The 72 best Starfield mods

The best Starfield mods for performance and graphics

Starfield is a massive game with a high PC system requirements bar to render it all beautifully. However, these best Starfield graphics and performance mods can polish Starfield to a beautiful shine, or optimize areas with stuttering or FPS drops.

Starfield Community Patch

It’s no exaggeration to say that the Starfield Community Patch is the single most important mod for Starfield. This massive collaboration between hundreds of contributors aims to fix hundreds of bugs and errors in Starfield which Bethesda have yet to rectify with an update. The scope of this project is likely to expand massively as time goes by, with previous Unofficial Bethesda Community Patches having been central to creating a stable gaming experience. Even if you’re not interested in modding your game, this is the one mod you should make an exception for.

Deep Space ReShade

If you’re finding Bethesda’s version of the majesty of outer space a little bland, there are plenty of Starfield mods that reimagine the game’s color palette already. The Deep Space ReShade mod is one of the better options, sharpening some elements of the science fiction atmosphere to feel more like a Christopher Nolan film.

Quantum ReShade

If you’re looking for a different and less performance-intensive graphical tune-up, the Quantum Reshade mod aims to make colors more vibrant. Check out the full installation video and demonstration to see if this ReShade mod is right for you.

Starfield Performance Optimizations

This is another technical mod, but if you’ve got a powerful enough PC, it can make for a smoother experience altogether. It also includes Potato Mode, for if you want to do the opposite and pixelate your journey through this next-generation RPG. We don’t know why you’d want to do that, but hey, it’s your playthrough.

Starfield Upscaler – Replacing FSR2 with DLSS or XeSS

This is one we knew would arrive shortly after the game’s launch. Modder PureDark revealed their intentions to create this software shortly after AMD confirmed that there is no DLSS or XeSS support for Starfield at launch owing to its exclusivity deal with Bethesda.

Skip Launch Video

We love a timesaving Starfield mod, and with this one, you can get rid of all the unnecessary intro content to get right back to exploring the depths of space. So, save yourself a few seconds and download this mod to skip the intro.

Steam Deck Essentials – FPS and QOL

If you’re looking for a Starfield Steam Deck mod, this one has all the enhancements you need to get the game running as high quality as possible on Valve’s handheld console. That’s where this mod comes in with some FPS optimizations, and quality of life improvements.

Enhanced Blood Textures Starfield

If you want to make your Starfield experience feel a little more like Dead Space, this entry on our list of the best mods is a good place to start. With this enhancement, you can make in-game blood even more visceral, bringing the horror vibes to Bethesda’s epic RPG.

Starfield Script Extender (SFSE)

This technical mod adds additional scripting capabilities to the game as well as a few functionality and QOL fixes. It is very likely that this SFSE mod will be the bedrock foundation for every major mod that overhauls content. Thus, even if you aren’t in need of the SFSE mod now, it’s worth downloading in advance.

Cleanfield

This mod removes much of the delays between launching Starfield and accessing New Game, Load, Continue, and other menu options. It also removes a lot of elements from the main menu so you can admire the spinning planet more clearly before jumping into your save.

Undelayed Menus

Are long menu waiting times getting you down? Speed up the process with this easy-to-use mod.

ROG Ally and Handheld PC Optimization

If you’re playing on the ROG Ally or another Windows-based handheld PC, this mod can boost your performance to make things a little smoother and quicker to load.

Neutral LUTs – No Color Filters

If you feel that the color scheme in Starfield is a little muted, you can use this mod to remove those color filters. This makes the blacks much darker, and allows each object’s base color to stand out more. Ironically, this actually makes the world appear more colorful, despite the mod’s name.

The best Starfield mods for gameplay and UI

If you’re looking for Starfield gameplay enhancements, we’ve got you covered with some mods that will make the menus more legible and customizable, make enemies less like bullet sponges, and even improve NPC AI.

Ascension – Gameplay Overhaul

At the top of our list is the equivalent of a hardcore game difficulty setting which also rebalances a lot of the grind inherent in the vanilla experience. The Ascension mod by agd25 drastically reduces the player’s health, and does the same to enemies. This mod also rebalances experience, and allows enemies of all ranks and equipment levels to spawn to provide a more consistent and challenging gameplay experience.

Starfield FOV

If the three field-of-view options in the vanilla game don’t do it for you, you can enhance your viewpoint with this mod. It includes new FOV options for both first-person and third-person perspectives, so you can truly customise how you want to witness the epic story in this massive universe.

StarUI

The Starfield menu UI is pretty clunky, so this mod offers you the chance to simplify things and make your inventory feel more cohesive. With more than 1,000 endorsements in less than 24 hours on the Nexus Mods platform, you can bet this enhances your overall experience in a way that other Starfield mods might not.

All Weapons Ammo Space Suits and Skills

The All Weapons Ammo Space Suits and Skills mod does exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re not concerned with the main quest and finding things through exploration, this Starfield mod simply unlocks it all for you, so you can experiment with different skills and weapon combinations.

Automatic Quicksave Backups

Now for one of the more useful mods. Automatic Quicksave Backups is a great call for anyone who might be playing fast and loose with their system requirements, as it creates backup saves to replace any corrupt files after a crash – and we mean a hardware crash, not the type you might have in one of your Starfield ships.

BetterHUD

If you find Starfield’s HUD a little convoluted, you can minimize distractions with this mod. Location text and XP indicators are smaller, and you even have the option to completely remove other parts of the HUD, like enemy health bars and hit markers.

Basic Bright Flashlight

For those who have already lost their way exploring some of the dark caves containing Artifacts, the Basic Bright Flashlight might be one of the best Starfield mods around. It’s simple but effective, making it easier to quest at night or in low-light locations.

Build outposts in restricted zones

If you’ve ever tried building an outpost in Starfield, you’ll have quickly discovered that there are restricted areas outlined in red that prevent you from building a base near established locations like Akila City, or more procedural locations such as a cave. This restriction prevents you from building a base atop an interesting landmark, and modder Masterfool decided enough was enough. With the Build Outposts in restricted zones (Over POI) mod, that Starfield limitation is overcome, allowing you to build your base right outside New Atlantis if you so wish.

Eat.Sleep.Drink.

Looking for a Starfield survival mode? Nexus modder Serious M00nlight has you covered with their Eat.Sleep.Drink. mod which reintroduces starvation, dehydration, and sleep deprivation to Starfield. Now, at last, Starfield food and drink items have more utility beyond recovering a tiny bit of health (unless you took the Gastronomy and Nutrition skill, of course).

Longer Slide Distance

If you take the Gymnastics skill, you’ll unlock the ability to perform a “combat slide.” Unfortunately, the in-game default slide distance feels more like a combat skip than a slide, and barely covers any distance. This is where the Longer Slide Distance mod by Stentorious comes in, allowing you to customize how far your combat slide can travel.

Unlimited Sprint

Without a wealth of Starfield vehicles to help you get around barren planets, sprinting is often the only option. However, it’s easy to run out of oxygen while running, especially early in the game. With this entry on our long list of mods, you can sprint to your heart’s content, without worrying about doing yourself some damage.

Enhanced Player Healthbar

The in-game health bar can be a little confusing, only indicating you’re in serious trouble with a simple distinction between the usual white and red when HP is low. With Enhanced Player Healthbar mod, you can get a better idea of how much health you have going into a battle, making it easier to decide whether a Med Pack is necessary or not.

Easy Digipick

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Bypass all those complicated Starfield digipicking puzzles by downloading the mod.

Compact Mission UI

This entry on our list of Starfield mods is another for those who aren’t content with the in-game mission and quest UI. It essentially just makes your mission menu easier to comprehend, with more space for active and complete quests to show up on the screen. If you’re quest admin is getting you down, this might be one for you.

Easy Speech

If you want to blag your way around the universe but don’t have the skill points to fully level up Diplomacy and Persuasion to Rank 4, this simple mod lets you skip the small talk and get through every conversation with ease. It takes some of the fun away from trying to manipulate your way through a situation, but it can help if you’re struggling to convince a specific NPC.

All Aid Items

If you’re spending all your credits on Med Packs, this mod can keep you well-stocked without constant visits to Trade Authority retailers. With 1000 of every aid item included, it might be a good idea to match with this a mod that offers unlimited carry weight.

Realistic Consumables – Food Drink Chems Aid and Addictions

In previous Bethesda games, drinking too much alcohol or taking too many drugs could lead to addictions and other status debuffs. While Starfield addictions are possible, they have been scaled back significantly in vanilla Starfield. Modder chipmunkr decided that didn’t sit right with them, so they decided to introduce new addictions for alcohol and other commonly used health-boosting drugs like Heart+. To balance out the debuffs, chipmunkr’s mod also boosts the effects of aid items like the Med Pack, and makes food and drink a viable avenue of healing without taking the Gastronomy skill.

Weightless Resources

Are the rocks in your pockets weighing you down? Make Iron, Nickel, and all of the other important resources in your pack weightless with this mod.

Auto Skip Dialogue

While much of the story is in Starfield’s dialog, it can get a bit repetitive during a New Game Plus run. So, you can use this mod to make conversations with characters like Andreja and Sam Coe that little bit quicker.

Player Dialogue Camera

If you’re not interest in the Auto Skip Dialogue mod because you want to immerse yourself in a conversation, the Player Dialogue Camera by modder jedijosh920 is the mod for you. This mod switches the camera’s perspective to your player character when it comes time to select a dialog option, making conversations feel more two way rather than an intense stare at someone until you’ve said goodbye. It also means you’ll see more of the player character you spent so long on crafting (or didn’t) during the Starfield character creator window.

Jetpack Overhaul

If you’re having trouble getting used to jetpack controls, this mod makes your boost pack feel easier to use. You still need to level up your Boost Pack Training to Rank 4 for almost unlimited boosting juice, but with this enhancement mod, you can float across barren planets to your heart’s content.

Responsive Grabbing

If you run and jump at an object or ledge within a certain limit, your character will grab hold of the ledge and pull you up. Unfortunately, there’s a one second delay which can make the process feel a bit sluggish. The Responsive Grabbing mod fixes this by reducing the delay from a second down to 300ms.

Less Spongy Enemies

Some Starfield enemies are notorious bullet sponges, but you can change that with this mod. Sparing you the technical jargon, this bit of software boosts your damage output, making it easier for your Beowulf to blast away any Spacer Brigadeers getting in your way.

More AI Brains

In the absence of a Starfield survival mode, you can push your combat skills to the limit with this mod. Essentially, it just makes in-game enemy NPCs smarter, so you’re more likely to find Spacers who put up a fight, rather than the usual kind who are just waiting to be blown away with a few shots from your Orion.

Realistic Stars

This one is purely a graphical enhancement, but it does make looking up at the stars that bit more beautiful.

All Powers

If you don’t want to deal with finding temples and taking on Starborn enemies, you can pick up all of the available Starfield powers with this mod. Just be aware that unlocking all the powers this way removes quite a bit of content from the main quest, so maybe only use this enhancement on a ‘God mode’ save.

Permadeath

Now, before you go installing this mod, it feels right to warn you that dying with this mod installed and enabled will DELETE ALL of that character’s save data. No retries. No reloads. Harsh? Maybe. But this mod by powerofthree brings the first whispers of a Starfield survival mode to life.

The best Starfield mods for accessibility

While gameplay and graphics enhancements are great, it’s important to ensure that everyone feels like they can play Starfield. So, we’ve rounded up the best Starfield mods for increased accessibility, and we’ll continue to look out for anything that makes this epic sci-fi RPG more inclusive.

Starfield High Pitch SFX Tinnitus Fix

If you have Tinnitus, high-frequency sounds can be especially off-putting. So, this Starfield SFX Tinnitius fix gets rid of any sound effects over 10khz. It’s a simple fix for those currently having to play the game at low volume to avoid anything that aggravates the condition.

Bilingual Subtitles

If English isn’t your first language but you don’t want to miss out on any important details from the main quest story, this entry on our list of the best Starfield mods has bilingual subtitles for Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and more. Better still, this enhancement changes in-game text to include both the original English and whichever secondary language you opt for, so it may help to teach you more English terminology.

The best Starfield character mods

If you’re looking for Starfield character mods, we’ve found the best player preset mods so you can cut down the time you spend in the Starfield character creator. Check out the options below, and let us know on our Starfield forum if you find anything you think we should add to the list.

Character Preset – Cmdr. Shepard

This Starfield character mod lets you change up your look to closely resemble Mass Effect’s Shepard. If you want to go all out, check out our guide to Starfield ship designs and you can recreate Shepard’s ship, the Normandy, for more immersive role-playing.

Playable Sam Coe

If you’re a big fan of Sam Coe, you can play dress-up as the Freestar Collective cowboy with this mod. It makes it a little weird to have Sam as your companion afterward, but at least he doesn’t comment on it.

Dead Space – Isaac Clarke Save.

If your Starfield adventure has you thinking of some more horror-filled forays through space, add some Dead Space vibes with this Isaac Clarke character mod. It’s based on the original 2008 version of the character, so you can see what their life might have been like if he was just a space-faring astronaut and not humanity’s only hope against a nightmare alien species.

Arthur Morgan – Space Cowboy Save

With this mod, Sam Coe isn’t the only space cowboy charting a course through the Settled Systems. Arthur Morgan might not be the first character you think to add to Starfield, but it is fun to hunt some spacers with someone you know has the skills to take them down in a shootout.

Hair Colors Mod Beta

Some of the hair color options in Starfield are a little lackluster. With this mod, you can do a proper dye job to truly express yourself in the Settled Systems, without having to spend a penny in an Enhance! store.

Witcher Geralt Of Atlantis

Fantasy meets science fiction with this mod, turning your player character into the iconic Geralt of Rivia. If you ever wanted to imagine what a Witcher game might feel like in space, this is probably as close as you’re ever going to get.

The Eyes of Beauty – Starfield Edition

This mod is a continuation of a mod of the same name from Skyrim and Fallout 4, giving you the chance to add further detail to your character’s eyes. There are plenty of options to choose from, with modder LogRamm promising more to come.

Tattoo Replacer for character creation

If the in-game tattoos aren’t quite up to your standard, you can use this mod to get a bit more expressive with your ink. It’s mainly tattoos for the back of the head, though, so you may have to give your character a buzzcut first.

The best Starfield weapon mods

Starfield weapon mods are likely to be a staple of Nexus Mods for years to come, so we’ve collated our list of the best Starfield mods for customizing and enhancing your weapons.

Add All Weapons

You don’t need to waste time searching the galaxy for weapons like the Beowulf and Big Bang with this mod. Just keep in mind, you might want to match it with something that increases your carry capacity, as all the weapons in the game in your inventory is likely to weigh you down.

Blacked out weapons pack

If the weapons in Starfield just aren’t goth enough for you, you can paint them a fresh shade of black with this mod. The pack includes black skins for the Beowulf, Razorback, Equinox, and more.

Black Varuun Weapons

This mod is just like the ‘Blacked out weapons pack’ from above except that this mod only affects weapons from House Va’ruun.

Legendary Module Recycler

Mods have finally made it possible to take off legendary effects and add them to other objects without resorting to legendary weapon farms or cheating! Just download the Legendary Module Recycler mod by dm and you can deposit weapons and armor into the modded terminal to extract any legendary modules that are present. You can then take those modules and attach them to any compatible item, allowing you to customize your legendary equipment without resorting to grinding.

Nerfblaster 3000 (Novablast Disruptor retexture)

Forget spongey enemies, you can fire spongey bullets that do real damage with this mod. Unfortunately, it only works on the Novablast Disruptor, but if you can get your hands on one, it’s a fun way to customize a powerful gun.

Smart Grenades and Mines – No More Inventory Management

In the heat of combat, it’s very easy to speed through your supply of grenades only to find you need to open your inventory and manually equip a different explosive. This interrupts combat in the worst way possible. Nexus modder Wartortle has a solution: smart grenades and mines, which automatically switches your equipped grenade/mine to the next explosive of the same type in your inventory.

Unlimited Range Cutter

While this mod by Desperatu might not be intended to make the Cutter a viable or overpowered weapon, what the Unlimited Range Cutter does is far better. By removing the range restriction from the Cutter, you can now mine resources on the fly with ease without having to run up to each and every resource node.

Weapon Skins Unlocked

If you secured a Starfield pre order or found a unique weapon, you’ll be familiar with the skin mod section and how empty the current choices are. Many weapons don’t have a skin that you can apply, which is where the Weapon Skins Unlocked mod by R40k comes in. This mod makes every skin in the game accessible, including unique skins. Like the Deadeye revolver? Now you can turn any Razorback into one!

The best Starfield ship mods

If you’ve spent a few hours in your Starfield ship, you’ll likely have found a few little things you wish you could improve or tweak. Fortunately, the Starfield modding community is scrambling to add new features, and fix some of the more annoying bugs.

APOGEE – Starship Combat Overhaul

Ever felt like ship battles are just a bit too slow and clunky? Well, with the Apogee Starship Combat Overhaul mod by Ashkaari, that impression will be a thing of the past. Ashkaari’s mod dramatically increases the speed of ships, rebalances numerous ship components, and even adds some rapid-fire ship weapons to make your spaceship feel more like a jet fighter and less like a cumbersome asteroid.

Shipyard Unlock M-Class Starstation Parts and no size limit

As many Starfield dataminers have discovered, Starfield has a hidden ship size category: capital ships. Marked as ‘M’ class ships, it’s not possible to build a capital ship in vanilla Starfield. Fortunately, modder Serge_Dna has enabled players to create their own capital ships and movable space stations with their M-Class ship mod. It’s not the most straightforward process, but it allows you to build some truly terrifying Starfield ships.

Exit Ship

While the same result is possible with Starfield console commands, this is still a fun mod to try if you haven’t yet ventured out for a spacewalk. Admittedly, there isn’t all that much you can do on your own in the expanse of space, but it’s worth a try for anyone who wants to experience everything Starfield has to offer.

Functional Brigs

Some hab modules give you jail cells with a computer on the outside that lets you lock-up NPCs. However, as there is no vanilla method of bringing hostile or criminal NPCs onto your ship, these functionless brigs are mostly for decoration, or at least that was the case until LilithMotherOfAll created a mod that lets you knock out enemies, store them in your brig, and turn them over for a bounty.

Ship Decor (CCR)

The Ship Decor (CCR) mod brings the Starfield home decoration mode into your ship interior. Want to place a mannequin down to display some armor without building an armory hab? You can do that and more with this mod.

Ship Skip – Instant Ship Docking

Tired of grav jumping to a ship and having to fly over to it? This mod removes that need by instantly docking you with any ship-based location in much the same way that Starfield already does when landing at a nested location like The Lodge or Neon‘s Core.

Ships Value Increased for Sell

Simply put, this mod by TomasiniAndres increases the value of your ships at the point of sale, while drastically reducing the cost of registering stolen or vehicles you’ve found along the way. This might seem like a small tweak, but vanilla Starfield makes pirating and stealing ships a less than profitable endeavour. But, with this mod, you can finally make some profit out of the ships you board and commandeer.

Sit to Add Ship to Fleet

Ever found it weird that you can’t capture an enemy ship without making it your home ship? Nexus modder wSkeever thought so, and has created a simple mod that allows you to add a captured ship directly to your fleet, and eliminate the otherwise tedious process of selling a ship.

Smooth Ship Reticle (120fps Smooth UI)

Space flight is pretty tricky in Bethesda’s first foray into dogfighting among the stars, so this entry on our list is here to make it that bit easier. With this option, not only do you get enhanced graphics while rocketing through space in the Frontier, but the UI also gets an improvement to make locking on to an enemy ship that bit easier.

The best Starfield outpost mods

Once you’ve landed on a planet, you can setup a Starfield outpost by placing down an outpost beacon. However, building an outpost isn’t that straightforward, which is why the community has been busy putting together a number of Starfield outpost mods.

BuildBits

Though the interface is quite basic at the moment, the mod itself makes building an outpost significantly easier. Modder Orazia has created a menu overlay that sits on top of the build view. BuildBits lets you move structures around minutely (rather than picking them up and readjusting them from scratch), build in restricted areas. Currently, you can spawn a number of walls and doors, but much more is on the way.

Spacestations for Outposts

It’s hard to say if Vex’s mod – Spacestations for Outposts – should be classified as a ship or outpost-based mod because it does a little of both! Buried in the game’s code are all the elements needed for you to create your very own spacestation. Vex’s mod simply makes this a reality by adding a special terminal to the misc outpost modules section. Place down this terminal, and you’ll be building your very own spacestation in no time.

Fun Starfield mods

These mods add a little wackiness to your playthrough, or add a unique element that doesn’t improve or expand upon gameplay systems or existing items, weapons, and armor. These are the mods we install to have a bit of fun, particularly for holiday seasonal events like Halloween.

Manic-quins

This spooky mod from Nexus modder Yeti brings Starfield mannequins to life, but only when you’re not looking at them. This mod shines when you completely forget you ever installed it, turn around, and find that mannequin you looked at only moments before mere feet away from you, reaching for you.

New Landmark Quests – Cut Content Restored

With a considerable number of gamers digging through the game files and discovering Starfield cut content, it was only a matter of time until someone tried to restore some of it. ConnerRia created the New Landmark Quests mod, which has restored the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Face of Mars locations and snow globes. While not an essential mod, it’s surprising to discover that such complete content was cut from Starfield’s launch build. Thanks to modders like ConnerRia, not only is this content restored, but it provides a great opportunity to use the Starfield photo mode.

Starfield achievement enabler mods

Installing any Starfield mod or using any Starfield console commands will disable Starfield achievements. Fortunately, you just need to install a Starfield achievement enabler mod to fix that, which you can find below.

Baka Achievement Enabler (SFSE)

The Baka Achievement Enabler (SFSE) by modder shad0wshayd3 does exactly what it says on the tin, preventing your save game from disabling achievements, and removes that annoying pop-up warning that appears when opening the console for the first time in any one gaming session.

This mod, unlike the Starfield achievement enabler mod by brunph, does require the SFSE mod to be installed (hence why we recommend installing the SFSE mod regardless of your needs). Fortunately, Nexus Mods makes it incredily easy to install mods through its Vortex launcher.

Starfield mod support

Thanks to sites like Nexus Mods, Starfield mod support is there from the get-go for PC users. Most of the individual mods on the site have specific details for how to install individual mods, with some requiring a little more technical know-how than others. If you want to show your love for the modding community, it’s worth creating an account on Nexus Mods to offer feedback to creators as they continue to deliver game-altering software.

Todd Howard himself confirmed that Starfield mods would be officially supported by Bethesda, stating in a November 2021 Reddit AMA: “Our plan [is] to have full mod support like our previous games. Our modding community has been with us for 20 years. We love what they do and hope to see more make a career out of it.” Now we’re post-launch, it’s clear to see that the mod community has all the tools it needs, with plenty of mods arriving within just a few hours of the beginning of the Early Access period.

In 2024, Bethesda plans to release official support for Starfield mods via a revamped version of the Creation Kit, which will fully incorporate the new Creation Engine 2 elements. Whether this move will introduce microtransactions remains to be seen, though there have been some hints that this will be the case, as it was with previous Bethesda titles.

Starfield Nexus Mods

Increasingly, third-party mod sites like Nexus Mods have been the go-to spots for players who want to find and download mods. The same is the case for finding Starfield mods, with the mod-dedicated site leading the way in the early days of the modding process. While much of the early mods are related to performance, we’re expecting some more outlandish creations as the modding community adjusts to the possibilities and complications of modding a new game with the updated Starfield Creation Engine 2. Either way, we’ll be sure to update this page with more of the best Starfield mods as we find them.

Are Xbox Starfield mods available?

While we haven’t quite got official Xbox Starfield mod support yet, Bethesda has confirmed that it’s coming in the future. For now, your best bet is to take a look at our picks for the best Starfield mods and bookmark any you might want to use in the future. However, it is worth noting that many of the performance mods are specific to PC, so it’s worth checking each mod page to see if there is Xbox support planned further down the line.

Before you take a look at the mods, it’s best first to get a good idea of the base game by seeing plenty of Starfield weapons, planets, ships, and NPCs as you adventure on the main quest.