Obsessed with – or need more practice at – Starfield's lockpicking mini-game? Then I have good news – you can now Digipick to your heart's content courtesy of a new Digipick simulator browser game.
22.09.2023 - 19:47 / ign.com / Todd Howard / New / Space
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.
Spotted by PCGamesN, modder 105gun has introduced a mod that finally adds seamless space travel into Bethesda's sci-fi RPG. As described on NexusMods, when installed, the mod Slower Than Light allows Starfield players on PC to control the speed gear of their ship using hotkeys. The maximum speed is the equivalent of "hundreds of times the speed of light," allowing players to travel between planets without fast travel and, more importantly, no load times.
As you can see from our captured footage, the mod allows for much faster traversal through space without having to fiddle in the in-game menus to planet hop, making it a lot quicker to venture to other locations. Unfortunately, the mod does not allow you to land on a planet similar to that like in No Man's Sky (maybe will get a mod for that in the future).
Following a gameplay reveal at the June 2022 Xbox-Bethesda showcase, Todd Howard told IGN that Starfield won't allow you to fly seamlessly through space. The most common way to visit planets and other solar systems is to fast travel, which includes a loading screen as you jump to your next location. While it was discovered that you can fly directly to other planets, it's dissatisfying and requires a hefty dose of time and patience.
In our review of Starfield, which we awarded a 7 out of 10, IGN said: "Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually, the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist."
Slower Than Light is one of many quality-of-life mods that have been added to Starfield since its release earlier this year. Other noteworthy mods include adding a FOV Slider, an in-game map so you don't get lost while exploring New Atlantis, and a revamp to the inventory UI. For more on some of the best mods you can install in Starfield, check out our roundup of the best mods.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Obsessed with – or need more practice at – Starfield's lockpicking mini-game? Then I have good news – you can now Digipick to your heart's content courtesy of a new Digipick simulator browser game.
Bethesda's CEO, Todd Howard has addressed some of the cut content in . The space ARPG was already an ambitious title, with a vast galaxy of over 100 planetary systems, and over 1000 planets — both handcrafted and procedurally generated — to explore, but Howard's recent comments suggested that exploring them could have been a more challenging task for players with resource management being more at the forefront of the game in its earlier stages of development.
Even before release, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty was confident Starfield would be the least buggy Bethesda game at launch. That proved to be the case, with most reviewers (including our own Francesco) praising it as the most polished Bethesda game released in recent years.
One of the downsides of space exploration in Starfield is that you can't simply fly to different planets. Instead, you manually plot a course and then teleport to your destination. It's an effective way of getting from A to B, for sure, but it's not quite the flight experience many space explorers were hoping for. Thankfully, there's now a mod that makes traveling between planets a lot more immersive.
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.
For reasons I won't get into here because it may constitute a little bit of a spoiler, the planet Earth in Starfield is a bit of a wasteland. But what if it was The Wasteland—that is, the post-nuclear hellscape of Bethesda's other big sci-fi-ish game series, Fallout? In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Todd Howard said developers actually gave thought to the idea.
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.
It turns out that Starfield has a hidden, but surprisingly robust support for spacewalking - and all you have to do to unlock it is type a few commands into the in-game console.
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.
Modders have already been getting busy in Starfield, rolling out both useful changes, and things that are just a bit of fun. One such fun mod has replaced all of the United Colonies’ guards in New Atlantis with Stormtroopers, which is something I think we can all say we saw coming.
Starfield game director Todd Howard has confirmed that the game's official mod tools will be released next year.