Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more
Players wondering if they can manually fly to planets in Starfield have had their questions answered this weekend, but it turns out that fast travel may be preferable after all.
Over the weekend, streamer (and Sony Santa Monica writer) Alanah Pearce did an experiment to see if she could fly from around the orbit of a planet – in this case Pluto – and make landfall by flying manually towards it, rather than use fast travel to pick a landing spot. She knew that it’d take a while of course, so she plotted a course and set her controller down before she retired for the night. (After finding a fix to stop her controller from turning off).
To her and to many fans’ surprise, seven hours later she found that planets seemed to be, in fact, a fixed texture in space, and passed right through as she approached meaning that she couldn’t actually make landfall without using Starfield’s menus. Of course, now players on the Starfield reddit are wanting modders to come to the rescue and allow players to drive their craft directly into planets.
“Well, good news is that if that is possible then modders will soon make it so you can supercruise close to a planet before initiating a cutscene.” points out Littletodd3. “I think implementing auto piloting and and seamless loading screen cut scenes of landing would go a long way to settling this thing.” says Rhaenyss. Of course, the main reason is likely as simple as technical issues, as Starfield is a massive game and it’s like that loading in an entire planet would be pretty heavy on an Xbox Series console, as many point out.
But there’s a vocal few who are disappointed with this revelation, saying that it breaks their immersion. Those with cooler heads, such as Brocford, point out “They had to allocate resources and time into certain aspects that they deemed priority…and I’m dead certain that they made this call for a reason,” he says. “They made the call. It was a smart one given the parts of the game that ARE there. Sure it would be dope to ALSO have the OPTION to travel seamlessly, but it’s not there. Not on this scale WITH the amount of content and story ALSO present.”
Starfield is out now for those who’ve paid for the game’s early access period, and will launch to everyone later this week on September 6. For more on the game, check out our how to assign weapon groups in Starfield guide or our Starfield outpost guide – how to build outposts at the best locations and assign crew.
No products found.
