Starfield would have to sacrifice too much to run at 60fps, says Todd Howard

We’re getting closer and closer to the release of Starfield, and although the prospect of exploring over 1,000 planets and wandering the depths of space is incredibly exciting, some are still concerned about the game’s frame rate on consoles.

It was previously confirmed that on Xbox Series X and S, Starfield will be locked at 30fps, with no option for a performance mode which would sacrifice the game’s resolution for a smoother frame rate. In fact, speaking on Kinda Funny Games’ Xcast podcast, director Todd Howard revealed that Bethesda never considered sacrificing anything in order to increase the frame rate.

Take a look at Starfield’s story trailer below.

“We never looked at taking features away - our focus is on delivering all of that,” Howard said. “Ultimately, look, we boil it down to we wanted the consistency. [The] game is running great, but we don’t want players to ever think about it. We have obviously seen other games that have performance modes, and we lean toward consistency overall, and we talk to our fans and hear that from everybody."

He continued, "So, we’re feeling really great, [the] game feels great in your hands, and I would say - developers know this - but there are are things that you can do to make that look and feel great. Things like motion blur, how fast the game refreshes or reacts to a controller input, all of those things matter to something feeling great, and I can honestly say that this is the best-feeling game that we’ve had.”

Well, that sounds very promising, and I’m sure we can all agree that a game with a slower but steadier frame looks a lot better than a game which aims for 60fps, but constantly drops frames depending on where you are or what you’re doing. I for one can't wait to get lost in space.

Topics: Starfield, Bethesda, Xbox, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S