Bethesda’s Todd Howard confirms Starfield’s performance and frame rate on Xbox Series X and S.

Starfield runs at 30 frames per second on both Xbox Series X and S, Bethesda’s Todd Howard confirmed.

Speaking to IGN in a new interview ahead of the Xbox and Starfield shows, Howard said that Starfield runs at 4K on Xbox Series X and 1440p on Xbox Series S, but he locked Starfield to 30fps on the console to ensure “consistent” performance.

“I think it wouldn’t be a surprise, given our previous matches, what we’re going for,” said Howard. “Always these huge, open worlds, full dynamics, hyper detail where anything can happen. And we really want to do that. It’s 4K on the X. It’s 1440 on the S. We lock it at 30, because we want that fidelity, we want all that stuff. We don’t want to sacrifice any of them.

“Luckily on this one, we’ve got it running great. It often runs on top of that. Sometimes it’s 60. But on consoles, we turn it off because we like consistency, where you don’t even think about it.”

“And we never want to sacrifice that experience that makes our games feel really special. So it feels great. We’re really happy with how it feels even in the heat of battle. And we need that height because in our games, anything really can happen.”

The apparent confirmation of Starfield’s performance comes three months before the game’s September 6 release date. Microsoft came under fire for showing its previous exclusive, Redfall, running at 60fps before launch, and then, less than a month before the game debuted, announcing that Arkane co-op vampire shooter Redfall would arrive unlocked at 30fps on Xbox Series X. X and S, with 60fps performance mode to be patched later.

Then Xbox chief Phil Spencer personally apologized for the failure of Arkane’s Redfall, which was widely criticized at launch. Spencer said in an interview with May Kinda funny games that Microsoft would reconsider its development processes in the wake of Redfall’s release, and admitted that Microsoft knew Redfall would run at 30fps on console at launch when the misleading gameplay was released.

Of course, Starfield and Redfall are two different games, and if Starfield launches on console with a locked 30fps performance, it will be the smoothest and most consistent game Bethesda Game Studios has ever released at launch.

In case you missed it, here’s our Xbox show roundup, and here’s everything on display during Starfield Direct. Check out the Summer of Gaming 2023 schedule to see what’s coming up.

Wesley is IGN’s UK News Editor. You can find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Send news tips to [email protected].