Summary
OneStarfieldfan has recently taken to social media to praise Bethesda for improving the RPG’s stealth gameplay, substantiating that observation with some new footage from the game. The brief clip helps illustrate howStarfield’s stealth mechanics have been refined since its release.
One of themajorStarfieldcomplaintsthat the game’s fandom voiced at launch was that sneaking around was extremely difficult. Those grievances were largely aimed at enemies' ability to spot the player from extreme distances, sometimes even “seeing” them through walls or other types of cover. Bethesda has so far made several attempts to address those complaints.
Fan Illustrates How Starfield Stealth Is Much More Forgiving Nowadays
While it remains to be seen whether the company is done refining the game’s sneaking mechanics, its efforts on this front have already yielded some palpable results. This was recently noted by Reddit user TurnipTate, who shared a clip illustrating some of the observable improvements inStarfield’s stealth mechanics. The video begins with their character running down a corridor before crouching down at an intersection, with their footsteps making a guard around the corner grow suspicious, but not outright hostile. This turn of events would virtually never happen in the early versions of the game, which featured enemies with near-superhuman senses.
A later portion of TurnipTate’s clip also illustrates howStarfield’s sneak attacks are now much more consistent, predictably triggering so long as the player remains undiscovered. According to them, the current version of the game’s stealth system now only has one big issue that’s yet to be resolved, which concerns companion interactions with enemies. Namely, should a companion enter combat, the player will sometimes be unable to perform sneak attacks, even if they themselves haven’t been discovered.
Bethesda’s Been Improving Starfield Stealth Since Late 2023
Some of the newly exemplified stealth improvements have been in the game for a while now, dating back to theStarfieldupdate 1.8.86, which rolled out in late November 2023. That release saw Bethesda adjust the game’s sneaking mechanics in order to make them “a bit more forgiving,” according to the developer’s official changelog.
Several more improvements have been released since then, with the most recent of the lot arriving as part of theStarfieldupdate 1.10.31, which launched in mid-March 2024. That patch fixed an annoying bug that would occasionally cause Minibots to mess with the in-game Stealth Meter. Players who still find sneaking around to be too hard also have the option to utilize some of the game’s many stealth mods. One such particularly popular community creation is the Stealth Overhaul mod. Developed by Nexus Mods user IxionXVII, this add-on has been downloaded nearly 215,000 times since its September 2023 release.
Starfield
WHERE TO PLAY
Starfield is the first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey to answer humanity’s greatest mystery.The year is 2330. Humanity has ventured beyond our solar system, settling new planets, and living as a spacefaring people. From humble beginnings as a space miner, you will join Constellation – the last group of space explorers seeking rare artifacts throughout the galaxy – and navigate the vast expanse of the Settled Systems in Bethesda Game Studios’ biggest and most ambitious game.
