Starfield’s 30fps frame rate is “a choice,” God of War dev says

CaptainArcher@startrek.website to Gaming@beehaw.org – 69 points –
Starfield’s 30fps frame rate is “a choice,” God of War dev says
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People constantly complain about the engine that they use but no other game engine is as flexible when it comes to modding and no other game engine has the same level of complexity when it comes to being able to pick stuff up and move it around. You can take items off a shelf or desk in skyrim and fallout and stack them somewhere else. You can if you want decide to hoard a bunch of garbage you stole and stack them into a pyramid in your home base area.

Are their quirks? Sure the physics tied to framerate in skyrim was a problem, the games are always buggy, and they arent usually the prettiest games out there(though skyrim looked decent when it first came out and the graphical fidelity mods can work magic).

As for the premise does it have to do with fidelity? Of course it does. Setting a framecap on consoles means theyre able to use higher resolution assets, better lighting effects, and more complex models. I understand the preference of giving up fidelity for some smoothness and frames but 30fps isnt totally uncommon in console spaces and this is a bethesda game not a twitch shooter or a 2d fighter.

Outside the PC space gamers hardly ever talk about or think about framer rate. Graphical effects and details and fisual fidelity are a higher priority and more important in a game where generally you mostly just walk around and explore.

It would be nice if they had an option for a lower res mode or less detailed mode and 60fps target, but I get why they made the choice they did and ideally Im sure it'll run at a normal framerate on pc.

Now if it runs poorly on PC then we can riot.

It's also a personal choice of Bethesda not to rename their engine. Many other studios do this same thing and reuse engines, but they often rename them after significant rewrites. Bethesda just doesn't do that.

Also they aren't worried about how the game will be released. Their games have legs. So a 60fps version will eventually come out. Then they'll release it 5 more times.

But they did? For Oblivion it was Gamebryo, for Skyrim it was the Creation Engine

I mean that they haven't changed it from the Creation engine. Which has been used since Skyrim despite some big rewrites for Fallout and I'm sure more big rewrites or additions for Starfield

But it's only been 2 games since Skyrim, right? And for Starfield it's being renamed Creation Engine 2. Either way that statement "Bethesda just doesn’t do that." Doesn't seem accurate when they have done that multiple times.

Huh okay yeah that's fair. I guess I'm thinking more about the time span since that game engine is now well over a decade old whereas the previous examples are separated by a handful of years. And I didn't know about them putting a '2' in front of it for Starfield.

I also agree with that. I love the modding aspect of it and I fear it'll go away with a new engine.