Starfield’s 30FPS Framerate Finds An Unusual Defender In Sony

gameranx.com:

Starfield has found an unexpected defender yesterday, against claims from gamers that the game is ‘unfinished’ for targeting 30 FPS.

That defender is Dannie Carlone, who works at Sony’s Santa Monica Studio as a senior staff environment artist.

As reported by Video Games Chronicle, a YouTuber started getting attention online by accusing Bethesda of shipping an unfinished game in Starfield, because the game is shipping with 30 FPS framerate.

We ourselves reported yesterday that Todd Howard himself explained the reason for targeting 30 FPS. They made the call to aim for the lower framerate deliberately, so that Starfield could have ‘that fidelity’ that Bethesda wants to bring with the game.

That fidelity is to the encompassing vision of the game. As we have seen in the Starfield Direct, Bethesda is aiming to build a world far bigger than they have made before conceptually, with dynamically changing elements that are also fully detailed when they reach the gamer’s POV.

Bethesda humorously (and brilliantly) pointed to the example of a sandwich thief. While the idea of a player who goes all around space pirating and pillaging other ships just to collect their sandwiches is absurd on its face, the idea that players can collect sandwiches is radical. That means that Bethesda came up with systems so that Starfield will remember those sandwiches are in a room in your very own spaceship, and that it will remember to render them every time your character enters that room.

But let’s get back to Carlone’s defense of Starfield. On Twitter, he shared this response to the spurious claim that Starfield is unfinished:

“Game dev here, big fan btw. Wanted to clarify It’s not a sign of an unfinished game. It’s a choice. 60fps on this scale