Starfield Runs Badly on Your PC? Todd Howard Recommends Upgrade
A recent interview featuring Todd Howard leaves no illusions - if Starfield doesn't run well on your PC, and you still want to play the space RPG, you're probably in for a hardware upgrade.
Some players are already familiar with Starfield as part of premium early access, while yesterday the space RPG from Bethesda had its official launch. On this occasion, Todd Howard (director of Bethesda Game Studios) and Phil Spencer (head of Microsoft Gaming) gave an interview to Bloomberg.
Among the many questions, one turned out to be particularly important for those who play Starfield on PC. And it's not good news for owners of weaker rigs.
Todd Howard invites you to upgrade
Theinterview included a segment in which journalists asked questions from the audience. One of them was: "Why didn't you optimize Starfield on PC?".
Todd Howard's answer may come as a surprise, since in his opinion Starfield on PC was optimized well:
"We optimized [Starfield - ed. note] and it runs great. It's a real next-gen game for PC. We've really pushed our technology far, so you may have to upgrade your PCs"
Todd Howard's words were certainly not appreciated by that portion of gamers, on whose PCs Starfield runs poorly, as can be seen in some of the comments posted under the interview:
"People with RTX 4060s barely launch the game, and he tells us to upgrade our PCs," bluebedlight wrote.
"Upgrading a PC for a game with PBR [Physically Based Rendering - ed. note] from 2022, lighting, models and textures from 2020, special effects as from 2019, and level of detail (LOD) as from 2015. Weak," CharcharoExplorer wrote.
Vehicles are not here (and are unlikely to appear)
Another interesting question posed to Todd Howard concerned the lack of any land vehicles in the game that would make it easier for players to move around the surface of planets.
"We considered introducing them (...). When you create vehicles, it changes the whole gameplay. Focusing on the fact that you move on foot after landing on a planet enables us to know how quickly players see things [...].
On the surface, you can use a jetpack, which is great fun to upgrade, and with different gravities on different planets, it creates a unique experience for each planet."
This response from Bethesda's director is unlikely to cheer the fans who were hoping for the introduction of other ways to get around than a jetpack and their own pair of legs.
Despite these and other problems, Starfield seems to have been very successful on release, as evidenced by its ratings - from both critics and players - as well as the number of people playing the title at launch.
