First spotted by PCGamesN, a group of modders is already coalescing to create a Starfield Community Patch to address bugs in the game, even though we’re still more than half a year out from the highly-anticipated sci-fi RPG’s planned release.
There’s a rich history of fan fixes for Bethesda games. Alongside flashier mods that add Master Chief to Skyrim or a McDonald’s to Morrowind, projects like the Unofficial Oblivion Patch do the thankless, lunch pail work of addressing mesh errors, scripting hiccups, and mismatched item enchantments that withstood official bug fixes. Grabbing the equivalent patch for a given game is usually my first stop after reinstalling an old favorite, especially when it comes to those running on the Gamebryo and Creation engines Bethesda’s been building on since Morrowind (and has brought forward to Starfield.)
Given the level of hype for Starfield and Bethesda’s history of launch day woes, it makes sense that the modders behind the Starfield Community Patch would want to organize early and hit the ground running. Still, I can’t help but imagine a situation where too many people are trying to fit through the door at once—Bethesda’s labors will hardly be over with Starfield’s launch, and the official team and community patchers may find themselves rushing to fix the same bugs. After the launch rush, however, I’m sure the Starfield Community Patch will prove itself similarly essential to previous unofficial patches.
It certainly speaks to Bethesda’s reputation that such an effort is underway well before Starfield even launches. I’m always of the opinion that non game-breaking or completion-blocking bugs can add a little texture to a game, but I find it interesting how this sort of project is such a forgone conclusion—it should be a shocking vote of no confidence, but I heard the news and thought “yeah, that makes sense.” From the rolling hills of Cyrodiil to the farthest reaches of space, you can always count on NPCs clipping through the ground and asking each other about the Fighter’s Guild.
