27 September 2023 , 18:00
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Starfield patch 1.7.33 rolled out earlier this week and just like the first update the game received, it's a lot of nothing, which is surprising because there's a laundry list of glaring issues that we've been hoping would be addressed post-launch.
Starfield wasn't rushed out, by any means. The game was meant to be released in November 2022 but ended up getting delayed by almost a year, having just launched a few weeks ago at the start of September. As is par for the course these days, Starfield updates have been getting churned out since then, with the first patch dropping last week, followed by update 1.7.33 this week.
The first update was a tiny hotfix meant to target the top issues plaguing the game which basically consisted of a few fixes for quest bugs and improvements to stability and performance; the latter was meant to resolve the Starfield crashing issue on Xbox Series X|S and PC. This week's Starfield update 1.7.33 targeted more gameplay bugs, as well as graphics, and performance and stability issues, but the major points of contention still aren't getting addressed.
Despite Starfield being one of the most polished games Bethesda has ever released – something which we gave the publisher a lot of credit for in our early impressions of the game – it's also clear that the developer has made some huge oversights in certain parts of the game experience.
The fact that the biggest city Bethesda has ever created – New Atlantis – has a 'city map' (I'm cringing even calling it that) which is so basic and doesn't show locations such as ammo stores, medical supplies and clothing stores, is simply unacceptable considering how polished other areas of the game are. I was more than 10 hours into the game when I discovered The Well, which is an entire underground location in New Atlantis, complete with its own shops, NPCs and bars.
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It was a complete fluke that I stumbled across this location, and yes although I probably would have discovered it anyway at some stage for a mission, the very fact that you can just not realise that an entire area is there due to the lack of a detailed city map, is astounding. And it's not just New Atlantis either, because all of the game's major cities have been given the same treatment. I can live without DLSS support, I can live without an eat button (although that is also very annoying), and I may be able to live without brightness controls, but the lack of a proper city map needs to be rectified. And fast.
A way to favouriting stars or systems would also be handy, Bethesda if you want us to, I don't know, be able to go revisit places with some measure of convenience. Currently, there's no way of logging Starfield locations unless you manually write down everywhere you go, or you head somewhere on a mission. Bethesda has mentioned the city map at least but hasn't gone into detail about a promised larger update that's heading our way.
Starfield update 1.7.33 patch notes
These are the patch notes for Starfield update 1.7.33 taken from the official Bethesda blog post.
General
- Characters: Fixed an issue that could cause some characters to not be in their proper location.
- Star Stations: Fixed an issue where Star Stations would be labeled as a player-owned ship.
- Vendors: Addressed an issue that allowed for a vendor’s full inventory to be accessible.
Graphics
- AMD (PC): Resolved an issue that caused star lens flares not to appear correctly AMD GPUs.
- Graphics: Addressed an upscaling issue that could cause textures to become blurry.
- Graphics: Resolved an issue that could cause photosensitivity issues when scrolling through the inventory menu.
Performance and stability
- Hand Scanner: Addressed an issue where the Hand Scanner caused hitching.
- Various stability and performance improvements to address crashing and freezes.
Ships
- Displays: Fixed an issue that would cause displayed items to disappear when applied to in-ship mannequins.
- Displays: Fixed an issue that would cause items stored in Razorleaf Storage Containers and Weapon Racks to disappear after commandeering another ship.
Let's hope that this major Starfield update is just around the corner because these small updates just aren't cutting it.