The latest Starfield update is here and it’s genuinely exciting for once

At last! Bethesda has finally revealed details about the next Starfield update, and the update is live right now! In addition to new features such as in-game city maps, ship decorations, and numerous quality of life improvements, Bethesda has revealed that Starfield vehicles are in the works, and confirmed that the Creation Kit 2 is with several verified creators.

There’s a lot to unpack in the latest update, so let’s dive in.

Starfield update 1.11.33, is available on Steam Beta as of today, May 1, 2024, and it brings a considerable number of much anticipated changes to the game.

In-game Starfield maps have been implemented, and they aren’t just 2D renders. Starfield surface maps are now 3D and contain complete renders of nearby objects, making it incredibly obvious where locations and NPCs can be found.

Previously Starfield maps were blank canvases that merely showed the topography of the area, regardless of whether a massive city had been built atop it.

In support of this, the Starfield scanner mode displays location icons more clearly, making it far easier for players to navigate to any one location without opening their map first (or knowing it from memory).

The second biggest new feature in the latest update is the ship decorator, which essentially emulates the existing Starfield outpost builder. Whereas previously you could only drop and carefully position items in your Starfield ship, you can now open the decorator view mode and build specific furniture pieces and decorations inside of your ship. At long last, the Starborn vessels won’t be empty anymore!

You can even install new ship modules which come as a blank canvas for players who want to take complete control of their vessel’s decor.

Speaking of taking control, players will no longer need to use Starfield console commands to adjust their Starfield traits. Players who reach the ending and pass through The Unity will now be able to switch out traits as they please. Don’t want the Adoring Fan to show up in every conceivable universe? You can deactivate the trait and pick up a new one in its place.

Beyond these three major improvements, several smaller adjustments have made their way into this substantial Starfield update. Players are now able to tweak difficulty sliders for precise elements of the game such as carrying capacity, enemy health (no more spongy enemies!), and more. In addition, a new “Extreme” difficulty mode has been added, allowing players to pit themselves against an even harsher universe.

Among the smaller quality of life improvements, there are now visible tabs in merchant menus to make inventory management easier, and to make it more obvious which inventory you are actually looking at (be it the merchant’s, yours, or your ship’s).

On the console side, Xbox Series X players will be happy to hear (once the 1.11.33 update leaves Steam beta) that additional display settings have been added to allow Xbox players to switch between performance and graphics-intensive modes. Hopefully, this will resolve numerous performance drops that players have reported in the past, and allow players to tweak their graphics quality on the fly.

All of the above is more than enough to get excited about Starfield again, but the developers decided to go one further and tease the upcoming Starfield vehicles which are in the works and due in an as yet unknown update.

A land rover was seen speeding across a desert during the update trailer around the 4:45 mark, which you can see below.

Last but not least, Tim Lamb, Lead Creative Producer at Bethesda, confirmed that a beta version of the Creation Kit 2 is currently in the hands of verified creators and that hopefully there will be more information on that soon.

There are an absolute ton of other tweaks and adjustments which you can find in the full patch notes on Bethesda’s official announcement.

At long last, it seems as though Starfield might be turning the corner. We can only hope that Bethesda maintains this momentum, and sees an increase to its otherwise dwindling player count.

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