A God of War: Ragnarok defends Starfield’s 30 fps decision

Last Monday, one day after the dazzling presentation of Starfield at the Xbox Showcase Summer Game Fest, Todd Howard announced that the game would run at 30 frames per second on Xbox consoles to “maintain visual fidelity”. Some fans did not like this, some of whom did not hesitate to express it angrily on social networks, but Bethesda seems to have found an ally that they probably did not expect: a member of Santa Monica Studio, creators of God of War Ragnarok.

When a YouTuber, DreamcastGuy, posted that those 30 fps were nothing but a sign that the game is unfinished, Dannie Carlone, an environmental artist for Sony Santa Monica, was kind enough to respond to him on Twitter.

“Wanted to clarify that it’s not a sign of an unfinished game,” Carlone said. “It’s a choice. 60fps on this scale would be a large hit to visual fidelity. My guess is they want to go for a seamless look and less " pop in”. And of course your right to dislike the choice.”

Todd Howard, surprised by the reaction

What if Bethesda had gone for 4K resolution? “It doesn’t need to be 4K (which is expensive),” Carlone says in response to another user, talking about all the power that would be required to achieve that native resolution. “Iit could be 1080p at 60 or another variable resolution at 60. They want to keep it locked at 30 4k and push the visuals to a high level on this scale.”

Already in an interview this week, Howard acknowledged that this probably shouldn’t have been so much news. “I think it is no surprise, seeing our previous games, what we have always aimed for, “said the game director. “Always these big open worlds, completely dynamic and with a lot of detail where anything can happen.”

Starfield will arrive on September 6 on Xbox Series X / S and PC.