Starfield’s requirements made it clear that we would need a very powerful computer to run the game, and that it would be one of the most demanding games out there. With that in mind, and looking at the PC version’s recommended hardware, we had our doubts how the Xbox Series X and Series S version could work, and thanks to Digital Foundry’s first technical analysis, we were able to clarify any doubts.

The console version of Starfield will run at 30 frames per second. The argument was the same as always, that it was a decision that was well thought out and that it was due to a “creative” issue. It’s nothing more than the same old excuse for not recognizing that the Starfield is ultimately so demanding that they have no choice but to lock the FPS rate at 30 because the Xbox Series X couldn’t push it to 60 FPS if the graphic quality did not decrease too much.

I know what you’re thinking, which is understandable since the game runs at 4K and is therefore very demanding. Well, sorry that’s not the case, the game doesn’t work in real 4K, The Xbox Series X renders it at 1296p and then downscales to 4K. This base rendering resolution is very low, as we are talking about 2,304 x 1,296 pixels, a number that falls short of 1,440p.

With that in mind, it’s easy to see why Bethesda didn’t include a 60 FPS performance mode, because they didn’t have the room for it after all. I could downscale to 1080p and upscale from there to a higher resolutionr, but the loss in graphics quality would be significant, and ultimately this performance increase might not be enough to reach a fully stable 60 FPS.

This makes sense, because according to Digital Foundry itself, Starfield seems to be the game that has significant CPU dependencywhich would be quite normal given the large number of NPCs that will be present in various locations as well as the object persistence system.

In summary, we can say that Starfield is one of the most advanced games of this generation, which obviously wouldn’t be possible on Xbox One, and that Bethesda’s decision to lock it to 30 FPS it doesn’t solve the optimization problem, but it was something absolutely necessary given how challenging the game is in general. It is scheduled to launch on September 6 and I hope I can offer you an analysis of it.