After being able to test Starfield for a few hours, it seems to us that the Bethesda blockbuster lacks several important options in its PC version.
Starfield is undoubtedly the most anticipated game of the year. In development since 2015, Bethesda’s space RPG has been long overdue by gamers. This is the first time the studio has released a new license in over 15 years, so there’s a lot of pressure on it.
We received a press version of the game late, which allowed us to test it before its release to assess its technical offer, especially in the options offered by its PC version.
A summary menu (already) decried
We know it since Starfield Direct: the game has opted for a certain minimalism in its interfaces. Fine and angular lines, an all-caps font, an omnipresent flat gray color. The observation is then made from the home menu and its options. It’s quite simple, like many aspects of the game, Starfied still seems stuck in 2007.
We will concentrate here on the graphic options, which are far from being as exhaustive as we would like. A simple description of the option and that’s all you’ll get. No clue as to the impact it may have on your processor or graphics card or on video memory load.
You also won’t get a real-time representation of what the final image quality option changes. Admittedly, this is a choice that is not made by all studios, but at this level, Bethesda offers us neither more nor less than a revamped version of the menu of their old productions. We expected better.
The absence of DLSS and XeSS, true or false problem?
We told you about it at Gamescom: Starfield therefore will not have the technology toupscaling from Nvidia, the DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) as well as the XeSS (Xe Super Sampling) from Intel. If the case caused a stir throughout the summer, the question now arises that the game is finally coming into our hands: is it so serious?
The FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) from AMD is compatible with Intel and Nvidia graphics cards and offers a significant performance boost by simply activating it. The fact remains that the option is optimized for AMD cards, in particular with RDNA2 and 3 architecture, with a performance delta of 10 to 15% depending on the game. It is therefore a shortfall for owners of competing equipment.
Moreover, if the FSR2 showed that it was quite at the level of its competitors (DLSS and XeSS) on still images, the picture is much less brilliant once in motion. We can observe, depending on the games, many effects of ghosting or flickering of textures, very visible on the contours of moving characters. Nvidia’s DLSS also suffers from these artifacts on certain games (notably control), but seems to have revised its copy on version 3.5. A good point though: AMD being an official partner of the game, its implementation of the FSR is optimized for the engine Creation Engine 2 and should therefore erase some of these inconveniences.
And if the great absentee was not simply the FSR3 recently announced by AMD? The output of Starfield could have been the perfect standard port of this new version which brings with it the famous Frame Generation, with, as a result, a much higher performance gain. But let’s bet that it will arrive in early 2024 for Bethesda’s space RPG.
A cruel lack of accessibility options
We are in 2023 and Starfield only offers 5 accessibility options, 3 of which are for subtitles. Thus, there is no color or contrast correction option for the visually impaired or people with color blindness, no audio description option or even interface scaling.
Starfield is a vast game with many systems, but not all players will be able to enjoy it if the studios do not invest in a wide range of accessibility options. Here, Naughty Dog sets the example with The Last of Us Part 2, which set the bar very high for the rest of the industry. We therefore hope that Besthesda will complete its options with successive patches, if it is not the modders who will take care of it before them.
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