Todd Howard was recently interviewed on IGN about what fans should expect when it comes to Starfield’s performance, particularly for consoles.
This is what Todd revealed to fans, verbatim:
“I think it’ll come as no surprise given our previous games what we go for. They are always these huge open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detailed, where anything can happen. And, we do want to do that.
You know, it’s 4k on the (Xbox Series) X, and it’s 1440 on the (Xbox Series) 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 off and 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’re not, we don’t ever want to sacrifice the experience that makes our games, you know, really really special. So you know, it feels great. We’re really really happy with how it feels, even in the heat of battle. And we need that headroom, because you know in our games, really, anything can happen. “
So, just to make sure we are on the same page. Starfield can run above 60 FPS sometimes, and it will be that way on the PC.
For the Xbox Series S and also the Xbox Series X, Bethesda made the conscious decision to lock the framerate to 30 FPS. It’s not that these consoles are not capable of running at a higher framerate.
The reason framerate is locked at 30 FPS is Bethesda chose to keep that ‘headroom’ so that the other aspects of the game’s performance are not compromised.
As Todd also hinted at, this 30 FPS performance cap is the same thing they had targeted at for their classic, critically acclaimed games in the past, including Fallout 3, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Today, it’s easier to run those games at 60 FPS or higher framerate. In fact, thanks to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim remaster, we can play that game and have it performing at its best using the latest computers.
And yet, Bethesda isn’t worried bringing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to the Nintendo Switch, closer to its original state, back down to 30 FPS. That’s because, even if some aspects of the game have aged, it still holds up as a good game.
That is clearly what we can expect from Starfield, with the added bonus that we already know it looks way better than it did a year ago. And possibly, with the help of Xbox’s internal dev team, they can optimize it later to hit that 60 FPS. We have already seen such miracles accomplished for A Plague Tale: Innocence.
