Starfield 30fps cap “not a sign it’s unfinished” claims God of War Ragnarok dev

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The decision to cap Starfield’s framerate at 30FPS has been met with a mixed response from fans, but there’s been support for the move from a developer who worked on one of the best looking games of the last twelve months.

Dannie Carlone is a senior staff environmental artist on God of War Ragnarok, and he was responding to YouTuber DreamcastGuy who had made a comment calling Bethesda’s upcoming space RPG ‘unfinished’: “Game dev here, big fan btw. Wanted to clarify it’s not a sign of an unfinished game. It’s a choice. 60fps on this scale would be a large hit to the visual fidelity. My guess is they want to go for a seamless look and less ‘pop in’. And of course, your (sic) right to dislike the choice.”

The comment seemed to go down well with the OP, with DreamcastGuy later retracting his earlier statement in a follow-up apology tweet and mentioning that several other game developers had also chimed in. “A LOT of very nice game developers have explained to me why Starfield is 30FPS and I take back my “OMG THIS GAME IS UNFINISHED” take. I still wish the game was 60fps on consoles, but now I understand why it isn’t, at least not yet.”

Given everything we saw set to be included in the game during the recent Starfield Direct, most people have been fairly understanding that Bethesda would have to make some technical compromises in order for the game to run on the console’s hardware limitations. Of course, it’s not the only first party Xbox game to run afoul of the 30FPS limit in recent months, so it’s still a sore spot for a number of members of the Starfield community. But as Tears of the Kingdom’s success seems to have proven, looks aren’t everything.

The Starfield release date will be upon us on September 6, 2023 when the game is officially launched for Xbox Series X|S and PC, though players will be able to get five days early access.

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Ben Borthwick

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Starfield

  • Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series X
  • Genre(s): Adventure, RPG, Science Fiction, Space