Some Starfield fans have already identified one annoyance with the game's user interface, having taken to social media to bemoan the fact that enemy kills in Bethesda's upcoming RPG will prompt a sizable XP gain banner in the center of the screen. Their complaints surfaced online shortly after Starfield received a bizarre new pre-order bonus.
The June 11 Starfield Direct debuted plenty of new footage from Bethesda's next AAA game, including an in-depth preview of Starfield's combat. And while those portions of the showcase were largely meant to illustrate how the RPG will offer incredible combat variety, they also offered an unfiltered look at the game's UI.
Some fans have consequently taken online to describe the XP gain banner that follows each in-game kill as annoying, arguing that its central placement detracts from the action. Others opined that this perceived distraction is exacerbated by the fact that the banner lingers on the screen for several seconds per kill, which they deemed far too long. Given how combat will account for a significant portion of the overall Starfield gameplay loop, some fans are saying they aren't thrilled about the prospect of having this particular UI element obfuscate their crosshairs in the middle of the action.
That notwithstanding, the latest Starfield showcase also featured several combat clips that lacked the XP gain banner, suggesting that players might have the ability to disable this visual cue in the game's settings. Even if that doesn't come to pass, the fact that Bethesda intends to turn Starfield into a modder's paradise should at the very least guarantee that UI overhaul mods allowing granular customization of the game's HUD are only a question of time.
In the meantime, some fans are saying they'd be perfectly content with a UI that mimics that of Bethesda's Fallout games, at least as far as XP gain banners are concerned. For context, titles like Fallout 76 and Fallout 4 place those notifications near the left edge of the screen, preventing them from getting in the way of the action by accidentally obfuscating the player's crosshairs. Starfield isn't the first modern game to feature such unfortunate UI placement, as it was only recently that Call of Duty: Warzone 2 players identified a similar problem with mortar strikes.
UI design aside, Bethesda is promising that Starfield's actual combat mechanics will mark a new milestone for the studio in terms of weapon variety, animations, and overall attention to detail. The developer even went through the effort to implement realistic zero-G physics by ensuring that firing ballistic projectiles in low-gravity environments propels the player backwards, thus adding to the combat's immersiveness.
Starfield launches September 6 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.