Starfield’s May update – that’ll be the one teased by Bethesa’s Todd Howard earlier this week – is now live for beta testing on PC, bringing with it the previously promised surface map overhaul, alongside a new 60fps target mode on Xbox Series X. Additionally, Bethesda has shared a brief look at land vehicles, coming to Starfield in a future update.
Bethesda’s lengthy release notes kick off with some “big improvements” for those pesky surface maps – changes elaborated on in an accompanying developer video. Bethesda says the goal of its overhaul is to introduce more “utility and detail” to maps, and that includes cities now being properly represented with 3D maps featuring icons denoting points of interest. Additionally, bringing up Starfield’s scanner now superimposes these icons directly onto the environment, so players can more easily find their way to a specific location.
Elsewhere, the update introduces an extensive suite of granular gameplay options enabling players to configure Starfield to better suit their tastes. These include options to separately adjust enemy and player combat damage output, to enhance or decrease aim assist, to make ammo weightless, to increase or decrease the effectiveness of healing items, to adjust instances where automatic saves trigger, and more. Additionally Bethesda is introducing an “extreme” difficulty option which sits above the current “very hard”.
As for ship customisation, players can now activate a “decorate” mode while onboard their vessels. This works in a similar manner to Starfield’s Outpost mode, enabling players to plop down everything from rugs and lamps to wall monitors and warning signs directly in first-person. And to better accommodate “decorate” mode, Bethesda is introducing new clutter-free habs for use when constructing ships.
And there’s more; as of Starfield’s May patch, New Game + players can respec their traits and change their appearance when going through the Unity, while Xbox Series X players get new settings enabling them to prioritise between visual performance and quality. Starfield’s Performance mode is designed to be used in conjuction with a new 60fps target option, which is available alongside a 30fps setting for those with standard displays. However, players using 120Hz VRR screens can pick between 30, 40, 60 or Uncapped frame rates, with 40fps being the default.
Other new features include the ability to toggle off dialogue cameras so you don’t need to stare at a close-up of someone’s ugly mug whenever you fancy a chat, and there are UI tweaks for inventory and item management. Full patch notes are available on Bethesda’s website, and the update – officially known as 1.11.33 – will be available for all players once the Steam beta is over.
Which brings us to Bethesda’s big old tease, and the decision to ends its developer video with the briefest of peeks at the future of Starfield. Alongside talk of new quests – and the vaguest reference to the game’s Shattered Space expansion, which is due this “fall” – Bethesda also gave a quick glimpse at planetary land vehicles coming in a future update. There’s not a lot to say on this front – they trundled about a bit and that was that – but they’re definitely on the way.
Todd Howard, of course, played down the absence of land vehicles prior to Starfield’s launch, insisting it was a deliberate design decision that allowed the studio to “make it an experience where we know how fast [players are] seeing things.” But last December, Bethesda teased that “new ways of traveling” were on Starfield’s Horizon, and now here we are!