Starfield has gone Live for all gamers, starting today as the game officially launches to all those who purchased the base edition of the game. As the world celebrates the official release of the game, there has already been an astounding number of early-access players who have completed the game, including one of the players who has swept past the game in record time. Starfield has already been touted as a visually appealing game with near-zero bugs or glitches found in the game.
The only minor bugs that have been reported thus far are related to the AI present in the game, as NPCs are behaving exactly as they would in an old Bethesda game. This has started a debate on whether it’s time Bethesda starts reconsidering its age-old engine.
Also Read: Starfield September Soars Xbox Series X to New Heights with More Than 1000% Jump in Amazon Sales
Starfield Goes Live Globally, Xbox GamePass Subscribers Can Play Starting Today
Bethesda’s Starfield has gone Live officially, with gamers who grabbed the base edition able to finally lift off into space, starting today. The Standard Edition of the game costs $69.99, and gamers can grab it either from the Microsoft Store or the popular video game digital distribution service, Steam. Players can also get it from the Microsoft Store on Xbox Series X and Series S consoles. Those who feel the price tag is too steep for the standard edition can subscribe to Xbox GamePass.
GamePass will give gamers Day One access starting today, to subscribers of any of the three available plans for consoles and PC. GamePass subscription starts from $9.99 per month, for PC-only games, and $10.99 per month, for Console-only games, while the Ultimate subscription gets players the advantage of enjoying both the PC and Console games, at $16.99 per month, making the subscription a lot cheaper option for gamers to enjoy the new release along with a lot of other games in the library which is constantly updated.
Also Read: Starfield Owes Part of its Success to Three Other Internal Studios
Starfield’s AI Glitches Remind Gamers of Bugs From Past Titles, Fans Divided Over Bethesda’s Engine
As much as the game is said to be visually appealing and performing without major bugs and glitches, some elements still remind gamers of Bethesda titles from the past with bad AI. One such aspect is that the AI in the game looks a lot more artificial and a lot less intelligent, as they seem to get stuck when hitting a wall. Fans were quick to point out that Bethesda’s Creation Engine which is still being used by the studio, has been under improvement for the past decade. When Bethesda started using its in-house engine, Epic’s more popular Unreal Engine wasn’t as popular as it is now.
John Linneman, from Digital Foundry, recently chimed in with his views on this debate stating Starfield might have had a lot of issues at launch, had the game been made in Unreal Engine 4 or 5.
https://twitter.com/dark1x/status/1698286558292402356
Others also shared their views on how Creation Engine was the safest bet Bethesda could lean toward for a CPU-heavy game like Starfield.
https://twitter.com/B4DC0FFEE/status/1698706638142660885?s=20
exactly! people know so little about what feature unreal has, and how much of that is actually currently usable in production in a game with the scale of Starfield. Not even counting that Starfield started development way before epic introduced many of the features they list
— Giuseppe Navarria (@B4DC0FFEE) September 4, 2023
https://twitter.com/B4DC0FFEE/status/1698774877157650879?s=20
As seen in his post above, Giuseppe Navarria, one of the Tech Design Directors at Gears Tactics developer Splash Damage, shared the similarities in Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077, both of which were developed with in-house engines. The difference between the games was down to Bethesda taking time to squash the bugs, while Cyberpunk 2077 was unfortunately rushed leading to a release that was plagued with bugs and glitches.
Thomas Puha, Communications Director at Remedy Entertainment also shared his views on the difficulty and time-consuming part of having to move decades-old systems onto a new engine, which he mentioned to be “Years”.
https://twitter.com/RiotRMD/status/1698604294147068262
While it can now only be debated whether or not Starfield would have looked far better with Unreal Engine’s capabilities, there’s no denying how the game has been performing up to gamers’ expectations. The game’s performance makes it evident that Bethesda dodged a bullet by choosing to use their in-house Creation Engine instead of partnering up with Unreal Engine.
Starfield Gamer Shares Valuable Tip While Mining, Saving Valuable Time
For all the gamers who are enjoying the space adventure by Bethesda, a tip shared by Twitch streamer DansGaming might come in handy. Starfield centers around the aspect of mining for elements that can help players build outposts, or upgrade their gear, but it can also be a time-consuming task. To cut down the mining time, Dan suggested using both the trigger buttons on a controller or both buttons on the mouse, to aim and fire while mining.
Doing so helps players mine and collect the elements instantly as it takes a few seconds every time players just fire at it without aiming. This could help save time massively in the long run, as completionists looking to cover all aspects of the game will need to spend an average of 180 hours to complete the game. The main campaign in Starfield takes close to 20 hours, while including the side quests will require close to 50 hours. Starfield is a massive game with tons to explore and gamers will no doubt look for more such time-saving aspects in the game.
Source: RockPaperShotgun
