Bethesda's highly anticipated space RPG, Starfield, has had its embargo lifted with reviewers sharing their thoughts, much to fans' excitement and scrutiny from haters.
The PC version has been praised for its better-than-standard performance (for a Bethesda game, at least). On the other hand, the Xbox Series versions of Starfield have been met with a mixed reaction from experts due to somewhat less than stellar performance.
Even if the majority of reviewers had the chance to play Starfield at its best, it's important to acknowledge the gameplay on the Xbox Series S and X as well; we don't want another Cyberpunk 2077 situation, do we?
Notably, the known limitation of 30 fps visuals is just one aspect of the console version's shortcomings. During gameplay, some reviewers encountered more bugs compared to the PC counterpart, and loading times were occasionally lengthy.
One of the reviews that criticised Starfield's Xbox performance came from VGC. While their five-out-five score is based on the PC version, they warned console users that they might not have the same experience from a technical standpoint.
The downsides to the Series X version were previously known, namely the 30fps visuals, but sadly, that’s not where the shortcomings end. During our time with the game, the console version was significantly buggier than our PC journey, and the load times were sometimes very long.
The tech experts over at Digital Foundry also delved into the game's performance.
Their findings revealed inconsistencies in the 30 fps frame rate at major cities such as New Atlantis and Akila City. Players may experience frame drops and, occasionally, brief one-second stutters, contributing to fans' overall concern for Starfield's Xbox performance.
Still, not all hope is lost, as there's a belief that the day one patch might iron out some of these issues reviewers have had while playing Starfield these past few weeks. Do note that the issues found by Digital Foundry happened with the patch already installed.
Speaking of differences between Series S and Series X versions of Starfield, DF found very little that separates them. Issues with framerate and stutters can be found in either machine; however, the Series X edition does reportedly look slightly better.
Draw distances on Series S see a bit of a cutback (...) There is a split in resolution between the two systems. Series X achieves a 4k output, while Series S seems to come in at 1440p with both systems reaching those targets with the help of AMD's FSR 2 up-sampling technology. That means that the final image looks like it's 4k or 1440p respectively, but the game is up-sampled from lower resolutions by combining data from multiple frames
Much of the reason Xbox consoles have a hard time running Starfield is due to how demanding the game is on CPUs, even for supposed modern hardware like the Series X and S.
In contrast, high-end PC gamers look like the big winners since they'll get a much smoother experience, technically speaking.
Washington Post's Gene Park was more optimistic about the Starfield Xbox performance. He states that Series S performance is excellent, offering virtually the same experience as the Series X counterpart.
And that's it! Are these issues hurting your hype for Starfield? If not, then we have plenty of guides to get you started! Including a massive introduction to how crafting works and your ship customisation options, which are a lot.