Around the launch of Starfield, there was a lot of talk about the game's performance on Xbox Series consoles. Of course, in the end the game released at 30FPS with no performance mode on either of Microsoft's current-gen systems, but outlet Digital Foundry thinks there's scope for that to change in future - at least on Xbox Series X.
Earlier this month, the dev team put out a 'beta' version of the game on Steam; essentially an in-development build to test out new features earlier than the full public release. Since then, DF has been digging into the latest beta build - and it thinks the new PC performance improvements could be brought over to console.
"The game's performance has also improved noticeably with the beta patch.
This performance boost is nearly replicated on a lower-tier Ryzen 5 3600 system, where I recorded a 17 percent frame-rate improvement with the beta patch installed. This brings this CPU into 60fps territory much more frequently, which makes a big difference to how smooth the game feels to play. This kind of a performance uplift makes me think a performance mode on console could be much more viable now, given that the 3600 and the Xbox Series X CPU operate within a similar performance profile."
Of course, there could be lots of other variables when it comes to the console version of the game, but if DF's testing is accurate, Starfield may be capable of getting much closer to 60FPS on Series X once these new beta updates are applied to the full game.
For now, the team hasn't made any indication that a performance mode will come to the game on Xbox, but we're hoping it happens one day. Starfield was solid at 30FPS, but a higher frame rate option will always be welcome!