Bethesda finally confirms it’s working on land vehicles (Picture: YouTube)
The huge update for Starfield includes customisable difficulty settings, improved maps, and a promise of land vehicles in the future.
Excitement for Bethesda’s long-awaited space role-player quickly went flat after the disappointing release of Starfield, but that could be changing now that a new update is tackling some of the criticisms of the launch version.
Back in December, Bethesda promised city maps and ‘new ways of travelling’ in Starfield, for early 2024, and at least one of those two things will be included in the May update.
The update is a big one, and it introduces an extreme difficulty setting, improved surface maps, a 60fps target for Xbox Series X, and word that Bethesda is finally working on the long requested land vehicles.
The update is currently in Steam beta, but is planned to go live for everyone on May 15.
The most welcome feature in the patch notes is the confirmation that a land vehicle is being worked on, making exploration on planets less time-consuming, although Bethesda didn’t specify when it’s coming out.
A video about the update also teases some footage of what the vehicle will look like while driving it, as seen towards the end of the video at the bottom of the article.
One highlight of what’s actually in the update is improved surface maps, which includes more points of interest and depicts the terrain more accurately – which will work in the cities and outside of them.
The new surface map in Starfield – navigate in style (Picture: YouTube)
The update also adds a new setting above very hard, called extreme, and the option to customise your gameplay to make ground combat harder and space combat more difficult, for example.
You will also be able to change traits and your appearance after entering the Unity, and decorate the interior of ships, which fans have also requested in the past.
Xbox Series X players will get a performance setting that targets 60 frames per second, but it won’t be available for Xbox Series S.
Another highly-anticipated feature is the promised creation tool to support mods in Starfield. It was hoped it would be out this spring, but all Bethesda has to say about it in the video below is that they’ve sent out the beta tool kit to verified creators, with ‘hopefully more information on that soon’,
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‘Great update. The video they posted showed some exciting stuff that is upcoming in future updates as well. Ground vehicles look fun and they described Shattered Space as being ‘massive’, so that’s great to hear,’ They Call Me Taylor said on Reddit.
‘They might actually turn things around between this and the fall Shattered Space! I’m so happy Bethesda might actually be listening to the fans,’ said Mac Guy.
‘It all looks so good, but the difficulty changes are incredible! Far more than I expected. And full interior ship customisation!’ Talucien added.
You can read the patch notes in its entirety here and judge for yourself.
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