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At this point we really shouldn't be surprised, but Bethesda somehow managed to release a borderline broken game on PS5, over two full years removed from its initial launch on other platforms.
Now, to be clear, Starfield's crashing issues have not impacted every player — but reports have been so widespread and so numerous that the developer couldn't just sit back and ignore them.
And to Bethesda's credit, it's issued two separate 'hotfix' updates at the time of writing this article. Granted, it took an entire week for the first patch to drop, and the second only arrived last week, but it's progress.
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However, the wording on the second update made it sound as though the studio is done with targeting PS5-specific crashes. And so with that in mind, we wanted to put Starfield to the test all over again.
Having experienced far too many of these game-freezing errors ourselves — post-review period, we should stress — we've returned to Starfield to continue our intergalactic adventures with the latest patch installed.
The good news is that with our playtime now fast approaching 50 hours, we're mostly convinced that Bethesda's corrected the sci-fi RPG's most prominent crash-causing problems on PS5.
The bad news is that the experience is still far from perfect. Classic Bethesda, etc.
So, as far as we could tell, there were four or five key crashing issues that had to be addressed:
- Crashing when approaching a busy area with lots of NPC activity
- Crashing when exploring a planet's surface
- Crashing when building an outpost
- Crashing when building or modifying ship
- Random crashes when talking to NPCs
Some of these crashes could be replicated — and we know that from personal experience. For example, when driving around the planet of Akila in our buggy, we literally couldn't approach Akila City — one of the game's major hubs — without triggering a hard crash.
Outpost building was a consistent source of crashes as well, with the game simply freezing up as soon as we opened specific menus, or placed certain assets.
Other crashes were much more random in nature. The longer we spent exploring a planet, the higher the chance of the whole thing crashing — or so it seemed.
Thankfully, the majority of these crashes appear to have been addressed. We can no longer force the game to crash like we could in the aforementioned instances.
Having said that, we have still stumbled upon two or three crashes in our last 20 hours of play — or thereabouts. One came when entering orbit after completing a main faction quest, but we couldn't get it to happen again; the others were similarly random and unrepeatable.
We should note that for most of our post-patch playtime, we've been utilising the title's 60 frames-per-second performance mode. We've spent a few hours in the other graphical modes as well, and haven't ran into any obvious issues.
Some players had suggested that different graphical settings — particularly on PS5 Pro — could influence the frequency of crashes, but it was always difficult to properly validate these suggestions.
In conclusion, Starfield seems to be way more stable on PS5 than it did when it launched earlier in the month, on the 7th April. It's taken almost three weeks to get here, but, at least in our experience, the game's no longer crapping its pants at set intervals.
If you're still on the fence, we should mention that the game's technical performance remains rather sloppy. Frame rate drops are a fairly common occurrence regardless of your chosen graphical mode.
The hope is that Bethesda will continue to optimise the title on PS5 now that it's tackled the crashing — but given the developer's track record... well, we're not setting our expectations too high.
Have you been playing Starfield on PS5? Have you ran into any crashes up until now? Keep your fingers crossed in the comments section below.
Comments 35
Short answer no xD
"Random crashes when talking to NPCs" this is peak Bethesda
I'm still getting oodles of crashes, unfortunately. It shows how much I enjoy the game that I keep coming back, but this shouldn't be acceptable.
My original save started getting so buggy, I ended up creating a whole new character. I was thinking about doing that anyway, as I typically will with RPGs once I've gotten my bearings, but still. Not cool.
For context, I'm using a Pro with the Enhanced graphical settings and a 40fps target.
I had a brand new physical copy for £30.00 as a result of all the issues, so as long as it gets fixed… it’s all good.
Nope. Had multiple crashes (two automatically generated reports) and freezes (three in which the screen locks and the sound slowly begins shutting down) between today and yesterday. And to add to the fun, today the game intermittently lags (sometimes 2-3 seconds after inputting a control) to the point that it is unplayable.
Bethesda is mostly to blame for this, but I am also to blame since I bought the game and continue to try to play it.
Update: Make that five freezes in the past 36 hours.
I will stick with RE9 and Pragmata.
Can’t be dealing with such overall poor quality workmanship and errors.
Especially in a game that’s been out over a year.
If it was a car 🚗 I would drive it through the showroom window and be getting a full refund by now.
Why gamers put up with such quality negligence I will never know.
Is it the expansion that causes the game to crash, or is this happening in the base game "which is two years old" but was also updated frequently?
On one hand, issues are to be expected or tolerated as the game grows and introduces new content. This is under the assumption that the game "ends" up as a stable experience down the line. On the other hand....
Bethesda will never fix the (any) game completely. There will always be numerous bugs and crashes. This is fair to say based on the track record of their support and capabilities.
Issues like this train gamers like me to put off day 1 purchases and to hold off for deep sales or subscription access.
Nay, I’ll wait until it approaches its Xbox price of $25 or less. By then the bugs should be ironed out. Then again can still get Fallout 4 to crash so 🤷🏻♂️
@AI-Generation because gamers accepted as norm day one patches, pre-orders, not full versions on disc.
When car is broken, they repair it for you, for free, asap because there is lots of mechanics able to do it. When game is broken there is only few people (creators) who can repair it, for everybody at once, but because they made it too complex it takes a lot of time.
Main problem is, games are no more tested, but rushed to release. If they spend one two months on testing most of these bugs could be fixed. If they rather stick to "release when it's done", but no, they announce and rush to that date instead of rush to complete work. Most of guilt falls on publishers who don't care quality, but recieving product at any state.
It is also because of most of gamers stopped to expect finished product. Especially with digital copies gamers are held as hostages with only 2 options. Keep product and hope for fixing, or get refund and loose oportunity to buy it later when it's fixed. So most unsatisfied customers rather pick first choice and indirectly accepts that product (and any other simmilar product - other games) may release broken.
But that is rather political problem, because if governments would make law to protect customers of digital products, we wouldn't see this paradoxes anymore. One or two example punishments, and publishers would immediately turn and focus on working flawlessly products...
We speak a lot of times in past tense of Studios glory days and how due to time the studio is a shell of its former self and legendary in name only.
It's this what Bethesda has become?
I'm waiting on a used copy to show up for around 30, so I can give it the Pro oled treatment as I'm curious.
I bought this full price at release on Xbox- still bummed- and will not give them a pence more
@ShogunRok "with lots of NPC activity"
Where exactly is this place? Is it the packed nightcub on Neon
"If you're still on the fence, we should mention that the game's technical performance remains rather sloppy. Frame rate drops are a fairly common occurrence regardless of your chosen graphical mode."
So... Sounds best to avoid then.
Nah, definitely not fixed. my friend told me today it’s a hot mess still. I don’t think Bethesda knows how to actually fix a lot of their bugs tbh. They are bottom of the barrel when it comes to game quality.
I’ll let everyone know when it comes to PS+.
Debatable.
As far as my experience of the most recent patch goes, busy settlements are crashing less (but will still crash on a whim) while planet exploration is seemingly less stable than the previous patch. Last week I could go flat out with an infinite boost vehicle on even high flora/fauna-density planets without running into issues, now even walking exploration comes at risk of a loading crash.
It does at least occasionally settle for hitching for a second or two before recovering now - in the settlements at least, not so much in the wild - but the game/engine still very much struggles with deciding that it doesn't want to load things and just giving up.
Said on the other thread.
It was the same on Xbox, you either suffered a lot of crashes or you had very few. So seems like they brought this over to PS.
“At this point we really shouldn't be surprised, but Bethesda somehow managed to release a borderline broken game on PS5”
Shame none of this info made it into the push square review!
played it on xbox no crashes good game
like most games now days don't buy at launch wait
Unlikely as it's not fixed on XSX almost 3 years later. Still crashes frequently, especially on older saves.
wildcat_kickz wrote:
This was exactly my experience on Xbox. But gradually over time the game dragged itself down, became a bit samey yet the crashes continued. In fact they increased the longer the save went on, which is a old issue with Bethesda's games.
This was going to be my next game to play after finally beating Crimson Desert. But they aren't getting my gold unless they fix this crap.
I got one crash when starting the game for the first time but nothing since. I am pretty sure I know why some people are crashing more though. In the graphics options it allows you to customize the framerate and graphics resolution separately, but if you read the graphics mode descriptions it will tell you not to do 60fps on Fidelity and Pro Enhanced. Bethesda just ported the PC version which gives players more freedom but the PS5 and Pro can't run as well as a top of the line PC. They should have made it so the framerate was locked to the graphics mode because now people are doing 60fps at the highest resolution which causes crashing. That is what happened with me.
@themightyant Yeah, I've noticed instability increasing as your character progresses. I've actually never had this amount of bugs in a BGS game before, so it's been incredibly frustrating, especially since the game has already been out for 2 years. Anecdotally, it seems that audience patience for this lack of polish has just completely run dry.
@wildcat_kickz I got (low-key) very annoyed when everyone was saying Starfield was "the least buggy BGS game" on XSX because that absolutely was not my experience at all. Had dozens of bugs, including some progress blocking ones in some major quests.
Like you I've never had that many bugs in a BGS game before, though judging by other's stories I've always got a bit lucky, this time we got unlucky. I agree people aren't as willing to accept this amount of jank and bugs anymore in a AAA release, times have changed.
The reviewer @pushsquare said the following:
"The same can be said of Starfield’s visuals and performance: the PS5 version runs smoothly without any of the technical flaws from past Bethesda launches. It’s not perfect; you’ll likely encounter the odd glitch here and there, be it a character standing where they shouldn’t be or items clipping through each other. On the whole, though, Starfield on PS5 is a robust and reliable version of the space opera."
An "odd glitch" is different than a total system crash! A system crash is not a "odd glitch" so I call ***** on @pushsqure and Liam's review.
It seems the crash where wide ranging enough to issue patches and if they could be replicated this means the reviewer had to encounter them and choose to called them "odd glitches" @pushsquare
The game is unplayable for about a month but still gets a better review then playable games. Shame on pushsquare your bias is showing in full color.
@Propaperpusher Did you read this article at all? They've made it clear that the reviewer didn't really experience a ton of large bugs during the review, but started encountering them afterwards. I've encountered a lot of bugs, but that doesn't mean that everyone encounters the same ones or at the same frequency.
Not everything is a grand conspiracy that you need to uncover.
shame, I loved this on XSX, for all of its flaws, but am not spending a penny on this unless it gets fixed. which, sadly, seems unlikely knowing Bethesda.
recently played cyberpunk for the first time, and currently on horizon zero dawn. Starfield does seem pretty poor in comparison in so many ways...
I’ve only had two crashes on my Pro, 2nd one was after latest patch. Absolutely loving the game though.
@Propaperpusher Not true at all. It was the same at launch on XSX with many gamers and reviewers not having crashes and calling it "the most stable BGS game ever"... only for many gamers to have many crashing issues. You can only review the experience you have and with Starfield that's a bit of a lottery.
It seems linked to save's and game time, e.g. In my 150+ hour save on XSX it crashed more and more until it was at least once an hour by the end. But on a completely new save it didn't crash for 20 hours.
My theory is a memory leak somewhere based on all the items you store and if you reload saves often. But it's a buggy game whatever imo.
Still freezing, not so frequently. What is weird is that after I changed 30fps to 60fps in the Performance mode, freezes are less frequent, almost bearable. Always when exploring planets, but I got freezes in New Atlantis when walking around. Seems to be always at open spaces.
Not really
Additionally, there are two characters for Starfield, but their progress is not saved separately; everything is stored under one save file. I'm not sure if this is specific to the PS5, as I didn't encounter this problem with Hogwarts Legacy. While there are only four save files, they are easy to identify. I think Xbox users might have experienced the same issue, but I'm not certain. Regardless, I've reported it to Bethesda.
It crashes any time I download a creation from the store, and it’ll randomly crash during gameplay. It was way more stable on PC, didn’t have any crashing issues so to see this happening on console of all things is ironic.
@Yor-sama No, peak Bethesda is where the NPC doesn’t even appear!
@sanderson72 damn I forgot about that 1 🤣
I've been playing it again since the big update on Xbox. The first week it was alot buggier and more prone to crashing than it had been the last time I played, and I had about 5 crashes in 10 hours. I haven't had any further crashes in the past week or two however.
It's the sort of game they'll never get entirely crash free just due to the way it's designed, because of all the CPU intensive Physics and NPC stuff that can randomly spike and tank performance, but overall it's back in a place that playing it isn't an exercise in frustration. From a technical standpoint. Gamewise, the loop is still pretty love it or hate it depending on personal taste.
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