Unlocking Starfield's Realistic Physics And Why Ground Vehicles Aren't Included

Starfield, the latest RPG from Bethesda, a subsidiary of Microsoft Corp MSFT, is astonishing players with incredible attention to detail in the physics of tiny objects and their interactions.

For instance, a Reddit user named Moozipan shared a video on the Starfield subreddit that gained significant attention, according to Kotaku.

The video featured potatoes pouring out of a hatch on the Frontier spaceship, impressing viewers with the intricate and fluid animation of the falling potatoes.

Players have also been amazed by the real-time flexibility of object interactions in Starfield. For example, one player creatively stole items by pushing them into containers and carrying them away without officially adding them to their inventory.

"A very unique way of stealing lots of credits (Game physics at work)," the Reddit post says.

Players noticed the absence of ground-based vehicles for planetary exploration. Starfield's Director Todd Howard explained that while the company considered including ground vehicles, the decision was made against it to maintain the immersive and controlled experience of planet exploration on foot.

"Once you land in your ship, [and now] you’re on foot, it lets us really, for the players, make it an experience where we know how fast they’re seeing things," Howard told Bloomberg.

Gamers do have access to jetpacks to move around planets faster and these jetpacks can be upgraded. "In one sense, you do have a vehicle, you obviously have your spaceship so you can go around space, but then on the surface, you do have a jetpack which you can upgrade. Which is super fun — new experience for us," the director said.

He added: "And obviously, planets have different levels of gravity, which makes that unique for many planets."

when it's time to let something go in Starfield. I gasped when the hatch opened from /u/Moozipan https://t.co/PXtefvDiPb pic.twitter.com/m47SIuObUT
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) September 5, 2023