Mods are the bread and butter for every Bethesda Games Studio title. Each new release from their big franchises, like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, sees an extended life cycle thanks to the modding community support. Helping the support is the backing of the studio, which heavily supports mods and even adds official game modding tools known as the Creation Kit to their games to allow modders access to the necessary resources.
Starfield has already received hundreds of more minor mods, from cosmetics to UI tweaks, over on Nexus Mods. Once the Creation Kit is launched, we will see the scope and ambition of these mods increase significantly as the community gets their hands on the official modding tools.
We have boiled it down to our top five mods we can't wait for in Starfield, so without further ado, here are our picks -
Full Planets
This one seems like a no-brainer; having a densely packed planet with cities and outposts over vast barren landscapes would be an absolute dream. As it currently stands, one of the community’s biggest issues with Starfield is how spread out the content in the game is. You need to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other just to find one abandoned lab on a planet.
Imagine mods that fill up a planet with all new locations, villages, alien creatures, and exciting quests. We drool at the thought of someone making an entire city planet like Coruscant from Star Wars, where hours could be spent exploring and marveling at its sheer amount of streets, buildings, and interesting characters. The potential for modders to create their own worlds is limitless, and we truly hope this is one of the bigger mods we see from the talented modding community.
Compact Galaxy
Now, hear us out before you raise those pitchforks - bigger isn't always better when it comes to video game content. Often, games are just big for the sake of a talking point online. Starfield may be a victim of this. With its 120 star systems and thousands of planets, it is one of the biggest play areas in any game.
The problem is Bethesda's method to place its handcrafted content for players. Sparsely spread among the Settled Systems but lacking things to do and see on individual planets. And yes, we are aware this is a more realistic portrayal of the galaxy, but that doesn't make it more fun. We want to see all of Starfield's content pulled into a single galaxy to make it feel jam-packed with things to do, as a good BGS game should have. On top of this, we want full travel around this 'Compact Galaxy,' including manual landing and taking off from planets. Imagine how immersive this could be, a galaxy full to the brim with around 20 packed planets containing all the content that is currently spread thin across 120 systems pulled into just one.
60fps On Console
Here, we have something that should have been an option from day one on console but was left out - adjustable performance options. We have seen Bethesda titles like Fallout 76 receive 60fps updates after launch, vastly improving how the game looks and plays, so why not allow it on Starfield? The frame rate can drastically change a game running at 30fps, turning them instantly into 'next-gen' feeling titles; Starfield on console should have had these options from day one.
Bethesda did use the excuse of 'artistic choice,' a statement also echoed by Xbox boss Phil Spencer. However, the Xbox Series X should handle 60fps with no problem, even with a trade-off of fidelity, which is normal to see for these options. If the Xbox Series S needs to be left out - so be it. The Xbox One X was known as a premium console last gen and received patches like these, so the Series X deserves to get the frame rate boost - and modders are likely to get this working before Bethesda does.
Fallout Earth
Todd Howard mentioned that they almost used Fallout's post-apocalyptic Earth as the Earth in Starfield. Work from home and the pandemic (among other reasons) halted those plans, making Starfield a completely stand-alone IP from Bethesda's famous wasteland-based adventures. That said, we would love modders to work on turning Earth in Starfield (already a barren wasteland) into the wonderful Earth we get to survive and explore in the Fallout series.
Turning it more into a total conversion, we want to see all our favorite brands, like Nuka Cola and Stim Paks, take the place of current Starfield branded goods. Bringing in Deathclaws as reskinned Terrormorphs should be possible, as well as Ghouls being worked in as humanoid enemies. Best of all - as Earth in Starfield has been turned into an empty, endless desert, it should provide the perfect foundation for the talented modding teams to create the maps from our beloved Fallout franchise in Starfield.
Chat GPT Companions
This one is one we would love to see happen in Starfield. We already have Chat GPT companions in Skyrim; bringing them into Starfield would be superb. This mod gives your companion the use of AI systems to have realistic conversations with you as you adventure across the lands. The great thing about this is that it provides information about areas, missions, and other in-game tidbits to act as a walking guidebook/log.
Without any sort of database (find ours right here) or in-game log, Starfield would benefit so much from your AI companion giving you a rundown of your current objective or information on the planet you are on. While all companions in Starfield would work using an AI mod like this, we can't think of a better candidate than Constellation's own VASCO for applying it to. The sassy robot met at the start of the game would be the perfect fit, and it would make sense for VASCO to have all this knowledge stored in his databanks while giving the odd quip or put down along the way.
And that about does it for five Starfield mods we can't wait for. We will surely see endless mods of varying quality come out over the next few years/decade, and we look forward to trying out all of them. If you want to keep up to date with all the latest Starfield mods, visit us here at Starfield Portal regularly, where we seek out all the coolest mods for our Starfield Mod of the Week feature.
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