Starfield players can now download a free community-created patch on PC that seeks to address a range of minor issues besetting Bethesda’s latest RPG, ranging from fixes for incorrect dialogue to skill tweaks, and numerous other polishing changes.
Back in May 2022, Bethesda announced that it was delaying the launch of Starfield in order to ensure that players recieved "the best, most polished" version of the game. This was a good decision, as upon releasing on September 6 earlier this year players were treated to an expansive RPG that was packed with content, and largely free of major bugs and game breaking issues.
However, as is understandable with a game as expansive as Bethesda's latest cosmic adventure, Starfield still had its fair share of bugs, quirks, and graphical glitches, some of which persevere to this day. Thankfully, the developer is now getting a helping hand in its mission to address Starfield's remaining issues in the form of an unofficial patch authored by a coalition of community modders, whose initial offering seeks to “improve the vanilla experience for all players” while staying true to Bethesda's vision for the game.
The initial mod, which is available to download through Nexus Mods, includes 32 fixes authored by nine contributors, and had an emphasis on correcting known issues with Starfield, rather than adding fresh content. As such, it doesn’t include any newly minted quests, characters, items, or other community created shenanigans, though players interested in such would do well to check out IGN's list of our favorite mods to date.
Instead, the Starfield Community Patch, and future iterations of it will seek to fix a swarm of small, annoying issues, such as script errors, misplaced objects, inconsistent item properties, missing attributes, and spelling errors, while also remedying issues with faulty missions, and fixing game breaking exploits. The modders note that their work is currently only available to download on PC, largely owing to the fact that the developers have yet to bring Bethesda.net to the console version of the game. In our 7/10 review, IGN said that Starfield “has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist”. Be sure to check out our interactive maps and comprehensive guide to ensure that you get the most out of your time in the Settled Systems.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer