Tuesday, December 12th 2023
Bethesda Details Starfield Update 1.8.88 and Reveals Future Update Details, Including AMD FSR and Intel XeSS Support
Bethesda has released its latest Starfield Update 1.8.88 for all platforms, and as a minor update, it only fixes several issues, including a rather annoying bug where space matter is stuck to the player's ship during space travel, also known as the "pet-asteroid" bug. The new update also fixes a bug that prevents random guns spawning in a newly created Weapon Case after loading, and fixes an issue where the game crashes while saving in some scenarios.
As this is a minor patch, it kept everyone wondering when we would see some other promised updates, including city maps, official mod support, a possible new vehicle, and more. Thankfully, Bethesda took to Reddit and clarified that the major update will be coming early next year, bringing support for AMD FSR 3 and Intel XeSS, as well as numerous "in-progress" quest fixes. The post adds that they have been hard at work on fixing many of the issues that were posted, as well as on those new features.Here are the full and quite short release notes for Starfield Update 1.8.88.
FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
GAMEPLAY:
Sources:
Bethesda, Reddit Post
As this is a minor patch, it kept everyone wondering when we would see some other promised updates, including city maps, official mod support, a possible new vehicle, and more. Thankfully, Bethesda took to Reddit and clarified that the major update will be coming early next year, bringing support for AMD FSR 3 and Intel XeSS, as well as numerous "in-progress" quest fixes. The post adds that they have been hard at work on fixing many of the issues that were posted, as well as on those new features.Here are the full and quite short release notes for Starfield Update 1.8.88.
FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
GAMEPLAY:
- Addressed an issue that would cause space matter to become stuck to player's ship during space travel. Loading a save will now remove the space clingon. Please note: This fix should address any space matter being stuck in your travels, but not in instances where player ships have New Atlantis attached. A fix for that will be released in a later update.
- Fixed an issue that prevents random guns from spawning in a newly created Weapon Case after loading a save.
- [MSS/Xbox] Fixed an issue where players could experience crashes while saving during long playthrough without going through the Unity.
28 Comments on Bethesda Details Starfield Update 1.8.88 and Reveals Future Update Details, Including AMD FSR and Intel XeSS Support
"There was just one problem: this game is fucking trash".
"I'm not gonna put my heart and soul into a mod for a game as mediocre as this"
"I just think this game is aggressively mediocre."
Unfortunately I don't know if modders are capable of bringing this one back. I expect the limitations of the Creation Engine are finally catching up with Bethesda, and no, Creation Engine 2 doesn't appear to be different from 1, it just supports a few "new" features (that haven't been new for over 15 years).
If they follow through like they say and use Creation 2 for the next Elder Scrolls, it'll really show its age with endless loading screens for the interior's of buildings. This will limit how good of an actual game because it limits design decisions for quests/gameplay due to lack of seamless transitions. I don't think we can expect to see the next Elder Scrolls for another 3-8 years and by then I expect the majority of loading screens on AAA titles to be a thing of the past. The Witcher 3, for example, came out over 8 years ago and had seamless transitions between interiors/exteriors. The only loading screens were pretty much just fast travel loading screens.
The game itself is massive for its time, trade systems, stations, planets, new ships to be had near dangerous systems, secret systems you can visit for special goodies, long forgotten wrecks you can loot to make your ship more powerful and it has a good Singleplayer story. It has multiplayer if you know where to look. If people install the HD pack from modDB, the game looks even better. Sure it's not today's graphics, but hey, it's not just about how a game looks, it's how it plays, something developers forgot about.
If someone makes a Freelancer Mod and it plays just like Freelancer but with the engine Starfield uses, I will throw money at that mod author. (let's just say it's an alternate universe, hehe)
Its really what the game is, and that's being kind on it and forgetting the decades worth of history with essentially the same content.
Let's take a moment to realize what's happening here. Fans are unable to gather enough cognitive dissonance to keep playing. That's huge. Starfield is lazy and weak and deserves it. It will never be immersive because the whole game is just an endless series of super small instances/maps, its broken by design.
This really. Its all about immersion. Starfield essentially fails at its primary goal: world building, and building a world where players want to be.
It's not a horrible game no, it's just not what we expected from a new generation Bethesda game, it's as if between Skyrim/F76 and Starfield they went into a cave and never played anything else besides their own game...
steamdb.info/app/1716740/charts/
Also worth mentioning the insanely low rating it has on Steam. 52% recent and 67% overall.
Anyone still defending this POS as a success needs to be shot off to Mars at this point :)
steamdb.info/app/275850/charts/#all
Man am I happy I pirated this piece of junk first. I learned from buying NMS on release... lmao
steamdb.info/charts/?compare=377160,489830,1716740
Also why the hell would you buy a game on Steam if you are leaving it behind within days after the purchase for total lack of interest, especially given the fact you've already played it on Gamepass? That doesn't make a sliver of sense. Pay 70,- just to have it in the Steam library?!
Regardless, I’ll continue playing this until I 100% it. It surely is not the “best” FPS-RPG out there but the quest stories (and outpost building, character skill tree and ship building) are actually intriguing to keep me going through, despite the many obvious flaws.
Total: 129,137
Steam: 84,263
Other (keys): 44,874
So yeah, keys from GPU purchases and other sites amount to 34.75% or nearly 1/3 of the players.
Funniest thing is that the score doesn't change that much either bought or with a key activation which is one of the fronts that diehards desperately try to hold. The other one is that you didn't play enough not to like the game or you played it too much and you are trolling. You can't win against their logic.