“Behind the Scenes of Faded Starfield: Exploring the Impact of Excessive Loading Screens on RPG Experience”

Starfield is undeniably an expansive RPG, however, according to one Bethesda developer, it shouldn’t have been burdened with as many loading screens as it ultimately has.

“It possibly could have existed without these [loading screens],” Axis Unseen developer Nate Purkeypile shares with VideoGamer regarding the numerous momentum-breaking buffer zones in Starfield. “Honestly, some of these weren’t present when I was working on it, and so I was surprised to find that there were so many.” In particular, he’s referencing the city of Neon, a locale Purkeypile contributed to early in Starfield’s development before departing Bethesda to create a heavy metal horror game that’s quite the opposite of a futuristic sci-fi adventure.

“A lot of it is about gating content for performance in Neon,” Purkeypile describes the numerous idle zones players encounter while wandering through the city. However, Neon isn’t the only place that causes players to wait, but Purkeypile offers other, possibly more logical reasons. “For New Atlantis, I think it’s just to ensure you don’t have to remain seated for the entire train ride,” he jestingly proposes.

While tedious and blatantly obvious as these instances may be for experienced players, games as vast as Starfield naturally require a bit of additional buffer time occasionally. Clever methods to disguise loading or asset streaming are essential, from the cutscenes in Helldivers 2 to those extended elevator rides in Cyberpunk 2077. Starfield is merely one of many sprawling RPGs striving to make waiting times less frustrating (or somewhat more bearable). Whether it is achieving this, however, is a question for another time.

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