Summary
- Development of Starfield Together, a multiplayer mod for Starfield, has been halted as the mod author takes a break from the game due to burnout.
- The modding community had concerns over Starfield's handling of FormIDs, which caused crashes and loss of progress.
- The mod author expressed mixed feelings about Starfield, praising its roleplay elements but feeling disappointed by its lack of exciting exploration. The code for Starfield Together will be made open-source for modders who want to complete the project.
Starfield Together, the ambitious multiplayer mod for Starfield, has ceased development, as its mod author decided to take an indefinite break from the game. Developed by cosideci, Starfield Together was meant to bring multiplayer co-op to the Settled Systems. It was the spiritual successor to the insanely popular Skyrim Together, a project that cosideci worked on for years alongside the rest of the team. Following a successful launch, the prospect of modding Starfield into the ultimate Bethesda sandbox excited its community. However, as its honeymoon phase came to an end, Starfield fans began to reevaluate the game under a more critical eye.
A major hiccup that gave modders pause was the new way that Starfield handled FormIDs, as even vanilla save games began to experience stack overflow errors, ultimately causing crashes that could only be fixed by "resetting" the world through New Game Plus. This issue caused Starfield players to lose over 600 hours of progress, as they'd have to say goodbye to their outposts and starships to avoid crashing after a certain amount of play time. Coupled with the lukewarm reception to its procedural generation, some modders began to wonder if tinkering on Starfield was worth the effort.
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Ultimately, this burnout is precisely what caused cosideci to suspend development on Starfield Together. The announcement was made on the mod's official Discord, while the information was shared on the main Starfield subreddit by Lyefyre. The message posted by cosideci can be described as harsh, bluntly stating that the author is not going to put his heart and soul into a mod for a mediocre game, but it does encapsulate the overall mixed reception that Starfield has had thus far.
While cosideci stands by his statement, he doesn't want it to be viewed as a proper review of Starfield – rather an expression of his feelings about the game. As explained within the thread itself, his opinion on the latest Bethesda sandbox is a bit more nuanced. The mod author gave praise to Starfield's focus on roleplay elements compared to Fallout 4, and stated that he was still excited about the next Elder Scrolls game. However, he felt that Starfield's lack of exciting exploration severely hampered the game's potential, as Bethesda's greatest strength has traditionally been exploration-based gameplay.
An important thing to note from cosideci's announcement is that the code for Starfield Together will become open-source, and modders who enjoy Starfield will be able to use it to complete the project on their own. While Starfield certainly has its fans, and the game has features worthy of praise (such as its addictive ship builder), the passion and dedication of modders shouldn't be taken for granted. The idea of modders fixing a Bethesda game only works if it's a game that modders want to fix – because at the end of the day, most view modding as a hobby rather than a job.
Starfield
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 85 /100 Critics Rec: 83%
WHERE TO PLAY
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
