We now know for sure that Starfield will have RTX enabled.
A Bethesda Game Studios programmer has listed on their LinkedIn profile that they are working on RTX integration for Starfield. The programmer is also working on both PBR lighting and Indirect lighting.
A little clarification is in order here. RTX is a brand name that Nvidia uses for their high end graphics cards. However, Nvidia RTX also refers to the company’s in house ray tracing technology, that the company only enables on their GPUs, and is one of the more notable advantages of Nvidia’s hardware. Ray tracing particularly allows Nvidia RTX cards to punch far above their weight, delivering graphics that considerably more powerful GPUs would have to match to compete. Nvidia was first unveiling their use of the technology as far back as four years ago on Battlefield V.
Seeing how the Xbox Series consoles do not have those Nvidia GPUs in them, they are not expected to benefit from this technology. However, the fact that they are being implemented at all indicates how much more focused Starfield‘s development is compared to the average big budget, multiplatform game.
That’s because the Windows and Xbox versions of these games, while not completely identical, will be very very similar. Bethesda’s developers will not have to program Starfield in such a way that they will work on PlayStation’s platform.Instead, it will be development on one type of game. Bethesda may make some key decisions and changes to allow it to be playable on Xbox Series consoles.
While it would be more work to add a platform than it would have been to make this game PC only, that additional work is still a significantly smaller than that for a true multiplatform. Saving time and resources to work on less platforms leads to a work environment with considerably less work, that would be generally easier for the studio involved, and make it possible for the game to get released sooner.
And Starfield stands to benefit from as much streamlining as possible, as Bethesda has thought to think big and make the project twice as big as a game like it had to be. We had been reporting on hype that the game had over 1000 planets for players to explore. If they are committed to this vision, they need to also make sure this game delivers on such high promises. As we know, Bethesda has something to prove to gamers, after the problems wrought from the launch of Fallout 76. For all the unhappiness wrought from that release, the narrative would be that Starfield has to at least be good enough to justify all the work that didn’t go into Fallout 76. The rumor goes that part of the reason for Fallout 76’s poor launch is their best programmers were dedicated to work on Starfield. And so, we’re all waiting, expecting, and hoping for this to knock everyone’s socks off.
Starfield will be releasing for PC and Xbox Series X/S. We just recently reported on what seems to be a change of release date to December 29, 2023.
Source: Reddit
