I used to be simply saying on Twitter yesterday that Starfield’s post-launch help has been horrible, and there has not been a patch that has improved the sport in a significant, important means. Now, one other large patch has dropped and…I consider Bethesda continues to show me proper.
We already knew what this patch was going to be, provided that a lot of the notes had been listed earlier and it was examined within the Steam beta, however it’s now dwell for everybody. And once more, it’s virtually totally bug fixes and a few quality-of-life updates which might be actually fairly absurd for being greater than six months previous launch right here.
You’ll be able to learn the a number of hundred fixes within the patch notes if you wish to see if any of them have an effect on you, and lastly, all these months later, a number of the bigger ones have been gotten to (although some nonetheless stay.
However the quality-of-life stuff? Right here’s the listing with my very own commentary after.
- PHOTOMODE: Added the power to set Expressions and Poses on participant and companions in Photomode. – That is in all probability one of many least essential updates I’ve ever seen. One of many new expressions is “duckface.”
- SCANNER: Now you can open doorways and harvest with the scanner opened. – An especially primary performance factor that ought to have been modified instantly.
- Setting course on an inactive quest will now make it the lively quest. – Logical, clearly.
- Added help for adjusting FOV when utilizing third Particular person Ship view. – A superb visible replace, albeit I don’t like flying in third individual personally.
- Added an Anisotropic filtering high quality slider (PC). – That is extra of a visible replace than an precise high quality of life characteristic.
- Eliminated the digipick value for utilizing Undo throughout the Safety mini-game. – This could have by no means been like this within the first place and we must always not wanted to have save scummed locks for six months earlier than this.
- Added an autosave when quick travelling from a planet’s floor to orbit. – This was an effective way to lose numerous progress so sure, that is wanted.
- Up to date the Ship UI to carry out extra easily at increased framerates. – Once more, that is simply visuals working how they’re imagined to, not true quality-of-life.
I merely can not give Bethesda a lot credit score for importing patches which might be nonetheless 98% bug fixes six months later, and quality-of-life options which might be A) principally visible adjustments or B) extremely small issues that ought to not have taken six months so as to add or change.
Sure, I acknowledge that Starfield isn’t a dwell service sport. I’m not asking for additional missions patched in each month. However there are numerous QoL and balancing points this sport has wanted since launch that it nonetheless doesn’t have. And even minor content material updates like extra ship or base elements would go a great distance. As would a roadmap revealing after we’re getting issues like metropolis maps or new traversal like they’ve mentioned will come this 12 months. And it’s midway by means of March and we’ve heard nothing about when the Shattered Area enlargement arrives this 12 months.
Sure, this sport wants significantly better post-launch help than it’s getting, and Bethesda feels painfully sluggish in comparison with most fashionable sport devs. I might take even one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s large patches (they’ve finished a bunch) and now we have had nothing near these right here. This new “large” patch adjustments virtually nothing, and I’m not going to humor individuals who say in any other case.
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Choose up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller sequence and The Earthborn Trilogy.