Starfield’s large May update–the largest to hit the sport since its September 2023 launch–arrived final week, introducing tons of latest quality-of-life options (like improved scanner perform and floor maps) and long-awaited bug-fixes for among the recreation’s most vital quests. The May replace ostensibly has all of it, from choices to tweak fight problem to elevated stock house and even improved ship-decorating mechanics.
As a fan of Bethesda’s earlier video games (and an enormous house nerd), I used to be excited to get my palms on the replace and take it for a spin. Disillusioned by the state of the sport at launch, I might awaited this replace with bated breath, hoping Starfield would lastly get the Cyberpunk 2077 remedy and rise like a phoenix from its buggy, underwhelming ashes. Sadly, upon firing up the sport, I found one thing extremely disheartening: Slightly than drastically bettering Starfield’s gameplay, the May replace as an alternative makes the sport’s flaws much more evident and introduces new bugs. Later, I stumbled into an much more painful fact: Though the replace itself is obtainable freed from cost, among the replace’s finest quality-of-life enhancements include a stunning price–one that gamers won’t be prepared to pay.
Taking part in on Xbox, I fired up an outdated save and instantly proceeded to check out the brand new floor maps and scanner features. Functionally, the brand new three-dimensional floor maps do a incredible job of serving to gamers get their bearings and permit them to survey a planet’s topography with out having to bodily run round to see if there’s something price discovering on it. The brand new maps do not precisely scream, “Hey, there is a actually cool focal point over there!” however the 3D particulars that now seem on a planet’s floor map imply gamers can spot buildings, uncommon rock formations, and different particulars that will point out the presence of an attention-grabbing locale they could want to discover.
There are 3D maps for main buildings, as properly, which make getting from level A to level B considerably simpler when exploring massive enclosed areas with a number of flooring. Previous to the replace, gamers might solely depend on a path of arrows that would seem on the bottom whereas utilizing the scanner, pointing them within the path of their present goal. These information arrows are nonetheless there, and nonetheless generally tend to vanish at random, however gamers now have extra choices than merely placing the scanner away and taking it again out once more to get them to reappear. The brand new replace’s 3D constructing maps make it a lot simpler to determine which ground sure locations are positioned on, however look like obtainable just for massive or distinctive buildings, just like the absolutely enclosed metropolis of Cydonia on Mars. If a participant finds themselves struggling to navigate oft-reused buildings, just like the Robotics Science Facility on Volii Chi, they’re going to nonetheless should depend on the information arrows.
The brand new 3D floor maps work properly but in addition show precisely how empty lots of the recreation’s 1,000+ planets actually are. POIs are nonetheless extraordinarily sparse on most planets (even these with massive settlements, like Mars), and gamers are nonetheless going to seek out themselves working for a number of minutes straight–with nothing however rocks to take a look at on the way–to get from their touchdown zone to the undiscovered POIs on their maps. Even with a totally tricked-out Increase Pack and a dose of Amp (which quickly will increase motion pace by 35%), getting round in Starfield stays an train in frustration. Touring from one POI to a different on-foot nonetheless takes far too lengthy, however on the brilliant aspect, Bethesda has introduced that floor autos are lastly in growth. Within the meantime, Starfield’s scanner has been up to date with a helpful new function: When activated, POIs now pop up on the scanner, permitting gamers to pick them and fast-travel immediately, with out having to waste time navigating by a number of menus to take action.
Sadly, there is a draw back. Naturally, gamers can’t fast-travel to undiscovered POIs till the participant has unlocked them by first reaching the placement on foot. However returning gamers will probably be displeased to find that even POIs they’ve already found have to be re-unlocked in the event that they wish to fast-travel there with the brand new scanner perform. I’ve already explored each inch of New Atlantis, for instance, and whereas I can nonetheless fast-travel to The Lodge and numerous different areas through the menus on the starmap, these areas usually are not unlocked for me on the scanner. This additionally means returning gamers will likely be repeatedly bombarded with “New Location Found” notifications when arriving at POIs they have not visited since earlier than the May replace, and can clearly not be incomes any XP for re-discovering these areas.
Talking of XP, one extremely vital element Bethesda not noted of its advertising and marketing for the May replace is the truth that making use of sure new options can have an effect on how a lot XP a participant earns. Probably the greatest options within the replace is the power for gamers to tweak issues like the problem of floor fight vs. house fight from the sport’s settings menu. Gamers may even improve the quantity of credit that distributors have on them (making repeated journeys to unload stolen items a factor of the previous) and tweak how a lot weight their character can carry. However there is a value: Rising your character’s carry weight will lower the quantity of XP you acquire. Rising the gap from which you’ll entry objects in your ship’s cargo maintain may have the identical impact. Altering your character’s carrying capability from Regular to Elevated will lower the quantity of XP you earn by 6%. Upping your carrying capability to Enormously Elevated will value you 8% of your earned XP. Permitting your self to entry your ship’s cargo maintain from wherever will knock off one other 6%. Rising vendor credit from Regular to Enormously Elevated decreases your earned XP by an additional 4%.
With my character’s carrying capability set to Elevated, vendor credit set to Enormously Elevated, and my ship’s cargo accessible from wherever, I used to be incomes a complete of 16% much less XP per exercise than I in any other case would. However even stranger than that, tweaking fight harm (in house or on the bottom) has zero impact on the XP you earn. It appears odd that Bethesda is about on punishing gamers who wish to keep away from repeatedly fast-traveling forwards and backwards to entry their ship’s cargo maintain, making a number of journeys to a number of Commerce Authority areas to promote their items, or listening to their companions repeatedly complain out loud that they are carrying an excessive amount of as a result of the sport’s woefully insufficient default carry capability means they’re continuously discovering themselves overencumbered. Why give gamers the choice to play the sport their means after which punish them for it?
Gamers on the lookout for a problem will likely be rewarded, nevertheless, as lowering vendor credit, ship cargo accessibility, and carry weight will improve the quantity of XP gamers earn. However this makes the truth that there’s completely zero XP penalty for rising the harm one does in fight (or lowering the harm enemies can do) even stranger. I examined this by working the “Eyewitness” quest with max participant harm and minimal enemy damage–reducing the problem so severely got here with no XP penalty however did make the battle laughably straightforward, decreasing one of many recreation’s most formidable monsters right into a creature roughly as harmful as a Radroach. One wonders what Bethesda’s objective is with regard to XP penalties and bonuses.
On the subject of Radroaches, replaying the Terrormorph questline additionally revealed that there is nonetheless various work to be performed when it comes to squashing the sport’s many bugs. I encountered bare miners on Cydonia, noticed my companions stroll round with no spacesuit on planets with no environment whereas brandishing invisible weapons, and had a whole dialog with the again of an NPC’s head (it appears the problem with the sport’s digicam glitching out throughout dialogue sequences remains to be alive and properly). After disposing of the comically feeble Terrormorphs that attacked New Atlantis, I circled to find {that a} very important NPC companion appeared to have been downed or killed within the struggle. The choice to talk together with her was nonetheless showing, however choosing it did not wake her up, so I made my means again to the UC Vanguard troopers who I might left to carry the road behind me.
Upon hanging up a dialog with the soldier who was meant to debrief me, the sport entered a dialogue scene, however offered no dialogue choices for me to select from. Unable to exit the dialogue or entry the sport’s menu, I used to be compelled to restart, and upon doing so, found the automated save created after I exited the sport had been corrupted, renaming my character to “Dude Mack” and altering her degree from 31 to “##.” I went again to a earlier save, made within the moments after I put down my final Terrormorph, and loaded in to seek out that the whole thing of New Atlantis had develop into a game-breaking shade of yellow that made it virtually unimaginable to see something. After restarting the sport as soon as once more, the save lastly loaded appropriately, and the mysteriously downed NPC was alive and properly.
Starfield’s May replace is definitely a step in the proper path, and options like the power to embellish one’s ship in the identical method as an outpost or participant house are incredible. Updates to Photograph Mode now permit gamers to select from a wide range of facial expressions for his or her character, and so they also can change the pose and expression of whichever NPC the participant has accompanying them, making photograph ops extra interesting. The 3D floor and constructing maps are extraordinarily useful, as is the brand new skill to fast-travel from the scanner. However in the end, Starfield nonetheless suffers from the identical points that plagued it at launch, from irritating bugs to empty planets with little of curiosity to find. By far, the most important subject with the brand new replace is that a few of its most helpful features–like the power to entry ship cargo extra simply, carry extra objects, and make fewer journeys to Commerce Authority vendors–come with a built-in punishment for gamers who dare to utilize them.
Although Bethesda hasn’t shared when gamers can count on to realize entry to floor autos for planetside exploration, their addition will hopefully enhance the core expertise of the sport, and one hopes that the Shattered Area enlargement coming this fall will even add a bit extra depth to a recreation that presently feels a mile huge and an inch deep. I am nonetheless eager for the way forward for Starfield and am wanting ahead to the brand new enlargement. However after experiencing the sport’s largest replace but, I concern that Bethesda’s resolution to penalize gamers for making use of sorely wanted quality-of-life enhancements and protracted bugs in among the Starfield’s largest quests will proceed to negatively influence the sport, and I discover myself questioning if different options deliberate for the sport may additionally include a hidden value. Automobiles are all properly and good, however not if I am going to should synthesize my very own gasoline to make use of them, or endure an XP penalty for daring to cram a number of too many house sandwiches within the trunk after I embark on an interstellar picnic.