Starfield Comparison Shows Character Model Downgrade Compared to 2022 Demo While Lighting Has Been Improved

An early Starfield comparison video has been released, comparing to 2022 demo to last week’s 2023 demo from the Xbox showcase.

Last week, Xbox and Bethesda released a lengthy deep-dive into the upcoming Starfield showing off the game’s combat, exploration, and diverse worlds. Last year, Microsoft and Bethesda released the first gameplay trailer, and YouTuber ‘Cycu1’ has now released a comparison video between the two gameplay videos. Going by this early comparison, it’s clear that Bethesda has been greatly improving the game’s lighting, environments, and overall atmosphere compared to last year, but it appears that the level of detail on characters has been greatly downgraded. This lower level of detail is especially noticeable in the character’s facial hair and eyes.

Check out the comparison video below and judge for yourself.

As confirmed last week, Starfield will run at 30FPS on both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. According to Xbox head Phil Spencer, this is an artistic choice from the development team, although we aren’t sure if this also applies to the PC version of the game. “It’s a creative choice”, Spencer said in an interview with GiantBomb. “We obviously have games that are running at 4K/60 on the platform. It’s not a platform issue, it’s a creative decision.”

On the Xbox Series X, the game will run in 4K resolution while the Xbox Series S version runs in 1440p. Interestingly, however, Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry suggested that the game’s native resolution is relatively low on the Series X with an internal resolution of roughly 1296p which is temporally upscaled to 4K resolution.

For those on PC who want to know whether they will be able to run Starfield – be sure to check out the game’s minimum and recommend PC requirements here.

Starfield launches globally on September 6 for Xbox Series X|S and PC. According to Microsoft and Bethesda, the game will launch with fewer bugs than any other Bethesda game.

“We do have an awful lot of people internally playing Starfield”, Xbox’s Matt Booty said last week. “Working with Todd and the team, I see bug counts, and just by the numbers if it shipped today Starfield would already have the fewest bugs of any game Bethesda has ever shipped. Also, I think about Skyrim and where that community still is over ten years later. You start to things about other things that they’ve done with the game. I think there’s a potential that will get unlocked in the game over time as people discover everything.”