Finally, Starfield will soon get the free upgrade we've all been waiting for

More than six months on from its release last year, Starfield is finally about to get a major update that will add a whole bunch of much-requested features.

Among the many changes will be the arrival at last of graphical options on Xbox consoles, with the Xbox Series X finally getting a 60fps mode for players to choose. 

Being locked to 30fps on consoles was a bit of a downer when Starfield came out, for all that its world is fairly ambitious in size, so this is a welcome tweak. In fact, there will now be multiple modes to pick from – 30 or 60fps locked modes, and 40fps or uncapped modes for those with VRR displays.

Interestingly, those frame rate targets will be separate from your graphical settings, which can now prioritise either "Visuals" or "Performance" while still aiming for your choice of FPS, which will doubtless take some experimentation. 

Disappointingly, though, all of this has been detailed specifically for the Xbox Series X, so if you're playing or played Starfield on Series S it's not clear what you can expect from the update graphically. 

From the gameplay side, there are also some nice additions, including the long-awaited arrival of proper, detailed maps of surface locations like cities, to make it way easier to navigate around these.

There's also a new difficulty setting – Extreme – which will offer a new challenge for those who want it. 

The video accompanying the update also confirmed that the Starfield team is working on a ground vehicle to add to the game, which will be a huge boon given its quite slow-paced ground traversal by jetpack at present. 

Meanwhile, it also confirmed that Shattered Space, the game's expansion, will arrive later in 2024, and that it will be the only major DLC that Starfield receives. You can check out the patch notes for the May update to see a long list of smaller bug fixes that it's made, too. 

After an initially positive reception critically, Starfield's legacy hasn't proven particularly long-lived, and it launched in a year with stiff competition from the likes of Baldur's Gate 3 and Spider-Man 2, so it'll be interesting to see if this update can bring players back to Bethesda's sci-fi world.