Starfield's next update will improve the photo mode so you can finally smile pretty for your pictures

1 month ago 87

Starfield photo mode change - an NPC smiling broadly

(Image credit: Bethesda Softworks)

A new Starfield update is headed for Steam beta next week, with a focus on quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes: The scanner is getting an upgrade, mission tracking is being improved, and you'll finally be able to smile in your photos.

Detailed patch notes won't be revealed until next week, but Bethesda hit the highlights in a series of tweets. The update will change the scanner so you can continue to use it while you're harvesting resources or opening doors, and setting a course on an inactive mission in the mission tracker will automatically make it active.

Practical improvements are great, but my favorite of the bunch is an entirely cosmetic change: Expressions are coming to photo mode.

"Now you can make your character and your companions match the mood of your shot," Bethesda tweeted. "And Vasco is getting some new poses, too."

It's a mood, alright:

📷 We're adding expressions to photo mode! Now you can make your character and your companions match the mood of your shot - and Vasco is getting some new poses, too. pic.twitter.com/6oZhJuBqvQMarch 1, 2024

A bug that was causing David Barron to go missing in the Sabotage mission will also be corrected, as will one that caused players' heads to turn left while sprinting, and another that was keeping Starborn Temples from appearing properly.

There apparently won't be any new content in this update, but Bethesda said it's getting ready to start adding more later this year. The studio said at the end of 2023 that major changes to Starfield were coming in 2024, including "survival mechanics" and "all-new ways of travellng," with updates expected to roll out roughly every six weeks, beginning in February. So far, though, the focus has been almost exclusively on the technical side of things, like bug fixes, gameplay tweaks, and support for FSR3 upscaling, which went live last week.

That's all good—Starfield could certainly use the work—but what fans are really hungry for is more stuff to actually do, and so far that hasn't happened. It's been six months since the release of Starfield, which isn't a huge amount of time, but only nine months separated the release of Skyrim and its first expansion, Dawnguard—and thus far, Starfield really doesn't seem to have the staying power of Skyrim. Official modding tools would likely go a good way toward filling that particular hole, but while that's been promised for 2024, a release date has not yet been announced.

The next Starfield update is set to go live in Steam beta on March 6.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.