Referring to Bethesda Game Studios’ upcoming sci-fi role-playing game, Starfield, one of the most anticipated games of 2023, is an understatement. Part of the reason why players are excited about it is because it is the latest single-player offering from the video game developer. Coming from Bethesda, Starfield also is largely ambitious, on-par with the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.
Given the popularity of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles, the hype surrounding the latest BGS game is justified. However, what has created some concern among players regarding the game is the 30fps cap on consoles.
Starfield is the first BGS title to release as an Xbox first-party exclusive. And as such, many players expected the game to come with 60fps, at least on the Series X. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen since it is shipping with a singular game mode, targeting 4K resolution and locked at 30fps.
But, what if Starfield released not as an Xbox Series exclusive but as a PlayStation 5 exclusive? Would BGS have shipped the game with a 60fps performance mode?
Why is Starfield locked to 30fps on Xbox Series consoles?
According to Todd Howard, Starfield does attain 60fps “in some places”on the Xbox Series X. However, the higher framerate target isn’t stable enough. Like BGS’ previous titles, Starfield has a massive open world with many explorable biomes.
The game is also filled with interactable objects, making it heavy in terms of CPU usage. While the Zen2 CPUs within the Xbox Series consoles are powerful, they cannot deliver a smooth 60fps experience in large, highly interactive open-world scenarios.
Also, Bethesda’s Creation engine was never known for delivering a smooth and stable performance. Even decade-old games like Skyrim still fail to deliver a steady 60fps performance on current-generation consoles.
While Starfield is built using the latest iteration of the same engine, it seems BGS still hasn’t figured out a viable solution to fix the performance issues plaguing it.
Would Starfield feature a 60fps “performance”mode, if it released as a PlayStation 5 exclusive?
The short answer to this question is no. Bethesda Game Studios’ upcoming sci-fi RPG would likely be locked at 30fps across the board, even if it was released as a PS5 exclusive. Fundamentally, both Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 are almost identical, with the former being a tad more powerful.
However, there is still a possibility that the game would have featured a performance mode toggle, albeit with an irregular framerate. The recently released PlayStation 5 exclusive, Final Fantasy 16, features a “frame-rate”mode, despite it barely reaching the targeted 60fps most of the time.
Are the current-gen consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X|S) already out-dated?
The current-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles (Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5) were marketed to feature the most powerful console hardware. These consoles were marketed as being capable of pushing framerates as high as 120fps and having support for 8K resolution.
However, it appears within just three years of their life cycle, they are struggling to maintain a steady 60fps at even 1080p (with or without upscaling). Yes, the consoles are, without a shadow of a doubt, powerful enough for most games, and can also output 120fps on some cross-gen titles.
But, with the gaming industry finally shifting towards current-gen-only games, it seems these consoles are now lagging behind. This is surprising, given the previous generation systems, the PS4 and Xbox One, were significantly less powerful but viable throughout their seven to eight-year life cycle.
This goes to show that newer games, although ambitious, are not well optimized for the current-gen console hardware. While 4K visuals and high-fidelity graphics sound lucrative on paper, developers need to work on making their games scale well with the hardware.
The current-gen consoles are powerful and can easily last the next five or six years, provided developers put in the time and effort to optimize their games for these platforms.
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