Starfield mod brings seamless planet takeoffs, No Man's Sky-style

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One of Starfield's big problems is the fact that its core fantasy runs contrary to the tech it's built on. Bethesda's space-RPG is meant to evoke the majesty and scale of the cosmos. It's about exploration, curiosity, and wonder.

And yet, it exists in an engine that necessitates a whole lot of loading screens, and so the final frontier feels like a series of small rooms. In particular, the game's takeoff and landing sequences drew criticism for shoving in loading screens where games like No Man's Sky had seamless transitions.

Well, no more! Sort of! A modder named 0xBobby is hard at work to rid Starfield's takeoff sequences of the loading screen scourge. Seamless Planet Takeoffs is a mod for Starfield that makes departing its planets an at least somewhat immersive experience. Rather than cutting to a third-person view of your ship as it jets away to load-land, you remain in the cockpit, watching the planet's atmosphere give way to the void as you ascend.

It's not perfect, which is probably why it's in beta. It's not removing the loads so much as it is masking them, which means that you can still kind of identify the point at which the game shunts you from one cell to another. 0xBobby writes that "The seamlessness of the transition will depend on the atmosphere and weather of the planet," and that they're "working on making the transition even smoother." Still, even in its current state it's much better than the default experience.

Alas, your landings aren't going to be seamless. Not now, maybe not ever. "It probably won't ever happen, at least not from me," says 0xBobby. "Yes, I know of all of the tricks I could use, hiding the loading through clouds or entry flames etc, but even that would be way more complex than what this mod or seamless grav jumps do." I guess landings are just too heavy a load to carry.

Sorry.

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