Impressive Starfield mod imagines a loading-free future for near-planetary travel

Starfield was «made to played for a long time».

I've walked on nearly 200 different planets in Starfield in environments ranging from frozen tundra to baking infernos to toxic atmospheres. And in all that time I've only suffered one affliction that I felt a need to rush to a doctor to fix: I contracted a lung condition that eventually got so bad it made sprinting consume my oxygen supply in a matter of seconds, and I didn't have the meds to cure it myself.

Starfield is easily one of the biggest video game releases of 2023. The title was highly anticipated for years, and it was the first new RPG from the Bethesda team in quite some time. So, a lot of interest was built around the gameplay experience, and with so much pressure, it’s likely that there were several changes made along the way. This game is now available, and players can go through the various quests and explore planets while we wait for some post-launch content to come out. However, looking back, the game director behind Starfield offered an example of a feature that got dialed back during development.

If you're bummed that Starfield is not more like No Man's Sky, where you can seamlessly travel from space to planet, there's now a mod available that does just that.

Starfield hasn’t been out in the wild for very long, but that hasn’t stopped modders already taking the time to change and — in some cases — improve the game for PC players. From a much more detailed inventory UI to adding DLSS and even adding the PlayStation Studios splash screen to the start of the game (yes, seriously!), there are already some great mods worth a look.

Starfield is getting support for Nvidia DLSS in a future update. In a blog post, Bethesda claimed that it will address some of the highly-requested features and make quality-of-life improvements through a series of regular updates. These include an in-game FOV slider, which so far, players have been adjusting by editing a .ini text file, alongside brightness and contrast controls, and an HDR calibration menu. But before that, the developer has dropped a small hotfix today, to help iron out any ‘top blocker bugs' that are interfering with the general experience in the beloved space RPG. Dubbed version 1.7.29, the hotfix brings improvements to Starfield's performance on the Xbox Series S/X by reducing crashes. It also fixes some quest-ending bugs.

Starfield's jogging speed can appear to be a little fast but thankfully if you're finding it to be an issue a few players have already created some mods to help. 

Starfield is getting official mod support in 2024, game director Todd Howard confirmed in an interview. Since the expansive space RPG's debut in early access, thousands of unofficial mods have been made available online, ranging from ones that enable Nvidia's DLSS upscaling system to making the inventory more compact and user-friendly. However, official modding tools make it easy to add fresh, custom content such as new planets and story quests, essentially opening the playing field for more experimentation. This has been the custom for Bethesda games at launch, where the modding community has been deeply involved with eliminating bugs or enhancing the experience, thanks to a deep understanding of the engine.

Bethesda has confirmed plans to introduce official mod support for Starfield in 2024.

Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield is available now for Xbox Series X/S and PC, amassing over six million players and topping physical sales charts in the United Kingdom. It was also in development for eight years, and despite that, as usually happens in the industry, some plans didn’t make it in.

There are a ton of mods available for Starfield already, adding everything from stormtroopers to support for Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling system. By the standards of most games, this number of mods would be considered a deluge. But Starfield is a Bethesda Game Studios game, which means it’s more like the calm before the storm.

Starfield was quickly one of the biggest and most anticipated video game titles launching this year. Fans eagerly counted down the days until Bethesda was ready to release their brand new RPG into the marketplace. However, now that the game is finally here, some of you might wonder when that official mod support will make its way out. Mods have been one of the reasons some games continue to see plenty of active players today. Likewise, Bethesda is no stranger to allowing mods and embracing community creations.