Starfield's Shattered Space DLC launched on September 30, and it was meant to address many of the base game's major issues, with a more hand-crafted feel, more intimate encounters, and a more narrative-driven gameplay experience. Instead, Steam gamers and critics alike have lambasted the expansion online for boring and underwhelming, repetitive gameplay, calling it "more Starfield," essentially repeating the story of Starfield's initial launch. At the time of writing, the Shattered Space DLC has 1,601 reviews on Steam, with only just over 34% of those reviews rating the expansion positively—placing it squarely in the "Mostly Negative" category on Steam.

Likely the biggest disappointment when it comes to Shattered Space's poor reception is that the Starfield player base actually seemed quite optimistic about the expansion, thanks to previous gameplay and interviews about the intention behind the expansion. Critically, however, Starfield developer, Bethesda, deliberately didn't send out game keys to the press for review prior to the launch of the game, so there was no real way for players to know whether they would enjoy the $29.99 expansion before buying it.

Welcome to week 40, which is also the beginning of October and another week packed full of new game releases. This week's major release is a F2P MMORPG by NCSoft, for those that are into those kinds of things. This is followed by an animal horror game, an open world zombie survival, an arcade inspired isometric action shooter of sorts, some roguelike magic, a remake of a 2015 adventure game and finally a Japanese co-op action RPG. In addition to this, the first DLC for Starfield is out this week.

Throne and Liberty / This week's major release / Tuesday 1 October
Welcome to Throne and Liberty, a free-to-play MMORPG that takes place in the vast open world of Solisium. You can scale expansive mountain ranges for new vantage points, scan open skies, traverse sprawling plains, explore a land full of depth and opportunity. Adapt your fight to survive and thrive through strategic decisions in PvP, PvE or both as you encounter evolving battlefields impacted by weather, time of day, and other players. There is no single path to victory as you seek to defeat Kazar and claim the throne while keeping rival guilds at bay. Steam link

Starfield's next DLC will be called Shattered Space, and it is set to launch on 30 September 2024 at $29.99 on PC, and Xbox. However, if you're a gamer that wants to know more about what you're getting into before you spend your money, you will seemingly need to wait, since gaming media won't have access to the expansion ahead of its launch.

The news was revealed by IGN journalist Dan Stapleton in a post on Bluesky that reads: "Aw dang, I'm told no Starfield: Shattered Space review copies are going out ahead of launch. We'll have something up on it ASAP but I imagine that's gonna be a few days at least." Stapleton doesn't seem to have been told why Bethesda won't be sending out review samples, but he does note that it will make reviewing the expansion while it is relevant more challenging.

Bethesda had already promised a big update for Starfield, and yesterday, it announced all the goodies to come, including the May 15th launch date. The May Update, as it is called, will bring detailed surface maps, new gameplay difficulty options, new display settings, new features for ship customizations, and more, as well as an extensive list of bug fixes.

According to Bethesda, the Starfield May Update comes with improved surface maps, new gameplay options which allow fine-tuning for those looking for an extra challenge or want to make certain aspects of the game a bit easier, and a new Ship Decoration mode for the interior of ships that now allows players to decorate the ship in the same way as outposts. The update also adds tabs to container menus for easier inventory management, adds an ability to change traits and appearance after entering the Unity, a new Dialogue camera toggle in settings, and new display settings for the Xbox Series X.

Bethesda has released what appears to be the biggest beta update yet for the Starfield game, bringing new features and an extensive list of bug fixes for quests, graphics, gameplay, and more. The new Beta update, which is now available in Steam Beta, and should roll out as an official update at a later date, brings several new features, including a whole new photomode, scanner, FOV adjustments when using 3rd person ship view, anisotropic filtering quality slider, new autosave, updated ship UI, and more.

The most important inclusions, graphics-wise, include fixes for NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR, various flickering issues, various shadow quality and other performance improvements, as well as some gameplay and quest fixes that were previously noticed in the game.

Bethesda on February 20 released the 1.9.67 path update for Starfield, which adds support for AMD FSR 3.0 performance enhancement, including frame generation. To celebrate this update, the game's developers are giving away an ultra-rare Collector's Edition bundle of Starfield-themed flagship AMD hardware. The bundle includes an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX with a special paint-job; and an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which remains the fastest desktop processor for gaming. The RX 7900 XTX Starfield Collector's Edition card features a special cooler shroud and backplate design with design elements from the game; including some anodized aluminium fins in its heatsink in the game's colors. The Giveaway is open to residents of the US, Canada (excluding Quebec), Mexico, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. You don't need to purchase the game or any AMD hardware to be eligible. Simply follow the Starfield Twitter account, and reply to the Giveaway announcement tweet. One winner will be randomly chosen. Find all Giveaway rules here.

NZXT, a leader in PC gaming hardware and services, today unveiled its latest gaming gear: the Function 2 Keyboards and the Lift 2 Series Mice. Focusing on high performance, precision, and user-centric design that empower gamers to play to their full potential. NZXT's Function 2 keyboards epitomize the brand's dedication to elite gaming performance. Featuring an 8,000 Hz polling rate and rapid linear 40 g optical switches with adjustable actuation at either 1 mm or 1.5 mm, they ensure every gamer can fine-tune their experience. For people who want to customize their keyboard, hot-swappable switch sockets allow for gamers to effortlessly change switches with four 35 g and four 45 g optical switches using the provided keycap and switch puller tools, eliminating any need for soldering. Additionally, each keyboard comes equipped with two supplementary switch types with different actuation forces, allowing immediate experimentation and personalization.

But performance isn't the only focus of the Function 2 series. Durability and style are intertwined, thanks to the doubleshot PBT keycaps featuring crisp, fade-resistant legends. The improved pre-lubed switches and plate-mounted stabilizers guarantee smooth, solid keystrokes. To further elevate the user experience, a dual layer of sound-dampening foam has been integrated to absorb unwanted noise. The keyboard's top plate, crafted from thick aerospace-grade aluminium, adds both strength and style. Moreover, with a standard bottom row, the Function 2 supports aftermarket keycaps, broadening customization options.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the Function 2 keyboars is now live]

Starfield game patch version 1.9.67 just released, with official support for AMD FSR 3.0 and Intel XeSS. Support for the two performance enhancements was beta (experimental) until now. FSR 3.0 brings frame generation support to Starfield. The game had received DLSS 3 Frame Generation support in November 2023, but by then, FSR 3.0 support wasn't fully integrated with the game, as it had just began rolling out in September. The FSR 3.0 option now replaces the game's FSR 2.0 implementation. FSR 3.0 works on Radeon RX 7000 series and RX 6000 series graphics cards. The patch also fixes certain visual artifacts on machines with DLSS performance preset enabled.

AMD FSR 3 comes to Starfield in our latest Steam Beta. Those of you playing on Steam can opt into the Beta to see the improvements brought to the game before this update becomes available to all our PC Starfield players. This new feature allows for a combination of upscaling as well as advanced frame generation, boosting your framerate for better performance. While AMD's FSR 3 works for a wide range of video cards, you will want to verify that your system supports it so that you get the best experience. It is also recommended to use FSR 3 with VSync ON and with a VRR monitor for the best experience.

For those participating, you can enable FSR 3 by heading to Display Settings and accessing the Upscaling options. From there you will be able to cycle through the option best suited for your experience. As with any update, we look forward to reading your feedback and seeing you share your experiences. Thank you for your support and see you in Starfield!

Steam has announced the full list of Best of Steam games for this year across several categories. The list does not include a lot of big surprises but it is nice to see that some indie games also made it to the list. Categories include Top Sellers, New Releases, Most Played, Early Access, Steam Deck, Controller, and VR.

The Top Seller list include Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian Studios, which is also the Game of the Year winner, Hogwarts Legacy, which was a big game this year, DOTA 2 and Counter Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Lost Ark, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Apex Legends, PUBG Battlegrounds, Destiny 2, and Sons of the Forest. Some of the Top New Releases category, which is measured by gross revenue, include Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Cities: Skylines II, Resident Evil 4, Payday 3, Remnant II, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, FC 24, as well as a few titles that are also top sellers like Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy. and Sons of the Forest.

Bethesda has released its "end of the year update" for Starfield, as well as shared some statistics from the game, including the fact that it has been played by 13 million players. In addition, Bethesda has also promised updates every six weeks, starting in February next year.

While the published statistics do not give a lot of details and those 13 million players do not translate to actual sold games, mostly due to the Xbox Game Pass, it does have some fun facts, including that the game has over 22 million days played, with 40 hours as an average playtime per player, and that players have visited nearly 2 billion planets. As of February next year, Bethesda's new updates for Starfield will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates. Bethesda has also promised the all new gameplay options, as well as the official mod support with the launch of Creations. The first major expansion for the game, Shattered Space, is also under development and more information should be available next year.

AMD on Thursday announced the first release of FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3) source code through the company's GPUOpen initiative. The company just set up an FSR 3 source code repo on GitHub that game devs everywhere can take advantage of. This includes the complete source for DirectX 12, and the source of an FSR 3 Unreal Engine 5 plugin. With it, the company also released extensive documentation that helps developers understand the inner workings of FSR 3, so they could better integrate the tech with their games and applications. With this announcement, AMD also unveiled FSR 3 support for even more new and upcoming games, which include "Black Myth: Wukong," the three latest titles from the "Warhammer" franchise, including "Darktide," "Space Marine II," and "Realms of Ruin;" "Starfield," "Pax Dei," and "Crimson Desert."

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.

NVIDIA has released the latest version of its GeForce graphics drivers, the GeForce 546.17 WHQL. The new drivers are once again Game Ready drivers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III but also add optimizations for DLSS 3 in Starfield game.

The new GeForce 546.17 WHQL drivers also fixes several game bugs including stability and performance degradation issues in Alan Wake 2, bring an improved functionality and performance for NVIDIA Reflex in Counter Strike 2, fixes stuttering issues on some Advanced Optimus notebooks in Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077, and fixes stability issues in Control. The new drivers also fix several general bugs which can be seen in the release notes.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 546.17 WHQL

Intel Graphics has released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers, version 101.4953 WHQL. This one comes with a several fixes for Starfield, Alan Wake 2, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and World War Z games. Intel fixed flickering color corruption in the sky during night scenes in Starfield, corruption issues on water and reflective surfaces in Alan Wake 2, lower performance in the Xbox Game Pass version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and lower performance in the Epic Games Store version of World War Z.

Intel did not fix all of the issues as Starfield is still having trouble with Dynamic Resolution Scaling, which can be fixed by using the Render Resolution Scale slider. Intel also lists known issues with Ghostrunner 2, Total War: Pharaoh, and Dead by Daylight games, as well as errors with some models for video enhancement in Topaz Video AI.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4953 WHQL

Bethesda has released its latest beta patch for Starfield, adding official support for NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation, fixing several issues, and implementing further CPU and GPU optimizations. The November 8th Beta Update, as it is called, is only available via Steam Beta Update, and it should go live to all Xbox and PC players later this month.

According to the release notes, the new update adds NVIDIA DLSS support with DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, and DLSS Frame Generation. The update also fixes several performance and stability issues, including a fix for a number of memory related issues and leaks, additional GPU optimizations that will benefit higher-end graphics cards, and improvements to the renderer threading model that should improve CPU usage on higher-end systems. The update also includes various stability and performance improvements.

NZXT, a leader in PC gaming hardware and services, is excited to announce a partnership with Bethesda Softworks LLC to launch a line of Starfield -licensed gaming gear as part of the NZXT CRFT series. The full product lineup is slated to be released early next year but a preview of what's to come can be seen with the North American debut of the Starfield H5 Flow. Coming out worldwide in early 2024, a very limited quantity of the collectible Starfield H5 Flow case is available today exclusively in North America on NZXT.com as an upgrade option with a Player: Two prebuilt NZXT PC.

Blending the in-game design with real-world functionality, the Starfield H5 Flow case features a perforated front panel that allows for maximum airflow and tooless access to front and side panels for PC builders to easily get into their system. It comes with a dedicated fan on the bottom inside panel that is angled to cool a GPU and includes two pre-installed F120Q fans. For Starfield fans, it includes details like a Constellation insignia on the back of the case, as well as a colorful Constellation ribbon serving as a cable bar.

Bethesda has released a new Starfield Update 1.7.36, which brings the previously promised updates to the game as well as fixes general stability and performance. While the previous update resolved some issues with AMD GPUs, namely the issue that caused lens flares not to appear correctly, issues with upscaling, and more, the latest one focuses on Intel Arc GPUs.

Bethesda made quite a few update promises, including built-in mod support and top community requests, but so far, updates have focused on general performance and stability issues. The latest one is not an exception either, but it does bring the promised FOV slider as well as improved stability for Intel Arc GPUs. It also adds various additional stability and performance improvements.

After the first update/hotfix 1.7.29 that focused on Xbox Series X/S stability related to installations and brought various stability and performance improvements to reduce crashes and improve framerate, Bethesda has now released the second update, addressing some performance and stability issues as well as a few general gameplay issues. This is not the large update that Bethesda is still working on and should come in the future and bring those top community-requested features like the brightness and contrast controls, HDR calibration menu, FoV slider, NVIDIA DLSS support, ultrawide monitor support, and the "eat button for food."

The new 1.7.33 update does fix the star lens flare issue on AMD GPUs, as well as an upscaling issue that made some textures blurry and an issue that could cause photosensitivity issues when scrolling through the inventory menu. The new update also fixes various performance and stability issues that caused crashing and freezing, as well as an issue where the Hand Scanner caused hitching. It includes several other general fixes for characters, star stations, and vendors, as well as a few issues with ships in the game.

Intel just released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4824 WHQL adds Game On optimization for "The Crew Motorfest" and "Mortal Kombat 1." Among the issues fixed with this release include flickering or display corruption noticed in Fortnite (DirectX 12), and erratic fan behavior on some Arc Graphics products. For Intel Core processor iGPUs, the drivers address a "Tactics Ogre Reborn" display flickering issue during the dialog sequences.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4824 WHQL

The space opera RPG everyone's been lapping up over the week, Starfield, is finally getting official support for NVIDIA DLSS, among a handful of other glaring omissions for its PC version. Bethesda Game Studios on Wednesday announced that it will release a "small hotfix patch" for the game which adds a few must-haves for the PC version. To begin with, it adds support for the 32:9 ultra-wide monitor aspect-ratio (something that should have made it to a space sim), along with an FOV slider. The display settings include brightness and contrast controls, along with an HDR calibration menu. The most important of these announcements is that the game will now receive first-party support for NVIDIA DLSS. This would be DLSS 2 (super resolution), and not the newer DLSS 3 frame generation.

First, an enormous thank you to all of you playing Starfield and your support. We are absolutely blown away by the response and all you love about the game. We're also reading all your great feedback on what you'd like to see improved or added to the game. This is a game we'll be supporting for years and years to come, so please keep all the feedback coming! Even if we don't get to your requests immediately, we'd love to do it in the future, like city maps. Our priority initially is making sure any top blocker bugs or stability issues are addressed, and adding quality-of-life features that many are asking for.

This first update is a small hotfix targeted at the few top issues were are seeing. After that, expect a regular interval of updates that have top community requested features including:

• Brightness and Contrast controls
• HDR Calibration Menu
• FOV Slider
• Nvidia DLSS Support (PC)
• 32:9 Ultrawide Monitor Support (PC)
• Eat button for food!

Intel Graphics has released yet another beta version of the Intel Arc GPU Graphics drivers, version 101.4676 Beta. The new version brings a couple of fixes for Starfield game, with more fixes coming in the future updates. In general, it improves stability of the game as well as fixes some rendering issues.

The latest Intel Arc GPU Graphics driver is still a beta release and hopefully, Intel will eventually launch the full Game On drivers, as there are still plenty of known issues with the game. On the other hand, as reported by Videocardz.com, Bethesda has noted that the Arc A770 GPU does not actually meet minimum requirements for the game, as these still include the Radeon RX 5700 and GeForce GTX 1070 Ti.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4676 Beta

If you've ever dreamed of launching into space and exploring new worlds, a much-anticipated new video game can take you there in rich detail and immersive storytelling. With Starfield, the first new universe from Bethesda Game Studios in 25 years, your role-playing journey can lead to more than 1,000 planets. It's available day one on Xbox Game Pass on Sept. 6, and on Xbox Series X|S consoles, Windows PCs and Steam.

"We love the idea of exploring space and always wanted to turn it into a game. People love to get lost in games we build, and we do as well," says Todd Howard, game director and executive producer of Bethesda Game Studios, which Microsoft acquired through parent company ZeniMax Media in 2021. "This one is easily the most ambitious one we've built. It's something we've really poured ourselves into over a long period of time."

For those of you who have already started the epic journey into Starfield in early access I hope you're having a blast, and for those of you joining on day one with Game Pass, your time starts very soon! I am so excited to finally add Starfield to our list of games "Coming Soon." Space, feelings, souls-like - we have amazing games for you to explore (not to mention a reminder of some surprise shadow drops last week!). Let's get to it!

Available Today
Gris (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Gris makes a return to the Game Pass library today! Gris is a hopeful young girl lost in her own world, dealing with a painful experience in her life. Her journey through sorrow is manifested in her dress, which grants new abilities to better navigate her faded reality.