Hop onto Game Pass today and you’ll find the launch day arrival of Lies Of P, which Ed describes as “an instant must-play for Soulslikers” in his review.
I’m a Soulsavoider, so I’m more interested in the other games coming to Microsoft’s Full Convergence stepping stone in the next couple of weeks, including Cocoon and The Lamplighters League.
Every F-Zero, as ranked by you.
Were it not for Nintendo’s monumentally successful Mario Kart franchise, there’s a good chance that F-Zero could have become the go-to racing franchise on not just Nintendo platforms, but everywhere. It really is that good, you know.
Trading bananas and shells for pure speed and boost abilities, F-Zero — which predated Mario’s karting debut by 21 months — is a much more demanding racer than Mario Kart has ever claimed to be. As such, its widespread appeal has been a tad more limited, with Nintendo struggling to find a place for the series since the GBA’s Japan-only F-Zero Climax in 2004.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
From the city street shootouts of Heat to the creepy clown masks found in The Dark Knight’s opening moments, there’s something alarmingly alluring about the Hollywood bank heist fantasy. Fortunately, the excellent Payday series has been letting me live it out for myself for more than a decade without needing to establish a rap sheet. The next chapter in this long-running burglary simulator, Payday 3, has finally been released from custody, and though it continues the series’ tradition of delivering one of the best digital smash and grab experiences out there, the usual horrible Payday bugs, a dinky pool of jobs to tackle, and a predictably weak story mean it’s not exactly the giant leap forward I was hoping for. Still, if Payday 2’s post-launch support is any indication, this is at least a very promising start for what could become another decade of happily pistol whipping cashiers and fixing drills.
Like its predecessor, Payday 3 is a cooperative multiplayer FPS where you and three friends take on increasingly elaborate heists. The extremely thin story focuses on the same motley crew of criminals as they’re forced out of retirement by a secretive cabal of shadowy and generic silhouettes. All your favorite entrepreneurial personalities are back, including Hoxton, the chain smoking mastermind, and Chains, the always hilarious military man. Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the story itself is just a sequence of slides with voiceover justifying the string of jobs you’ll undertake with precious little to tie them together. There’s even a mission where you work with Ice-T… for some reason? (And yes, I do mean that Ice-T from all 500,000 episodes of Law & Order.) Payday does love a good cameo, and though it definitely makes for an entertaining little encounter, it didn’t exactly do much to draw me into an already barebones tale. But even if the story never really takes off, it does do a good job at setting the stage while hinting at what that future might bring.
Within seconds of beginning my first robbery at the obligatory “local bank branch” intro level, the movement and gunplay already felt enormously upgraded. You move faster overall and can do more modern maneuvers like sliding, which I found useful in combat as well as for stealth. Weapons feel more punchy and satisfying, even if they are burdened with hopelessly small magazines and long reload times before you’ve spent some of your ill-gotten cash on upgrades. You can even use civilian hostages as a meat shield now, forcing enemies to engage you in melee to avoid hurting an innocent soul, which is a nice touch. After years of incremental updates to Payday 2, Payday 3 immediately feels like a proper sequel in the gameplay department, even if the formula of breaking into vaults and throwing bags of cash into an unmarked van remains identical.
The weapon selection isn’t nearly as strong as Payday 2’s roster, with just 30 to pick from instead of more than one hundred, but the options available at present cover all the bases. You’ve got everything from deadly and accurate rifles to silenced pistols, and there’s a good mix of stealth focused gadgets and tools too, like throwing daggers that are perfect for sneaky tryhards, and devious jammers that can gunk up enemy comms. Weapons can also be customized with mods and attachments that significantly alter how they are used, like putting a scope on a weapon to increase its range, or adding a silencer to a giant rifle to make it an option during stealth runs.
Payday 3 also raises the bar with the quality of its misadventures, as the vast majority of the eight available jobs are super well-designed. Many feel like instant classics, like the art museum heist, Under The Surphaze, with its delicate puzzles and labyrinthine halls hiding priceless art to be pilfered, or the fantastic Gold & Shark bank heist that throws you into the most elaborate old fashioned vault break-in yet. Developer Starbreeze has definitely upped its game in terms of variety and quality with these base stages, and I found myself immediately repeating a completed job more often than not, just to practice my strategies and explore other possible outcomes. That said, there are still some weaker levels, like Road Rage, which is a combat-focused mission that has you guiding an armored van on a bridge with very little room for deploying different strategies and no stealth option whatsoever. Thankfully, that was the only one of the eight that was especially weak, and the highs of the good ones far outshine the lows of the less interesting choices.
While almost all of the new heists are great, it is a bit disappointing that there are so few of them after such a long wait. Presumably that library will expand dramatically over time, just like the previous entry did, but after just five hours I’d already completed all the available jobs and had begun the endless grind of repeating those same gigs over and over again. The saving grace there is that repeating these missions is a lot less monotonous thanks to the variety granted by added stealth options that make most jobs feel like two separate levels in one thanks to how differently they play from run and gun playthroughs.
In many ways the changes to Payday’s stealth mechanics are even more significant than any improvements to movement or combat. Only the most committed and elite players stood a chance of pulling off a totally clean heist in Payday 2, and proper leveling was basically a requirement in order to unlock things like a silent drill to get through vaults before making an attempt was even remotely viable. In contrast, Payday 3 provides new mechanics to support stealth right away, like the ability to pickpocket security guards to relieve them of their keycards, or use environmental objects to lure them away. That means pulling off a clandestine operation here is almost immediately achievable, even with a randomly matchmade group of players only loosely communicating with one another via text chat.
That’s also largely owing to the clever and fantastic way its missions are designed, in which stealth runs are now given a completely different route to success. For example, the Secure Capital Bank level normally requires players to go the humdrum path of using thermite to burn through the top of the bank vault then dive in from the floor above before making off with the loot, but this series of objectives smartly only triggers as your primary path once players have been caught. Before that, your crew can take the much more complex and rewarding route of breaking into various parts of the bank to sabotage electrical systems and deactivate security measures to gain access to the vault without anyone being the wiser, which is essentially an entirely different mission if you can pull it off. In Payday 2, that same kind of bank heist required players to follow more or less the exact same path of drilling through the vault no matter your preferred tactic, and to do it stealthily you just had to not get caught.
But all those new options don’t mean pulling off a stealth run is going to be easy, and that’s thanks to enhanced enemy AI across the board. Guards now respond to your actions, breaking free of their usual patrol routes to investigate suspicious activity and doing a whole lot more than drawing their gun and shooting you when you’re spotted. For example, if you’re found in a private but not entirely suspicious area, like the back office at a bank vs. the vault, instead of immediately trying to kill you, they’ll simply escort you to a public area and give you a good tongue lashing, which can be used by cunning players to remove guards from their posts temporarily. That smarter AI extends to combat as well, where the police do a great job of swarming you from all sides instead of standing around as target practice. They can also respond to your actions and try to obstruct your heist, like how they’ll pull the fire alarm when you’ve lit up that thermite, using the sprinkler system to delay your fire’s progress. Likewise, hostages are now much more responsive to your commands and easier to boss around and control as you use them as collateral in combat or negotiation.
Which leads me to one of the most exciting changes to the heist formula: each job now has specific phases, meaning that instead of either being in unmasked stealth mode or chucking grenades around like a maniac, there are now defined moments in between those two extremes that allow for different parts of the crime fantasy to be more thoroughly explored. For example, the “Searching” phase triggers when you’ve caught the authorities’ suspicion in a minor way and they begin actively looking for you, but all hell hasn’t broken loose just yet, and the “Negotiation” phase begins if you ever get caught outright and gives you a window of time to lock the place down to prepare for a fight or play nice by releasing hostages to delay the authorities storming the place. This added nuance opens up some interesting new strategies, like hoarding as many hostages as possible to draw out the negotiation phase as long as you can. It certainly helps that zip ties required to keep hostages in line are no longer a limited resource, too, so you’re able to stack those poor bystanders as high as your heart desires.
It’s also still a ton of fun to make your way down its role-based skill paths while out committing misdeeds, unlocking more abilities within those roles to bolster your preferred playstyle. That could be the The Hacker path, which turns your lawbreaker into a tech wizard who can hack into security cameras and confound security systems, or the Manipulator path, which grants you a silver tongue so you can intimidate civilians and law enforcement officials alike into submitting to your indomitable will. You can have any four of the 17 available roles equipped at a time and can spend your skill points within those however you like, which allows you to create the perfect villainous cocktail without wasting any cherished points on stuff you won’t use. It’s also nice that you level up and upgrade each of these roles by simply equipping them while out on crime sprees, which really rewards you for picking your knavery niche and sticking to it.
Even though I’ve come around on this new, more streamlined upgrade system, I do still miss the depth of Payday 2’s progression. This new system checks the most important box by letting me curate my very own delinquent based on the role I want to play within the crew, but it’s also not quite as chunky or complex – and it’s particularly disappointing that Perk Decks have been done away with entirely. Perk Decks allowed you to round out your character with minor boons related to their background, which was a nice additional system on top of the skill trees that gave me another reason to grind. Here’s hoping something like that makes a return down the road.
Hopefully that’s not the only update coming, either. As always seems to be the case with Payday, severe and horribly painful technical issues have returned like the cold sting of the law. Not only are the usual connectivity issues back, but there’s occasional framerate hitching, people walking backwards for no reason, and more. Even the menu barely works at times, and I’d often find it completely unresponsive as I spammed buttons before it finally noticed my all inputs at once and did insane things like open the same mission 15 times, triggering its intro dialogue to play all at once, overlapping in a incredibly disturbing way. I’m really hoping they iron this stuff out, but given that past entries have remained busted for months and years before finally becoming stable, there’s definitely cause for concern that we’re in for another rocky ride.
At least when you’re booted back to lobbies due to connectivity issues, you can spend plenty of time customizing your character’s loadout. With lots of masks, paints, and trinkets to unlock, you’ll have plenty to chase and can waste quite a bit of time and in-game money customizing the color and patterns on your weapons or the suits your character wears when out committing grand larceny. Like everything else in Payday 3, it’s a fair bit thinner than Payday 2 for now, but there’s little doubt that will change with time as things are added, and in the meantime there’s still quite a bit to unlock. I will say though, I already miss the little card minigame that we got at the end of every mission in Payday 2, where you had a shot at unlocking the odd cosmetic or weapon mod. All those same things are now earned by leveling up and spending your stolen cash, but that dopamine hit when the match concluded is certainly lost here.
Oh, and as always, the music in Payday 3 absolutely crushes it. Any disappointment I may feel when my stealth run fails is immediately forgiven once the beat drops and a money-crazed murder spree begins, making me feel like a complete badass instead of a heartless psychopath. This certainly isn’t new for the series, but it’s great to see they haven’t dropped that very important ball.
Cyberpunk 2077’s next major (and free) update is out later this week, and CD Projekt Red encourages players to start a new save file after installing Update 2.0.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), CD Projekt Red wrote that it is strongly urging players to start a brand new adventure in Night City after installing Update 2.0. The developer explains that due to the number of changes the update will introduce, a clean slate is best to “enhance your overall gameplay experience.”
Hey, chooms! While you’ll be able to continue the game with your current character on an existing save, we recommend starting a new game after @CyberpunkGame Update 2.0. Due to the number of changes, starting fresh will enhance your overall gameplay experience! pic.twitter.com/rqdokahhAg
— CD PROJEKT RED CS (@CDPRED_Support) September 19, 2023
To be clear, you do not have to start a new Cyberpunk 2077 file, which CD Projekt Red even notes at the start of the post. But when you consider that Update 2.0 will introduce a host of new features to players at no additional cost, including revamped perk and skill trees, a revamped police system, and vehicular combat, to name a few, perhaps it’s not an entirely bad idea to heed the developer’s advice and start a new save file.
In particular, the skill tree and perks system might be enough incentive for some to start a new save file. As CDPR noted in a blog post, the idea for the redesign was “to have fewer, but way more impactful perks for players to choose from.” While those on a continued save file will have a one-time opportunity to redistribute these attribute points, a clean slate might be easier, depending on the player’s circumstances.
CD Projekt Red announced Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 at gamescom Opening Night Live last month as a nice treat for fans who do not want to shell out cash for the paid DLC Phantom Liberty, which is out next week.
The major update will be available on PC, in addition to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. While the eighth-generation consoles are excluded from the next major update, considering the performance problems older hardware encountered at release, this is likely the best-case scenario.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
According to leaked documents, Microsoft are/were remastering Oblivion and Fallout 3. This is boring. The past decade of innumerable remasters has been boring enough, but remastering these two games is particularly boring. When even bother when all Bethesda have made since Oblivion is Oblivion remakes with added spacesuits or yelling? Boring. But while I think the torrent of remasters is a miserable sign of big publishers just giving up, if they’re going to do it anyway: why not Morrowind?
Cook! Bake! Dance!
Hot off the ridiculously popular Barbie movie earlier this year, publisher Budge Studios will be bringing Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures to the Switch eShop on October 27th, 2023.
Originally released for mobile devices in 2018, Dreamhouse Party sees you join Barbie and her friends as you cook, bake, dance, and dress up as you engage in a multitude of activities.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Just a few weeks ago at Gamescom we announced that an expansion for Age of Empires IV – The Sultans Ascend – would be coming soon. Today we’re thrilled to let our PC and Xbox console players around the world know that they’ll be able to play this exciting new content on November 14! Pre-orders are available now for everyone wanting to graduate The Sultans Ascend from their wishlist and begin counting down the days.
We’ve been slowly revealing what you can expect from The Sultans Ascend since our announcement and today can share the full package coming on November 14:
This new Age of Empires IV single player campaign takes place in the Middle East during the European Crusades. You’ll take on the role of the Muslim resistance to the invasion and follow the story of well-known Muslim leaders, their struggles with the Crusaders, and the battles they fought. Our story begins with the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century, when Muslim provinces are mired in rivalry with one another. The Crusaders take advantage of this and sweep through the Levantine coast, taking major cities and capturing Jerusalem leading to their controlling most of the Holy Land. Players will fight against the Holy Orders of the Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutons, as well as their old foes, the Mongols. The Sultans Ascend is the first Age of Empires IV campaign to feature naval gameplay! The fight plays out both on land and at sea with new heroes, abilities, and mechanics at your disposal.
As well as a new campaign, by popular demand, we’re bringing two exciting new civilizations to the game. Take command of the mighty Japanese or the illustrious Byzantines! Each civilization brings unique new landmarks, special units, and strategies. The Japanese civilization tells the story of the age of the Samurai and includes special Shinobi units for espionage and assassination. The Byzantines civilization focuses on the Eastern Roman Empire which lasted over a thousand years. Players will be able to build aqueducts and cisterns, harvest a new resource and hire mercenaries.
We’re also adding re-imagined variants of four existing civilizations, with exciting new heroes, units, and strategies. The Abbasid Dynasty, Chinese, French and Holy Roman Empire will receive these new Variant Civilizations and players will have new ways to play as seasoned favorite civilizations.
In addition, The Sultans Ascend expansion introduces ten unique new maps. Each is meticulously designed to offer a different strategic layout and terrain. You’ll need to adapt your tactics to conquer diverse environments and emerge victorious. The expansion also features two new biomes – Japanese Spring and Savanna!We’re excited to expand Age of Empires IV! Get ready for November 14th now by pre-ordering on Windows Store, Xbox or Steam. Want to ensure you get all the details on the new content? Ensure you’re following Age of Empires on X, Facebook and Instagram, or join the discussion on Steam, official Forums or Discord.
Related:
Coming to Xbox Game Pass: Party Animals, Gotham Knights, Payday 3, and More
State of Decay 2’s New Curveball Update Is a Literal Game-Changer
Idris Elba Interview – How Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Attracted Another Hollywood Superstar
This week, several unredacted, highly confidential documents from Microsoft began appearing online. These documents were part of Microsoft’s legal case against the U.S. regulator, the Federal Trade Commission. The case was argued back in June, with a verdict reached in July, ruling in favor of Microsoft.
The documents in question have revealed highly sensitive information regarding Microsoft’s gaming arm Xbox, where its hardware roadmap is in the coming years, and other game developers it has its eye on acquiring. To dive in deeper, check out our breakdown below of all the news and reveals from the latest leaked documents.
The Elder Scrolls 6, the next major installment in Bethesda’s fantasy RPG series, entered the early stages of development late last month, but outside of that and a teaser trailer revealed back at E3 2018, news on this highly anticipated action RPG has been seldom.
While Xbox boss Phil Spencer said a PlayStation version of The Elder Scrolls 6 was still up in the air, during the trial, this new document recently spotted by Axios reporter Stephen Totilo reveals that The Elder Scrolls 6 is not only skipping PlayStation platforms but could release as early as 2026.
It should not be entirely surprising, however, that The Elder Scrolls 6 will remain a console exclusive on the Xbox Series X/S. With Microsoft acquiring Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media a few years ago, console exclusivity for future ZeniMax titles, both new and existing, felt like a given.
In recent weeks, multiple reports have surfaced that Nintendo is working on a successor to the Switch. And thanks to emails published yesterday, this discussion continues to get more fuel.
The emails reveal that Nintendo briefed Activision on a next-generation console in December 2022. While heavily redacted, one email revealed preparations for a meeting between Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa and several Activision executives, including CEO Bobby Kotick. A note from Kotick also read aloud during the trial was visible in one of the emails, noting that the next-generation Nintendo console offers performance more aligned with the PS4 and Xbox One.
Despite Phil Spencer saying multiple times that there is no need for a mid-generation refresh of its Xbox Series game consoles, leaked court documents show that Microsoft is planning to launch hardware refreshes for both the Xbox Series X and S next year.
The new Xbox Series X, codenamed Brooklin, is more compact than the original mode, and like the Series S, it lacks a disc drive. The document also reveals that this console will feature 2TB of storage and 16GB of RAM and will come in 100% recyclable packaging. The updated Series S, codenamed Ellewood, will include 10GB of RAM. Pricing will remain the same as its predecessors, according to Xbox.
The document notes that both consoles will be announced concurrently next summer, with Ellewood releasing in August 2024 and Brooklin releasing in October 2024. Xbox explained placing a two-month release gap between the consoles in order to give Ellewood a “moment” to shine before Brooklin becomes the more sought-after console ahead of the holiday 2024 season.
One of the many documents leaked online this week included a three-year-old document for Betheda’s release schedule prior to Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media in 2021. The document included some unannounced games, most notably remasters for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Fallout 3.
Other information revealed in this document included the fact that Starfield was forecasted to generate $900 million in revenue, though again, this information is likely dated due to the document being published before Microsoft closed its acquisiton of Bethesda’s parent company.
Mid-generation console refreshes for the Xbox Series X/S launching next year are not the only hardware ambitions Microsoft has, as the tech giant is planning to launch a next-generation Xbox console in 2028.
One document released mentions this new Xbox system will be a “next generation hybrid game platform,” with development kits slated to launch in 2027. More interestingly, the document you can view above mentions a “thin OS” for a sub $99 “consumer or handheld devices,” implying that Microsoft may release a handheld device dedicated to cloud games.
Previous discussions of Microsoft kicking off the tenth generation of game systems surfaced during the trial, where the tech giant anticipates the successor will release in 2028.
During the trial, it was revealed that Microsoft had its eyes on 100 developers Microsoft considered acquiring at one point before narrowing it down to eight studios, including Sega, Square Enix, and Zynga. However, there’s another studio Xbox was eyeing: Nintendo.
An email from August 2020 revealed that Spencer was enthusiastic about acquiring the studio behind beloved video game franchises such as Mario and The Legend of Zelda. Spencer noted in the email that the acquisition “would be a career moment” if it happened. The email also revealed that Spencer was interested in acquiring Valve and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the latter of which would mean Xbox would own developers such as NetherRealm and Rocksteady.
The leaks also revealed that Microsoft is working on additional gaming hardware beyond that of new consoles. A slideshow from May 2022 shows basic concepts for a few devices, such as a one-hand controller and a mobile controller akin to the Backbone or Razer Kishi. An additional slide in the same document reveals a new game controller currently in the works under the codename Sebile which, according to Xbox, will feature direct-to-cloud connectivity.
After Sony revealed the technical specifications of the PS5 in March 2020, Spencer wrote an email to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood. After half a day of absorbing the information Sony disclosed for its console, Spencer was enthusiastic about what the Xbox Series X and S were capable of, writing that Microsoft has “a better product than Sony has, not just on hardware but equally important on the software platform and services on top of the hardware.”
While the first few years for Xbox’s ninth-gen consoles paint a different picture, this email was sent out in 2020 before this current generation of hardware was released. Not to mention, during the trial, Microsoft admitted in a separate document that its gaming arm has “lost the console wars.”
In May 2022, an email chain between senior Xbox executives, including Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond, revealed how Microsoft was scrambling to find games as the company had a huge hole in its lineup last year.
Games originally slated to release in 2022, including Starfield, Redfall, and Stalker 2, all being delayed were mentioned in the email. “This is really a disaster situation for us given all we’ve invested in content across studios at our GP content fund. We need to learn from this and build a plan forward,” Spencer said in the email chain before issuing a call to action from the team to ink third-party deals to circumvent the gap.
Other interesting tidbits include Microsoft’s comment on Baldur’s Gate 3, described as a “second-run Stadia PC RPG,” and Spencer’s suggestion that Microsoft go after FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series and add it to the Game Pass library.
In the same email chain from May 2022, a list of potential day-and-date Game Pass titles mentioned Red Dead Redemption 2 “D&D for gen9” indicating that Microsoft expected Rockstar Games’ critically acclaimned 2018 western game would release on ninth-generation consoles sometime during the second quarter of its 2022 fiancial year (October to December 2022 for context).
There is no doubt that these are some of the worst leaks in Xbox history. With all the extremely sensitive information made publicly available, the question remains: “Who did it?” According to the Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft is to blame for the court document leaks.
“The FTC was not responsible for uploading Microsoft’s plans for its games and consoles to the court website,” said Douglas Farrar, the Director of the Office of Public Affairs at the FTC, in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The FTC was not responsible for uploading Microsoft’s plans for its games and consoles to the court website. https://t.co/MspoQN1exL
— Douglas Farrar (@DouglasLFarrar) September 19, 2023
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
After a draining day’s reportage upon the thoroughly alien doings of vast corporate publishers, I like nothing better than to flee, blabbing and weeping, into the arms of a micro-RPG. Scumhead’s Franzen – released a few days ago on Steam and Itch – has a couple of big draws, straight off the bat. Firstly and least importantly, it’s free, which it really shouldn’t be. Secondly and more significantly, it’s one of those rare RPG miniatures that is both richly imagined and snappy, with a busy and befuddling world in which you have immediate clear motivations that escalate rapidly and breed Dire Implications. It also looks like a 16-bit Pathologic, so consider me firmly on board.
Starfield hasn’t been out in the wild for very long, but that hasn’t stopped modders already taking the time to change and — in some cases — improve the game for PC players. From a much more detailed inventory UI to adding DLSS and even adding the PlayStation Studios splash screen to the start of the game (yes, seriously!), there are already some great mods worth a look.
This page will feature some of our favorite Starfield mods that we’ve found so far, and we’ll be updating this article as we find more. If we are missing any of your favorites, be sure to let us know in the comments below!
We also want to note that these mods are being built without official mod support from Bethesda. Don’t worry though, as Bethesda’s Todd Howard has confirmed it will be coming in 2024.
Before we get to the mods, we do want to encourage you to check out our expansive Starfield wiki guide, which will not only provide you with all the tools needed to make Starfield a special experience, but will also teach you how to install mods if you aren’t familiar.
One of the most popular Starfield mods is M8r98a4f2’s StarUI Inventory mod that improves all the inventory screens in the game. The goal of this mod is to give players much more information at a glance than the base game offers, including a compact display style, more details in sortable columns, item category icons, sortable categories, and the ability to mass-transfer a whole category of items to and from a container, your ship, or a trader.
This may take the space cake for the silliest mod of the bunch, but it’s a pretty funny one that replaces the Bethesda logo video with that of PlayStation Studios’. It’s obviously humorous because Starfield is not on Sony’s console, and this mod by chachinito pokes fun at that.
While PlayStation fans may be upset they can’t play Starfield on their PS5s, they will be happy to know they can use a DualSense controller on their PCs to play. However, the default buttons for the controller are that of the Xbox controller.
Thankfully, one modder by the name of EASKATER has released a mod that replaces those icons with the corresponding ones from the PS5, which will make the experience just that much closer to playing on Sony’s latest console. Now if only someone could add trophies…
Starfield director Todd Howard is kind of a big deal, and players have already created a few mods that celebrate one of the faces of Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and now Starfield with… well… his face!
One mod from ronaldmoon replaces every single portrait in the Constellation lodge with a picture of Todd Howard, and the creator is working on having every portrait in the game replaced with Howard’s visage. ScarClaw72’s mod replaces the Starfield logo and splash screen with pictures of Todd Howard, and GeraldMods’ replaces the flashlight texture with a picture of Howard’s face. After all, how canyou be afraid of the dark when Todd is with you?
If that isn’t enough Todd Howard for you, check out some players, including Redditor Molda_Fr and CheesyWhales, who have recreated the developer in the character creator.
While Starfield mods are a wonderful thing, installing most of them will turn off achievements for your playthrough. While this can be a bummer, one modder named Brunph has saved us all with their Achievement Enabler mod that essentially allows for players to install mods to their heart’s content without fear of achievement-related consequences.
Modder PureDark’s Starfield Upscaler mod has quickly become one of the most popular choices for early Starfield players as it adds DLSS2 or DLSS3 to the game as it doesn’t currently support either.
As of this writing, Starfield only supports AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), so players like PureDark have taken it upon themselves to add NVIDIA’s supersampling tech called DLSS to the game. However, this mod has stirred up some controversy because PureDark has locked the DLSS3 mod behind their paid Patreon.
Encumbrance is one of the biggest annoyances that Starfield players have encountered on their journeys through space, and tomlikesguitar has made it their mission to ease that pain. The Value to Weight Ratio Sort Option mod, obviously, lets you sort your inventory by both value and weight. This will hopefully make those decisions of what to get rid of just that much easier.
For those explorers who keep their scanner up at all times, TheWireLord’s Remove Scanner Circle mod may be worth looking into. It’s a very simple mod that removes the circle that pops up when you start scanning, and it lets you enjoy the beautiful worlds and the vastness of space with a bit less clutter.
Oogabooga66’s Unlimited Traders mod is another time-saving mod that gives traders unlimited funds and inventory, which is a nice thing as traders in the base game will run out of money if you try to sell them too much and they will run out of items you may need. Sure, the base game may be a bit more realistic, but this mod is for those who are looking to save some time and just get what they need.
Starfield has a lot of options, but a Field of View (FOV) slider is not one of them. For those that wish to pull back the camera a bit to help with motion sickness or see more of the area you are in, modders like Hellstorm102 have added the FOV option for you via a mod.
Sure, some people love to live the fantasy of a space traveler and want it to be as realistic as possible, but not everyone wants to be that immersed. For those of you who just want to get in on the fun, Bub200 has created a mod that will skip all the “painfully slow docking cutscenes” and animations for ground landings and takeoffs. You will be doing a lot of these in Starfield, so this is a just a bit of a timesaver!
Starfield’s starting screen stirred up its own bit of silly controversy prior to launch, and now modders have taken to making the clean and simple yet elegant starts screen even more clean. Gametism’s aptly named Cleanfield mod not only removes the message of the day pop-up that appears on the top right of the start screen, but it also lets players bypass the epilepsy and seizure warning, bethesda logo video, and even the Starfield logo itself. So, if you just love the look of mostly uninterrupted space as you get ready to play, this may be worth a look.
Starfield has a tendency to utilize color filters to change the normal look of certain locations, but some people prefer to see these locations as they are. Fadingsignal’s Neutral LUTs mod removes those filters so players can experience a more natural look.
Some of Starfield’s enemies can feel a bit spongy, meaning you have to unload an unhealthy amount of bullets or lasers into them to take them down. Zzyxzz has tried to tip the scales back to a bit more realistic experience by making these enemies less spongy. So, if you want an experience with enemies that have a much quicker time-to-kill, this one’s for you.
Ianpatt’s Starfield Script Extender [SFSE] is one of the most important downloads for modders and players alike. This gives modders even more tools to alter the game than are normally available with the base game. While there aren’t many examples of mods using this tool, some of the biggest ones will undoubtedly take advantage of this.
If you’d like to learn more about why this is a big deal, check out Skyrim’s SkyUI, which has become one of the most downloaded Skyrim mods and uses a script extender to make it possible.
If Starfield isn’t running as well as you’d hoped it would on your PC, looking into one of the Starfield Performance Optimization mods, like those from E3roKK and dknexus11, may be worth the time. These mods will adjust certain settings in the game to give you a much smoother experience.
For more, check out our look some more weird and wonderful mods, our Starfield review, and how Bethesda defined the Role-Playing game from Elder Scrolls to Starfield.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
