God of War Ragnarok developer Dannie Carlone is defending Starfield's 30 FPS cap. It's not the first time the game has been commented on by industry insiders.
As one of the most hotly anticipated games of 2023, Starfield is a science fiction action RPG first announced all the way back in 2018, and is set to be the first original IP developed by Bethesda in over a quarter of a century. The game has been promoted heavily throughout the year, already has its first post-launch DLC pack planned out, and is even getting its own official skin for the Xbox Series X controller and headset. Still, it's not uncommon for players to raise gripes about a video game before it's even out
DreamcastGuy is a popular YouTuber known for his short videos in which he covers gaming news and reviews any video game hardware and software he gets his hands on. One video covers the recent revelation about Starfield being capped at 30 FPS, which he deemed a sign of the game being released unfinished, a common issue with AAA games in recent years. However, when he repeated his criticism on Twitter, he received some notable backlash in the form of Dannie Carlone, the senior environment artist at Sony Santa Monica who has credits for God of War Ragnarok among other games
Carlone defended the framerate as a choice, not a sign of laziness, assuming that it was done to keep the resolution consistent and minimize pop-in, which should be a good thing given just how large Starfield's interplanetary map is supposed to be. Despite his defense, however, he conceded that DreamcastGuy was allowed to disagree with the developer's decision, and that he was actually a huge fan of the YouTuber. At time of writing, DreamcastGuy has yet to respond to the tweet.
Modern games lacking a 60 FPS mode is nothing new, and many games are criticized for it. But with many of those games still going on to sell well, combined with Starfield's positive pre-release reception and even the comparisons it's received to other critically acclaimed titles, it's unlikely that this controversial tidbit will hurt the game all that much in the long run.
Starfield is due for release on PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6, 2023.