Summary
- Starfield has forever been criticised for excessive loading.
- An ex-developer was even surprised by how many load zones wound up in the game.
- The load zones are necessary because of technical quirks with the Creation Engine.
One of the aspects of Starfield that’s routinely criticised is the excessive number of load zones between, and even in, areas. If there are two doors nearby, sometimes the game needs time to individually load the areas behind each door. Or, the game may pause and load while you’re walking across the surface of a planet.
In an interview with the Video Gamer Podcast, former Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile revealed he was surprised to see that the game launched with so many load zones. “It could have existed without those [loading zones]. Like, some of those were not there when I had been working on it and so it was a surprise to me that there were as many as there were,” he said.
Load City
Purkeypile worked on the game before the lighting engine and other various technical aspects had been completed. This means that Bethesda had to put in loading zones to allow for the technical advancements it wanted to showcase in Starfield.
He goes on to explain that the Creation Engine used by Bethesda relies on map segmentation to optimise performance. This is evident in a city like Neon where zones are “[gated off] for performance.” Purkeypile doesn’t believe the same is true for New Atlantis. Despite the New Atlantis Transit fading to black when you board it, Purkeypile believes this is more to avoid the player having to wait around rather than any loading issues.
Purkeypile departed Bethesda because of the consequences of having such a big team on a single project. The need for large-scale collaboration between hundreds of developers increased the need for meetings, which Purkeypile didn’t much enjoy. He founded Just Purkey Games which recently released The Axis Unseen, a “heavy metal horror game” that currently holds a Very Positive review score on Steam.
As for Starfield, Bethesda continues to update the game. Since release, Starfield has received the REV-8, a land exploration vehicle and has a full-fledged expansion, Shattered Space.
Starfield is the first new IP from Bethesda in a quarter of a century, launched for the next-gen Xbox Series X|S and PC. Taking place outside our own Solar System, you play a member of the Constellation, a collective of explorers set on discovering new worlds.