As Bethesda’s first new original franchise in 25 years, the expectations for Starfield were all but impossible for the developer to meet. The open-universe RPG was a smash hit, but the reaction from critics and consumers alike was decidedly lukewarm. Long loading screens, empty worlds, outdated facial animations, and missing quality-of-life features put a significant damper on this long-awaited title. The hope now is that updates will save Starfield.
This week, Bethesda Game Studios shared a year-end update for Starfield on its website. The developer revealed that more than 13 million players have explored the cosmos since the game launched in September, making this the largest launch in Bethesda’s history. In all, players have spent over 22 million days playing Starfield.
In addition to celebrating the success of the game, Bethesda also shared its plans to continue working on Starfield in 2024. Starting in February, the studio plans to release Starfield updates every six weeks or so. Bethesda says their updates “will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates.”
Some of the first updates will introduce new ways to travel, the ability to access city maps while exploring major cities, and an expansion to the ship customization system. You’ll also be able to fine-tune your experience with new settings covering carry capacity, cargo access distance, ship damage, and survival mechanics that expand beyond the difficulty setting.
Most importantly, Bethesda says “official mod support will be coming to Starfield with the launch of Creations.” The game will get its own exporter early next year as well as its own Creation Kit, so you can create and discover mods to your heart’s content.
How to access Starfield updates early
If you truly cannot wait until February, we have good news. Bethesda will be rolling out updates to PC players on the Steam Beta branch before they launch for the general public. Here are the steps you need to follow to access Starfield’s Steam Beta branch:
- Buy or own a copy of Starfield on Steam (it’s on sale right now).
- Find Starfield in your Steam library and right-click on the game.
- Click Properties… > Betas and then select “beta – Beta” (this may change) from the Beta Participation drop-down menu.
Once you complete those steps, you should start getting beta versions of updates for Starfield as soon as they are made available. Just know that those updates might be a bit buggier than usual, but at least you get to try them out before anyone else.
