Todd Howard has shared a surprising insight about Starfield.
07.09.2023 - 13:07 / ign.com / Todd Howard / Phil Spencer / Howard
Starfield development chief Todd Howard had a fun response after an interviewer asked him why Bethesda hadn’t optimised Starfield for PC.
The Bloomberg interviewer set up the question by saying they’d asked their viewers for questions for Todd Howard, and a “big question from many” was: “why did you not optimise this game for PC?”
After a brief pause in which Howard looked a little nonplussed (Xbox boss Phil Spencer has a little laugh, too), an answer that cut to the heart of the issue: “We did. It’s running great. It is a next-gen PC game. We really do push the technology so you may need to upgrade your PC for this game. But it’s got a lot of great stuff going on in it and the fans are responding awesome.”
The message is clear: if you’re having a hard time running Starfield on PC, upgrade your rig.
Bloomberg audience Q: Why did you not optimize Starfield for PC?
Todd Howard: we did... you might need to upgrade your PC
Full interview: https://t.co/TFEVMv9AXZ pic.twitter.com/3o1eS1iJSG
Of course, no game runs flawlessly on all PC configurations. System requirements are designed to give players an idea of what’s required before they buy. But Starfield’s ‘mostly positive’ user review rating on Steam suggests the PC version has launched in a good state, which is quite the thing for a Bethesda game. The Microsoft effect, perhaps?
There’s a lot going on in the world of Starfield. Its full launch saw over 1 million concurrent players. Players are using Starfield's ship creator to recreate famous vessels from the likes of Star Wars, Serenity, and Star Trek, and many hidden references to other games like Skyrim have already been discovered. Savvy speedrunners have even figured out how to complete it in under three hours.
However, if you’re still just getting started, here are all the things to do first in Starfield.
IGN’s review explains the pull to seek out Starfield’s “immense amount of quality roleplaying quests and interesting NPCs” is strong, despite a rough start and some core aggravations.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
Todd Howard has shared a surprising insight about Starfield.
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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.
You may have heard about a little space game called Starfield, the gravitational pull from which risks swallowing all games discourse for months and possibly years to come. Perhaps that's no surprise for a game that's been in development and hyped for as long as any title that I can remember (well, ones that have shipped anyway) but it's easy to forget now the thing's in our hands that it was subject to multiple delays along the way.
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.
Starfield director Todd Howard has spoken about plans for the game that didn’t make the final cut, including the idea for a very neat Fallout reference.
Starfield has enjoyed a strong physical sales debut in the UK, despite its inclusion on day one in Game Pass.
Starfield game director Todd Howard has confirmed that the game's official mod tools will be released next year.
In an interview with Famitsu, Starfield lead and Bethesda frontman Todd Howard stated that the game's mod support «will be available next year» (obtained via machine translation), which likely refers to Starfield's equivalent to the Creation Kit modding tools for Skyrim and Fallout 4.
While it’s certainly true that Starfield already has more mods than most games ever receive during their entire lifetime, including the hotly anticipated Script Extender thingamajig, it doesn’t take an eagle’s eye to notice that the vast majority of them are still relatively limited in scope. That’s for good reason, too, as Starfield is currently missing a crucial feature that all Bethesda Game Studios RPGS eventually receive: Creation Kit support. Until Creation Kit 2 – built specifically for Starfield‘s Creation Engine 2 – comes out, modders won’t be able to easily add new weapons, customizations, and other assorted goodies into the game, but the good news is that it’s bound to happen relatively soon!
Microsoft has announced an Xbox Digital Broadcast for Tokyo Game Show.
Starfield is officially out, and modders have been working hard creating helpful add-ons, from useful, quality-of-life mods such as revamping the inventory UI to unofficially adding support for DLSS. Others have added more cosmetic things like reskin in-game clothes. And then there are some people out there who keep modding Bethesda's Todd Howard into the game.