As IGN exclusively revealed during Summer of Gaming, hotly-anticipated space epic Starfield runs at 30 frames per second on Xbox Series X and S. The news sparked a vociferous debate about the performance of Bethesda Game Studios’ next big title, and challenged the expectation from some that big first-party games should run at 60fps on Xbox Series X no matter what.
But why does Starfield run at 30fps? In an interview with IGN, BGS boss Todd Howard said the development team decided to lock Starfield at 30fps on console to ensure “consistency” of performance.
“I think it’ll come as no surprise, given our previous games, what we go for,” Howard said. “Always these huge, open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detail where anything can happen. And we do want to do that. It’s 4K in the X. It’s 1440 on the S. We do lock it at 30, because we want that fidelity, we want all that stuff. We don’t want to sacrifice any of it.
“Fortunately in this one, we’ve got it running great. It’s often running way above that. Sometimes it’s 60. But on the consoles, we do lock it because we prefer the consistency, where you’re not even thinking about it.
“And we don’t ever want to sacrifice that experience that makes our games feel really, really special. So it feels great. We’re really happy with how it feels even in the heat of battle. And we need that headroom because in our games, really anything can happen.”
Anything can happen? What about hoarding a basketful of sandwiches in your spaceship? Well, that’s exactly what we saw is possible in Starfield’s extended video preview, continuing the rich tradition of BGS games letting players collect all manner of nonsense, pile it high in their home, then counting down the seconds before a crash.
Now, as the dust begins to settle on the Starfield 30fps debate, these sandwiches have become the unlikely focal point, with some experts claiming it’s exactly this kind of gameplay that means 30fps is the correct choice.
John Linneman, from video game analysis specialists Digital Foundry, took to Twitter to explain exactly what’s going on.
“While it’s used as a gag in the video, this sandwich pirate concept highlights one reason why 60fps would be tough to achieve,” Linneman explained.
“Like prior BGS titles, it seems that Starfield tracks the location and position of arbitrary items in the world. Given the scope this stuff begins to add up. The player has so much freedom in this regard that it becomes, presumably, impossible to keep the frame budget below 16ms. Lowering the resolution would not make this possible.”
…this stuff begins to add up. The player has so much freedom in this regard that it becomes, presumably, impossible to keep the frame budget below 16ms. Lowering the resolution would not make this possible.
— John Linneman (@dark1x) June 12, 2023
Some have called on BGS to add a performance mode to Starfield, one that would let players lower the resolution or the fidelity of the visuals in favour of higher fps. But according to Linneman, doing so wouldn’t make much difference.
Starfield, like previous BGS games, are unique in many ways, including how objects are tracked. “You can take a random item out of your inventory and set it on a table,” Linneman said. “You can set dozens of items and more down. The item position will be retained for the rest of the game. I can’t think of many other games that attempt this.”
Meanwhile, Dannie Carlone, senior staff environment artist at God of War developer Sony Santa Monica, chimed in to similarly defend BGS’ decision to go with 30fps for Starfield.
“It’s not a sign of an unfinished game,” he said in a tweet. “It’s a choice. 60fps on this scale would be a large hit to the visual fidelity. My guess is they want to go for a seamless look and less ‘pop in’. And of course your right to dislike the choice.”
Game dev here, big fan btw. Wanted to clarify It’s not a sign of an unfinished game. It’s a choice. 60fps on this scale would be a large hit to the visual fidelity. My guess is they want to go for a seamless look and less ” pop in”. And of course your right to dislike the choice
— Dannie Carlone (@Corgiboltz) June 12, 2023
Then: “It doesn’t need to be 4K ( which is expensive) it could be 1080p at 60 or another variable resolution at 60. They want to keep it locked at 30 4K and push the visuals to a high level on this scale.”
It seems likely the 30fps debate will follow Starfield all the way to release. Either way, assuming Starfield does release on console with a locked 30fps performance, it will be the smoothest, most consistent game Bethesda Game Studios has ever released at launch.
In case you missed it, here’s our Xbox showcase roundup, and here’s everything shown during the Starfield Direct.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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