Man Who Leaked First 45 Minutes Of Starfield Booked On Felony Charges

In the world of big-budget video game developers, Bethesda Game Studios has the rare gift of consistency. Play one of its games and you know, more or less, what to expect from all of them: an expansive open world filled with every product a Staples and/or medieval Whole Foods ever sold, mannequin-like characters that will stiffly run through gunfire to ask you to deliver a magic cheese curd, and, most importantly, literature. Tons of books, letters, notes, and emails for you, the player, to read at your leisure, totally unbothered by whatever world-ending crisis you are ostensibly supposed to ward off.

It’s no secret that Starfield requires a powerful gaming PC. Even if you have the latest generation hardware and the best graphics settings, the game will still crush your framerate. PC optimizations are on the way at last though for Nvidia users, because the latest game drivers improve Starfield performance by a small margin on systems that support Resizable BAR.

With millions of players having already jumped right into the thick of it with Starfield, it’s hard to deny the fact that a non-insignificant number of them are facing performance issues on powerful PC hardware. When the director Todd Howard was asked about these issues, he responded in a way that some might say was tone-deaf. Notably, he said that Starfield was optimized and that some PC gamers might simply need to upgrade their rigs for it to run properly. A bold statement, to be sure, but one that may also ring hollow following some strange discoveries from the open-source community.

Well, that certainly didn't take long. It looks like Starfield's handy dandy Constellation cadet junior flashlight has a simple, easy-to-swap texture file for the end of its beam, and modders over on the Nexus have gotten to work swapping in all manner of gag flashlights for our enjoyment. Here are a few of my favorites to emerge from this veritable artistic renaissance: 

Starfield players are a creative bunch, and when they're not filling spaceships full of potatoes or building New Atlantis in Lego, they're using the robust character creator to recreate a bunch of famous faces.

Bethesda’s "Skyrim in space" rings true when you take a look at the codes, because anyone familiar with the Creation Engine and Gamebryo will recognise them from a mile away — as they have been essentially the same since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

2023 has once again been a great year for gamers as not only AAA studios but indie developers too have brought out some amazing games. While The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom is widely regarded as the best game of 2023 so far, other games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Diablo IV, Dead Space Remake, Baldur's Gate 3 and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty have made it a year to remember. However, 2023 isn't over and there are still some highly anticipated games releasing in the coming months.

Elianora, who also goes by Emmi Junkkari, is a prominent modder in the Skyrim community. They have created some of the most downloaded Fallout 4 and Skyrim mods that have even caught the attention of Todd Howard who has complimented the mods. Bethesda went beyond distant admiration, as Elianora has revealed that they worked as a lighting and clutter artist for Starfield.

Starfield players aren't too happy with the map in Bethesda's new RPG.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard has returned to Reddit almost two years after his last appearance, celebrating Skyrim's 10th anniversary, in order to thanks fans and subsequently bask in over-enthusiastic praise. In the message posted to the Starfield subreddit 'ToddBethesda' writes:

Fans have waited for Bethesda to bring out their next new IP for years. It was initially unveiled during the last generation of console platforms, where Bethesda teased its first new IP in countless years. Starfield would be delivered during the next generation of platforms, but already, fans were intrigued as to what this new mysterious RPG would bring. Of course, the start of this game project took place even earlier for Todd Howard, the game director behind Starfield. Today, we’re finding out that a memo Todd sent out across the development teams and companies who had a part in bringing Starfield to life.

Today is Starfield early access release day, providing you bought the pricier editions, and senior Bethesda boffins are feeling appropriately festive, and probably also totally exhausted. Bethesda Game Studios director and executive producer Todd Howard has sent an email to staff thanking them for their efforts and ruminating a bit on Starfield's "long and winding" development, which began with Howard chatting to ZeniMax Media's now-passed co-founder Robert Altman in the wake of Skyrim's enormous success.