjust things like the capacity of vendor credits, carry capacity, and combat difficulty.
"Depending on how you play, you can actually tune to make space combat more difficult, or gun combat less difficult. It's really up to you, and depending on how you balance them, it will change how you get XP," explained Lead Producer Joe Mueller.
There's also a new "Extreme Difficulty." It sits above "Very Hard" and it "really, really makes you pay attention, especially for the higher level characters."
The update also expands upon ship customization with a new Decorate Mode. With this mode, you can go in and furnish and customize the interior layout of your ships. You can place furniture, decorations, and more — anything you can do in Outpost mode, you can now do with the ships in your fleet.
While this update is currently only available on Steam Beta right now, when it arrives on Xbox Series X, console layers will get new display settings. Players will have more control over the graphic fidelity and performance on Xbox with a few options that you can adjust to fit your playstyle and display.
- Frame Rate Target: You can now choose between 30, 40, 60 or an Uncapped frame rate on VRR displays. If you do not have a VRR display running 120hz, you will still be able to select from 30 or 60. Screen tearing may occur at times when selecting 60 on a non-VRR display.
- Prioritize: You can now prioritize between Visuals and Performance while trying to maintain the frame rate target. If you’re choosing a frame rate target of 60 or above, we recommend changing this to Performance. Prioritizing Visuals keeps the highest resolution while maintaining full detail for special effects, lighting, and crowds. Prioritizing Performance lowers internal resolution and detail for special effects, lighting, and crowds. Both modes may adjust internal resolution dynamically when scenes or action get heavier as well. When switching between modes, you will see the lighting change briefly as the system catches up to the new mode.
The latest Starfield update is live right now on Steam Beta for PC. The full patch notes can be found here. Bethesda doesn't anticipate many changes from the current update that's been released but has not yet announced when it will arrive on Xbox.