Starfield’s huge May update–the greatest 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 a few of the sport’s most vital quests. The May replace ostensibly has all of it, from choices to tweak fight issue 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 fingers on the replace and take it for a spin. Disappointed by the state of the sport at launch, I’d awaited this replace with bated breath, hoping Starfield would lastly get the Cyberpunk 2077 therapy and rise like a phoenix from its buggy, underwhelming ashes. Unfortunately, upon firing up the sport, I found one thing extremely disheartening: Rather than drastically bettering Starfield’s gameplay, the May replace as a substitute makes the sport’s flaws much more evident and introduces new bugs. Later, I stumbled into an much more painful reality: Although the replace itself is on the market freed from cost, a few of the replace’s greatest quality-of-life enhancements include a stunning price–one that gamers won’t be prepared to pay.
Playing on Xbox, I fired up an previous save and instantly proceeded to check out the brand new floor maps and scanner capabilities. Functionally, the brand new three-dimensional floor maps do a implausible 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 value discovering on it. The new maps do not precisely scream, “Hey, there’s a really cool point of interest 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 which will point out the presence of an attention-grabbing locale they may 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. Prior 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 route of their present goal. Those 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 new replace’s 3D constructing maps make it a lot simpler to determine which flooring sure locations are positioned on, however look like out there 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 will nonetheless should depend on the information arrows.
The new 3D floor maps work properly but in addition exhibit precisely how empty most of the sport’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 search 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 Boost Pack and a dose of Amp (which briefly will increase motion velocity by 35%), getting round in Starfield stays an train in frustration. Traveling from one POI to a different on-foot nonetheless takes far too lengthy, however on the brilliant facet, Bethesda has introduced that floor autos are lastly in growth. In the meantime, Starfield’s scanner has been up to date with a helpful new characteristic: 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.
Unfortunately, there is a draw back. Naturally, gamers can not fast-travel to undiscovered POIs till the participant has unlocked them by first reaching the placement on foot. But returning gamers will doubtless be displeased to find that even POIs they’ve already found should 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 places by way of the menus on the starmap, these places will not be unlocked for me on the scanner. This additionally means returning gamers can be repeatedly bombarded with “New Location Discovered” 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 places.
Speaking of XP, one extremely vital element Bethesda unnoticed of its advertising 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. One of the very best options within the replace is the flexibility for gamers to tweak issues like the problem of floor fight vs. house fight from the sport’s settings menu. Players may even enhance 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. But there is a value: Increasing your character’s carry weight will lower the quantity of XP you achieve. Increasing the gap from which you’ll entry gadgets in your ship’s cargo maintain may have the identical impact. Changing your character’s carrying capability from Normal to Increased will lower the quantity of XP you earn by 6%. Upping your carrying capability to Greatly Increased will price you 8% of your earned XP. Allowing your self to entry your ship’s cargo maintain from wherever will knock off one other 6%. Increasing vendor credit from Normal to Greatly Increased decreases your earned XP by an extra 4%.
With my character’s carrying capability set to Increased, vendor credit set to Greatly Increased, 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. But even stranger than that, tweaking fight injury (in house or on the bottom) has zero impact on the XP you earn. It appears odd that Bethesda is ready on punishing gamers who wish to keep away from repeatedly fast-traveling backwards and forwards to entry their ship’s cargo maintain, making a number of journeys to a number of Trade Authority places 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 continually discovering themselves overencumbered. Why give gamers the choice to play the sport their means after which punish them for it?
Players searching for a problem can be rewarded, nevertheless, as lowering vendor credit, ship cargo accessibility, and carry weight will enhance the quantity of XP gamers earn. But this makes the truth that there’s completely zero XP penalty for growing the injury one does in fight (or lowering the injury enemies can do) even stranger. I examined this by working the “Eyewitness” quest with max participant injury and minimal enemy damage–reducing the problem so severely got here with no XP penalty however did make the battle laughably simple, decreasing one of many sport’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 numerous work to be completed 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 ambiance whereas brandishing invisible weapons, and had a complete dialog with the again of an NPC’s head (it appears the difficulty 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 battle. The choice to talk along with her was nonetheless showing, however deciding on it did not wake her up, so I made my means again to the UC Vanguard troopers who I’d left to carry the road behind me.
Upon placing up a dialog with the soldier who was meant to debrief me, the sport entered a dialogue scene, however introduced no dialogue choices for me to select from. Unable to exit the dialogue or entry the sport’s menu, I used to be pressured 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 search out that everything of New Atlantis had turn into a game-breaking shade of yellow that made it nearly unattainable to see something. After restarting the sport as soon as once more, the save lastly loaded accurately, and the mysteriously downed NPC was alive and properly.
Starfield’s May replace is actually a step in the proper route, and options like the flexibility to brighten one’s ship in the identical method as an outpost or participant residence are implausible. Updates to Photo Mode now enable gamers to select from a wide range of facial expressions for his or her character, they usually 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 potential to fast-travel from the scanner. But 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 largest situation with the brand new replace is that a few of its most helpful features–like the flexibility to entry ship cargo extra simply, carry extra gadgets, and make fewer journeys to Trade Authority vendors–come with a built-in punishment for gamers who dare to utilize them.
Though Bethesda hasn’t shared when gamers can anticipate to achieve entry to floor autos for planetside exploration, their addition will hopefully enhance the core expertise of the sport, and one hopes that the Shattered Space enlargement coming this fall may even add a bit extra depth to a sport that at present feels a mile vast and an inch deep. I’m nonetheless looking forward to the way forward for Starfield and am wanting ahead to the brand new enlargement. But after experiencing the sport’s greatest 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 a few of the Starfield’s greatest quests will proceed to negatively affect the sport, and I discover myself questioning if different options deliberate for the sport may additionally include a hidden value. Vehicles are all properly and good, however not if I’ll should synthesize my very own gasoline to make use of them, or endure an XP penalty for daring to cram a couple of too many house sandwiches within the trunk after I embark on an interstellar picnic.
