Starfield on PS5 Pro is the best it's ever been, but it's still Starfield

Back in 2023 when I first tried Starfield pre-release, my experience with Bethesda Game Studios RPGs was limited to Fallout 4 and Skyrim. It took multiple attempts and ports for Skyrim to click because each version I tried had some quest getting bugged or performance issues that soured me. I still enjoyed a lot of my time with it, but Fallout 4 was the opposite. I first tried it on Xbox One and couldn't get over the visuals or performance. I also didn't really care for the setting so I dropped it. Starfield was a game I went into expecting nothing based on how I found Fallout 4 and also how the initial versions of Skyrim felt. Starfield had its hooks in me even pre-release when I spent well over 60 hours with it, but that was mainly because of three reasons: the setting, the design language, and the music. 

I've always loved space games ever since I was a kid thanks to the many hundreds (probably) hours I spent watching Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Starfield's iconography and aesthetic appealed to me more than the game initially, and I even bought the controller with no intention of playing the game because I liked how it looked. I'm glad I ended up playing it though, because I enjoyed the time I spent with it despite its issues thanks to memorable quests, almost none of the bugs and glitches I experienced in Fallout 4 or Skyrim, and a few of the in-game systems. 

I never finished Starfield back then, and as with most big RPGs these days, I decided to pause my playthrough for updates and patches to hopefully address the annoyances I had with it. I kept seeing Starfield get updates and patches leading into the Shattered Space story expansion, but I never went back. Last year, when I got back into No Man's Sky with its Switch 2 port and the cross save, I started getting the itch to revisit Starfield, but I decided to hold off until we either had a new DLC or the PS5 version. Based on how Microsoft's late PS5 ports were going, it felt like waiting for that would deliver a more-polished experience. Following its announcement alongside the Free Lanes and Terra Armada DLC, I started getting quite excited to revisit Starfield, but also was a bit skeptical because Avowed's PS5 version didn't really fix or dramatically change things. 

Having now spent nearly 40 hours with Starfield on PS5 and PS5 Pro, this is definitely the best Starfield has been, but it still is Starfield. For some people, that's enough to not even consider revisiting it, but for those who enjoyed or found things to enjoy in Starfield back in 2023, this could potentially be amazing. So what were my main issues with Starfield back at launch? Mainly the load times, number of loading screens, and the lack of vehicles or movement options. Starfield didn't feel like a game I was playing on a current-generation console off an SSD with how long every little load was. This paled in comparison to a lot of the seamless aspects I loved in No Man's Sky, but Starfield excelled in other areas. It ended up being the Bethesda game I put the most time into and one where I enjoyed the main story and side quests rather than just the latter in other games from the developer.

Before getting into why Starfield on PS5 and PS5 Pro specifically is my favorite version, the game itself has gotten a ton of updates and notable additions over the years. Since I didn't play it after its initial release, I missed out on support for vehicles, mods (Creations) on console, custom difficulty sliders, 60fps and 40fps mode on Xbox Series X, general map improvements, and more. What hasn't changed is the core game of course. This is still Starfield warts and all. Revisiting it on a fresh save with all updates included has been interesting because I've run into some notable additions like new questlines, but it got me thinking about how other games I considered flawed ended up improving in a re-release. The biggest one is obviously No Man's Sky, but it too is still the same game as it was at launch in many ways, but you just have a ton more to do that really elevates the experience. It also helps that No Man's Sky's changes and platform releases saw it get dramatically better visuals and performance. That isn't even getting to the major additions like multiplayer and cross save. 

The issues I had with Starfield cannot be fixed in the same way as bringing in more things to do or more in-game mechanics will not remove the structure with loading screens. What it could potentially see in a PS5 version is faster load times. As someone who plays regularly on both my Xbox Series X and PS5 with PS5 Pro being a recent addition, almost every game loads faster on PS5. The workaround for this on Xbox was Quick Resume, but you can sometimes run into issues with the feature in some games. My main hope for Starfield on PS5 was cutting down the load times before thinking about the new major update and DLC. In some ways it succeeded, but the loading screens and canned animations while in-game are the same as they are on Xbox and Steam sadly. The initial load, as I'll cover below with my testing, was a lot faster thankfully. 

Before I go off on a technical tangent again, Starfield on PS5 pre-release didn't have access to any Creations (mods) barring the Deimog vehicle and others from Bethesda Game Studios. I wanted to get an idea of how Starfield's modding is on console, so I also started a new save file on Xbox to play with Creations enabled. Despite being more limited than PC mods, Starfield was already feeling a lot nicer with random modifier mods I downloaded on Xbox, some of the new quests I grabbed, and also vehicles. Vehicles made traversal on planets a lot less boring. In fact, I was hoping and still hope we see proper radio support added with commentary on in-game locations and curated music appropriate for Starfield.

Base game aside, I was curious to see how the Free Lanes update would affect space travel. Right now, it doesn't completely eliminate those canned loading videos for going between star systems, but it is a decent middle ground at letting you explore your ship while in auto-pilot, be more involved in space exploration, and also partake in random battles or points of interest you find on the way to your destination. This update also adds new mechanics and collectibles that let you customize or tweak your build and powers further. In a lot of ways, it feels like the Free Lanes update is selling itself short with just the space exploration focus when it actually feels like a combination of multiple small mechanics and good quality of life enhancements to make Starfield feel better and play better.

Like I said before, I had not finished Starfield on Xbox or PC in 2023. I still have not finished it. This isn't because of a lack of time, but more than that I don't like rushing through the main story in these games. There are so many quests I never did back then, new mechanics I didn't spend a lot of time with initially, and just generally I've been enjoying soaking in Starfield with better performance even on my new Xbox save. 

Starfield itself is the best it has been, but the new PS5 port elevates it to the point where it is now my favorite version of the game. This is mainly because of the new controller features. So far, I've not mentioned one other annoyance I had with Starfield in 2023: menus. Every little thing required going in and out of nested menus. On PS5, Bethesda has made almost full use of the DualSense controller features. It has support for haptic feedback during most interactions and effects, adaptive triggers while mining and shooting, the lightbar corresponding to your health, the controller speaker for radio transmissions, and the most important addition: touchbar. 

Games usually just treat the touchbar on the PS5 controller as a big select or View button. Starfield lets you use both sides of the touchpad to change perspective or bring up the map view, but the real highlight is the swipe gestures. These let you directly bring up skills, inventory, mission list, and powers. You can rebind these as well and I didn't realize how used to the quick swipes I got until playing it on Xbox. I need to look into using the extra paddles and buttons of my other controllers when revisiting the Steam version through Steam Input because removing some of the annoyances with menu navigation makes Starfield a lot nicer.

I said Starfield made almost full use of the controller, and that's because there's no gyro support. Gyro support for general movement and aiming would have helped a lot, and I hope it is added in the future since Bethesda did a great job at getting the other controller features working well in Starfield. 

I haven't played the Shattered Space DLC yet so I didn't want to finish Terran Armada story, but I initiated the quest early on (despite the Level 50 recommendation) and it starts out strong by not only getting me interested based on the initial radio announcement, but also how it weaves in the Free Lanes cruise mode as a part of the quest right from the get go. It very much feels like a new quest line built on top of the current Starfield rather than something leftover that was brought to pad in a new update and platform release. I'll have more to say about the story quest when I complete both DLC packs in the future. 

Starfield PS5 Pro visual modes and options

Starfield on base PS5 has the same options as the Xbox Series X version. These are the frame rate target (30, 40, 60, uncapped), a v-sync toggle, and the prioritize visuals or performance. The latter reduces the internal resolution and a few other visual settings aimed to deliver a 60fps experience. On PS5 Pro, you get those options (with improvements over the base PS5 in both modes) and a new Enhanced mode. The in-game description says this mode "utilizes PS5 Pro hardware to maximize visual detail and keep the highest resolution while maintaining full detail for special effects, lighting, and crowds." When using this mode and leaving the frame rate uncapped or at 60fps, it wasn't running too well. I ended up sticking to either the Enhanced mode with a 40fps target (that dropped noticeably when using vehicles) or the Performance mode with a 60fps target. 

When comparing modes across PS5 consoles, it is interesting to see how the PS5 Pro's performance mode is better than the PS5 base Visuals/Quality mode in many areas. I noticed a signboard in the distance that was present on PS5's Visuals/Quality mode not there in the PS5 Pro's Performance mode, but the rest of the image including clarity, foliage, filtering, and more appeared better on the PS5 Pro Performance mode. This is obviously a big step up over the base PS5 Performance mode as well, but what about the Enhanced mode? I've included a comparison image for the same spot across both consoles and all three modes. I did not use the 40fps target in these modes and stuck to 30fps in Visuals or Enhanced and 60fps in the Performance mode. 

I don't have a VRR display for PS5 or PS5 Pro, but I do have one that works with Xbox Series X. Even with VRR, the drops in New Atlantis or Akila City were noticeable, but I didn't run into major issues elsewhere on Xbox in my testing. On PS5 Pro, I didn't notice any major issues in the places I tested, but I was regularly swapping between 60fps or 40fps during actual gameplay when I finished capturing for the comparisons. 

Starfield load times on PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox, and Steam Deck

My main issues with the load times barring some of them being too long like the initial save file load, were with the canned and forced animations that played when you took off or fast traveled to certain places. I want to stress that this testing below is done with the day one patch and final retail code for Starfield's PS5 and PS5 Pro versions, but the Xbox and Steam versions are the same builds from a few days ago before the latest Free Lanes update will go live today. Since I don't have access to the patch and DLC on all platforms, I will not be doing a full comparison covering visuals and other details like I normally do. I wanted to provide my results below for context to show how the newest port compares to what was available before the newest update on other platforms including PC handhelds. 

I had Starfield installed on the internal SSD across all platforms tested below. I measured the time taken to get to the title screen from the platform dashboard (Title), the time taken to load an early save file into New Atlantis since this was longer than other loads (Save), the time taken to fast travel from The Lodge to the ship (Ship), the time taken to fly outside while in your ship (Take Off), and the time taken to fast travel back to The Lodge from Space (The Lodge). 

A lot of the in-game loads are similar because of the canned animation or cut-scene, but I am surprised the initial load is a lot longer on Xbox Series X compared to the PS5 consoles when loading into New Atlantis. Barring that, I assume the PC handhelds are likely taking longer because of the CPU requirements and how heavy this game is compared to other platforms. Overall, I hope we get a way to disable the animations or cut-scenes and actually load faster in a future update. I will check the Creations for anything that lets me improve this when they go live. 

Had Oblivion Remastered not been released last year, Starfield would've been my favorite Bethesda Game Studios RPG from the ones I've played, but I like them both a lot, despite their issues. With over a hundred hours spent with Starfield since launch, which likely isn't much compared to the time people put into these games, it still is the most I've played of any Bethesda release, and I look forward to seeing it through this time on PS5 Pro with the new DLC. 

I almost gave up on enjoying Bethesda RPGs based on my time with the two biggest ones, but I'm glad I decided to try out Starfield and finally Oblivion with its remaster last year. I probably will not enjoy Fallout 3 because the setting doesn't do much for me, but I know I need to get to Morrowind after how much more I enjoyed Oblivion compared to Skyrim. Sometimes just having a setting that appeals to you is enough to tolerate jank, but Starfield has reached a point where I enjoy a lot more of it than I dislike and it is almost  the game I initially hoped for with the new updates, additions over the years, and how good it feels to play with the PS5 controller.

Hopefully cross platform saves and Creations are added in future updates alongside all these DualSense features into the Steam release. If you skipped Starfield and are considering jumping in with the new PS5 version and the lower price point, it is definitely the best time to try out Starfield, and while not everything it has is fully realized, there's a good chance you will enjoy it a lot if some of them click. If you already own it on Xbox Series X or Steam and haven't played it since launch, now is a good time to jump back in.