Glitch Reveals Why One Big Starfield Element Was Left Out

screenrant.com:

While is littered with planets for players to explore, one unlucky fan may have just figured out why one common aspect of most natural landscapes is a strangely rare sight. One of the most agreed-upon criticisms of the sci-fi RPG is that while Bethesda tempted the community with thousands of worlds to discover, most of them are barren with nothing especially interesting to find. There are some rare exceptions, but many users were shocked to discover that most of the explorable planets are seemingly wastelands devoid of any bodies of water.

Now the community might know why that's the case based on a Reddit post by user B1G_L04f wherein they include a screenshot of what appears to be a river caught in a major glitch as it hovers above the natural landscape.

The player notes their surprise at the fact that they've managed to spend 150 hours in but has never encountered an instance of "" procedural generation this severe. It's unknown whether the glitch is permanent or simply a result of a bug causing the textures to load incorrectly, but it's certainly an extreme instance of the game incorrectly creating a landscape.

While it should be noted that bodies are water can be discovered in, most of the prominent ones are reserved for areas that players must travel to during key quests and missions. When users begin exploring off the beaten track and land on one of the thousand or so planets in the game, it's exceedingly rare to encounter any kind of water. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule but these are so uncommon that following 's launch, the community felt obliged to share pictures of their lakes and rivers as evidence that they do, in fact, exist.

The issue of water placement in may simply be an issue with the game's procedural generation system that cobbles together unique maps and terrain whenever players land on an unexplored planet. When implemented correctly, these mechanics can result in one-of-a-kind experiences that are unique to the user given the