Bethesda Details Starfield Update 1.8.88 and Reveals Future Update Details, Including AMD FSR and Intel XeSS Support

[GFreeman]

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:

• 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.

OUTPOST:

• Fixed an issue that prevents random guns from spawning in a newly created Weapon Case after loading a save.

SAVE/LOAD:

• [MSS/Xbox] Fixed an issue where players could experience crashes while saving during long playthrough without going through the Unity.

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[Crackong]

This game is beyond fixing, unless they are going to 'fix' it like NMS did.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Maybe in another 3 years Starfield will be worth grabbing in a 75% off STEAM sale, but only if it fully supports modding.

 

[Imouto]

Maybe in another 3 years Starfield will be worth grabbing in a 75% off STEAM sale, but only if it fully supports modding.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/18dkxwu
"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."

 

[BArms]

I want a mod that completely avoids ever having to fly in space ships. It's more tedious then I imagine riding a sailboat across the Atlantic would be.

 

[EatingDirt]

This game is beyond fixing, unless they are going to 'fix' it like NMS did.

Bethesda doesn't fix their games. They require modders to do that.

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.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

People still play Starfield?

 

[PCL]

I know we have to categorize games into either BG3 greatness or The Day After trash, but why can't we just say this game was fine? A decent way to spend 50-60 hours and maybe pick up again when there's some DLC or I hear about a great mod. It's just weird that any comment on a game has to be so hyperbolic.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I want a mod that completely avoids ever having to fly in space ships. It's more tedious then I imagine riding a sailboat across the Atlantic would be.

I am currently playing Freelancer (2003),

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)

 

[Frick]

I am currently playing Freelancer (2003),

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)

Starfield should have just lifted all the space stuff from Freelanced.

 

[Vayra86]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/18dkxwu
"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."

I'm glad people are still sane, to be honest.

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.

 

[Frick]

I'm glad people are still sane, to be honest.

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.
View attachment 325284

Yeah, Skyrim the game is a pretty mediocre (even at release) honestly, but Skyrim the place is pretty great.

 

[sephiroth117]

I sadly think the game itself is flawed, it's boring, it's nothing close to Skyrim exploration.
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...

 

[regs]

Still no promised FSR 3 Fluid Motion?

 

[Imouto]

People still play Starfield?

No, not really.

https://steamdb.info/app/1716740/charts/

Also worth mentioning the insanely low rating it has on Steam. 52% recent and 67% overall.

 

[Vayra86]

No, not really.

https://steamdb.info/app/1716740/charts/

Also worth mentioning the insanely low rating it has on Steam. 52% recent and 67% overall.

Wow. They are CURRENTLY getting beaten by NMS The irony couldn't be greater.

Anyone still defending this POS as a success needs to be shot off to Mars at this point

https://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

 

[Imouto]

Wow. They are CURRENTLY getting beaten by NMS The irony couldn't be greater.

How about being beaten by Skyrim and Fallout 4.

https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=377160,489830,1716740

 

[Slizzo]

I still enjoy playing it, but I only play it here and there now between sessions of a Conan Re-Go-a-thru, and a smattering of other games.

 

[Vayra86]

How about being beaten by Skyrim and Fallout 4.

https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=377160,489830,1716740

Haha I think we can identify there are about 30K players that really can't do anything other than a Bethesda open world game. The similarity is striking. I wonder, would that be the same 25-30K jumping from one game to another? Almost has to be... I mean, its clearly not related to the quality of the games, seeing how they even out.

 

[colossusrageblack]

Wow. They are CURRENTLY getting beaten by NMS The irony couldn't be greater.

Anyone still defending this POS as a success needs to be shot off to Mars at this point

https://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

View attachment 325295

View attachment 325296

Let's be real, half if not more are probably those who played it on GamePass, so Steam charts do nothing more than indicate the percentage of players who dropped off. Comparing numbers to other titles on Steam that aren't available on GamePass is disingenuous.

 

[Vayra86]

Let's be real, half if not more are probably those who played it on GamePass, so Steam charts do nothing more than indicate the percentage of players who dropped off. Comparing numbers to other titles on Steam that aren't available on GamePass is disingenuous.

Well... there are numerous other platforms besides GamePass, we don't look at them either. Both games are also console releases and both have shedded a good 80-90% of the playerbase, but NMS still beats it while the absolute player count on Starfield @ Steam is nearly 100K (30%!) higher than NMS... and NMS has been out for over a half decade now. In other words, Starfield lost a far greater percentage of players even just looking at Steam and within less than 1/5th of the timespan.

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?!

 

[colossusrageblack]

Well... there are numerous other platforms besides GamePass, we don't look at them either. Both games are also console releases and both have shedded a good 80-90% of the playerbase, but NMS still beats it while the absolute player count on Starfield @ Steam is nearly 100K (30%!) higher than NMS... and NMS has been out for over a half decade now. In other words, Starfield lost a far greater percentage of players even just looking at Steam and within less than 1/5th of the timespan.

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?!

No doubt the interest dropped off rather steeply. I got it for free from a GPU purchase. I enjoyed it quite a bit for about the first 60 hours or so, then started to lose interest slowly. I hit a wall after I beat the main story at around 90 hours and realized there's nothing to really do in the game after you do the main mission and side missions. Exploring isn't a thing in the game and there's just nothing to do. I think if they hadn't set the expectation that it would be like Fallout or Skyrim in space, and just said it was something more like Mass Effect, story driven and rather linear, the level of disappointment wouldn't have been so big.

 

[Cheeseball]

Well... there are numerous other platforms besides GamePass, we don't look at them either. Both games are also console releases and both have shedded a good 80-90% of the playerbase, but NMS still beats it while the absolute player count on Starfield @ Steam is nearly 100K (30%!) higher than NMS... and NMS has been out for over a half decade now. In other words, Starfield lost a far greater percentage of players even just looking at Steam and within less than 1/5th of the timespan.

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?!

You forget that this was an AMD hardware bundled game, where the provided keys are Steam-redeemable. My 7900 XTX came with the Premium edition one.

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.

 

[Vayra86]

You forget that this was an AMD hardware bundled game, where the provided keys are Steam-redeemable. My 7900 XTX came with the Premium edition one.

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.

Accounts for a couple thousand games probably? 10k if we're optimistic? Are there numbers on that?

 

[Imouto]

Accounts for a couple thousand games probably? 10k if we're optimistic? Are there numbers on that?

If you go to the reviews part in its Steam page you can discriminate between bought on Steam and key entries.

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.