[GameSpot] - Starfield's Xbox Frame Rate Might Be Locked At 30fps, But Critically, It Is Consistent

[343iBot]

One of the year's biggest RPG releases, Starfield, is almost here, and reviews have begun to drop. In addition to a flurry of review scores, impressions have dropped about how Starfield performs on both Xbox Series X and S consoles and so far, things are looking good.

Prior to release, Bethesda confirmed that Starfield would run at 30fps on both versions of the Xbox consoles and it appears that the game hits this mark consistently. In GameSpot's Starfield review, critic Michael Higham wrote, "I jumped between a high-end PC, a minimum-spec laptop, and both Xbox Series X and S. Starfield is a demanding game and you'll get some frame drops in densely populated areas or in the heat of battle where particle effects fill up the screen, yet the game always managed to stay playable on reasonable graphics settings. The 30fps cap on consoles is a bit disappointing, but the most important part is that it held a consistent frame rate throughout."

According to Digital Foundry, Starfield stays locked at 30fps on both the Series X and S, with the game holding up against some of the more chaotic environments. In two of the major cities, New Atlantis and Akila, there were some dropped frames.

Others seem to agree that Starfield performs well on console, and that even the Series S version, despite the system's lesser hardware, runs well. Gene Park from The Washington Post shared on the site formerly known as Twitter that Series S performed well for him, so much so that he couldn't tell the difference between performance on the two consoles. Kinda Funny shared a video with reviewer Parris Lilly stating that the game runs "smooth as butter" on both versions of the Xbox console.

While some fans might still be disappointed by 30fps on console, it appears that Starfield is running well at launch and it has far fewer major bugs than any previous Bethesda Game Studios game. For anyone playing on PC, Starfield can run at a higher frame rate than 30fps, if you have the right hardware. Xbox One players can even get in on the action by streaming Starfield via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

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