•For many bağlantı”>Starfield players, the requirement to pass through a loading screen every time they wanted to touch down on a planet — rather than travelling seamlessly through the atmosphere as in bağlantı”>No Man’s Sky — was a significant drawback.
Now, more than three years after Starfield’s initial release, seamless planetary landings are close to becoming reality. The progress comes from modder Frederik Wessberg, who has been working on a mod to enable exactly that.
Although the mod has not yet been released, Wessberg felt confident enough in its current state to showcase it in a new video. It is inspired by bağlantı”>Seamless Grav Jumps and bağlantı”>Seamless Planet Takeoff, popular Starfield mods that address two other pain points.
“After seeing the Seamless Grav Jumps and Seamless Planet Takeoffs mods, and especially after we got cruise mode officially in the game, not being able to also land on planets without loading screens really stood out to me,” Wessberg said.
With the mod, players can now enter a planet’s atmosphere manually and fly in low orbit before choosing where to land. The video demonstrates an autopilot option that lets users “leave your cockpit seat and walk freely around your ship or enjoy the views while the ship flies from orbit to ground.”
The mod also appears to offer greater control over landing locations, including the ability to touch down on water. Wessberg said the added atmosphere is made up of “real 3D layers of volumetric clouds, driven by climate data and weather systems” built from the game’s own data.
The mod is currently in development only for PC and has no release target yet. When it is ready, players will be able to find and download it freely on Nexus Mods.
Bethesda said prior to Starfield’s PlayStation 5 launch that it had long-term plans for the game. What those mean in practice remains unclear, though a Switch 2 port looks increasingly likely.
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