Starfield: New Display Modes Coming to Xbox Says Todd Howard

In an interview with the Kinda Funny Games podcast, Todd Howard recently stated that a future update would bring new console display modes to Bethesda’s space exploration RPG, Starfield. Although the Bethesda exec did not reveal exactly what display modes the update would introduce, some users on X already have ideas of their own.

Todd Howard raised some eyebrows among the gaming community when he sat down with the Kinda Funny Games podcast for an hour-long interview that discussed, among other things, new features for Starfield. City maps were mentioned, but the Starfield director also touched on new display modes, which Starfield lacks on all platforms.

According to Todd Howard, both were supposed to come through a Steam Beta update that will be announced within this week or probably the next.

X user GPTGamingNews immediately took to the social networking website. They posted their theory that Bethesda is considering a display mode bringing 60 frames per second (fps) to Starfield on Xbox Series S and X consoles.

The Xbox Series consoles run the game only at 30 fps, no matter the resolution. However, some users disagreed with GPTGamingNews’ theory, believing 40 fps is more attainable, especially on screens with 140 Hz refresh rates.

With the recent next-gen update, Bethesda introduced two display modes to Fallout 4, which brought the Performance and Quality modes to the Xbox Series consoles and the PlayStation 5. The Quality mode targeted 30 fps at 4K resolution with ultra settings, while the Performance mode aimed for 60 fps at 4K and standard settings.

However, many players on the Xbox Series consoles have complained that they cannot toggle between Quality and Performance modes by turning the latter off. This means that they’re stuck in Performance mode all the time.

Bethesda later clarified the issue, explaining that both modes target 60 fps, with only the Performance Mode being “aggressive” at proactively tweaking graphics settings to maintain a consistent frame rate.