As players continue to explore the deepest reaches of the galaxy in Starfield, the team at Bethesda is still working tirelessly to improve, fix, and refine various aspects of the game, to ultimately provide a a smoother and more consistent playing experience for every space adventurer. Earlier today, an official announcement appeared on the Bethesda website that is setting in motion one of the biggest updates yet, and even allowing players to get an early, hands-on glimpse of what’s to come.
The excitingly detailed update starts off with the introduction to a new Steam Beta patch, which is now available for all those who play Starfield on PC. This provides an opportunity for players to actively engage with all of the performance and gameplay-related updates reportedly coming “later this month”.
While the Beta acts as a standalone version of the game and uses your most current save file, any progress made with your character in the Beta will not be accessible in the main game until the updates are live. So that’s something to keep in mind, depending on where you are in terms of the story, sidequests, etc.
In order to download the Steam Beta, simply right-click on ‘Starfield’ in your Library, go to ‘Properties’, and select ‘[beta]’ from the respective drop-down menu, as seen below. The patch itself is only 2GB, so you don’t need to worry about it being the same file size as the actual game.
As for the actual updates that are coming to the game, they include a smorgasbord of long-awaited fixes, performance improvements, and of course the much-anticipated gameplay-related updates. Among them are:
- The ability to watch your character physically ingest/eat food and drinks they find or collect. If you place them in your inventory for later, the effect will still be the same. Hooray for basic human immersion!
- Stealth gameplay is now “more forgiving”.
- Fixed an issue where some NPCs would not be seen wearing clothes.
- Fixed issues that occurred after reaching the Unity, such as not being able to access your inventory, saving, or in-progress skill challenges freezing when starting a new game.
- Players can now adjust Brightness and Contrast in Display settings menu. HDR Brightness can be adjusted as well, if the system supports it.
- Nvidia DLSS support for those with compatible Nvidia graphics cards, allowing players to use DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing, Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, and DLSS Frame generation. VSync must still be toggled off for the effects to show.
- Overall stability and performance improvements such as GPU optimization, improved renderer threading model for better CPU usage, and resolution of memory-related issues and leaks.
Several quest-related bugs that players have continuously reported on Bethesda Forums and the Starfield Discord server have been resolved as well, including:
- All That Money Can Buy
- Fixed a rare issue where players couldn’t sit during the negotiation with Musgrove.
- Blast Zone
- Fixed an issue where the hard rocks that need to be cleared out by players will not appear on Ngodup Tate’s land.
- Echoes of the Past
- Fixed an issue where the Grylloba Queen could sometimes not be reachable during the objective “Secure the Shuttle Bay”.
- Eye of the Storm
- Fixed an issue where players’ quest progression could potentially be blocked due to a missing docking prompt.
- Grunt Work
- Addressed an issue where progress could appear blocked if “Supra et Ultra” was completed while returning to the Lodge during “High Price to Pay”.
- No Sudden Moves
- Fixed an issue the that could prevent the entrance door to the Scow ship from being opened again.
- Operation Starseed
- Fixed an issue where the key that is needed to exit the facility could sometimes not be present.
- Sabotage
- Fixed an issue where David Barron could potentially not be found by players.
- Short Sighted
- Fixed an issue where players could rarely become control-locked while speaking with Vladimir.
- The Heart of Mars
- Fixed an issue where players might not be able to mine the “The Heart of Mars”.
This slate of updates is definitely a welcome sight for many Starfield players, especially those who’ve reported grievances with one or more of the issues noted above. Feedback so far on Reddit is leaning mostly positive so far.
Of course, in a galaxy-sized game like this, there are many more quests still (looking at you, “Eyewitness”) that need de-bugging and aspects of gameplay to be further smoothed out. Nonetheless, it’s yet another giant leap in the right direction for Bethesda’s biggest pride and joy to date. Especially before the Shattered Space expansion makes its debut next year.
