The modding community has always been the lifeblood of Bethesda Game Studios’ RPGs, and Starfield is, of course, not going to buck that tradition by any means. Of course, with full mod support for the game not set to arrive until next year, it’ll be a while before we start seeing the really crazy mods that we usually associate with BGS games. But even though full modding tools for the sci-fi RPG aren’t yet available, PC players have already started releasing mods that improve the experience in several, smaller ways from different kinds of UI improvements to and graphical upgrades to quality-of-life enhancements and more. Here, we’re going to take a look at a few such mods that you can find for Starfield on NexusMods.
StarUI Inventory by m8r98a4f2
Starfield’s UI has received plenty of criticisms for being hard to navigate and not nearly as informative as it needs to be. This mod, however, fixes almost all of those issues spectacularly. Not only does it look cleaner and more compact, some of its other improvements include showing what ammo type a gun uses in the menu, vendor menus showing how much of an item you already own, being able to sort items by things like scarcity and whether or not they’re contraband or stolen, and much more.
Compact Ship Builder UI by Stentorious
This is a pretty simple one, and the change it makes may seem very minor on paper, but for those who spend a lot of time in Starfield’s ship builder, it’s quite a noticeable improvement. In a nutshell, this mod makes the entire ship builder UI more compact, so that way more modules are displayed on the screen at once.
Icon Sorting Tags by mcguffin
Here’s another useful mod to make the UI a bit more informative. In addition to adding small icons to lootable items in the world that aren’t junk, it also adds other icons to make inventory management a little easier. At a glance, these icons can tell you aid items’ effects and buffs, the quality and rarity of crafting resources, and more. It can be particularly helpful when used in conjunction with the aforementioned StarUI mod.
BetterHUD by KhaoMaat
The BetterHUD mod makes changes to Starfield’s main HUD that might seem small on paper, but do work out quite well for those looking for a more immersive, less distracting experience. For starters, it moves the placement of location text and XP indicators, now appearing at the bottom of the screen, while also disabling enemy health bars and hit markers, and adding a less prominent, minimalistic dot crosshair for all weapons.
Enhanced Dialogue Interface by Seb263
This mod brings purely cosmetic changes to dialogue scenes, but they’re definitely noticeable. With the Enhanced Dialogue Interface mod, the text for all dialogue options becomes aligned, the dark background behind each option is removed, and the clarity of the text itself is also improved, all in all for a much more aesthetically pleasing look. Additionally, the mod also shortens the delays when dialogue sequences begin and end, making for smoother transitions.
Undelayed Menus by Seb263
This might seem like a particularly granular improvement, but if you’ve felt like Starfield’s UI is a bit unresponsive, this mod is worth looking into. Going into and out of menus in the game is accompanied by a fade effect that takes about a second each time. That fade is removed with this mod, while all menus also run at 60 FPS instead of the default 30 FPS, enabling snappier UI navigation.
Enhanced Player Healthbar by SilverEzredes
Again, a simple one, but one that instantly makes elements of the UI more informative, even at a glance- just one element in particular, in fact. As its name suggests, the Enhanced Player Healthbar mod dynamically changes the colour of your healthbar depending on how much HP you have, changing colours at 75%, 50%, and 25%.
Ship Skip by Bub200
Starfield’s animations for watching your ship land, take off, dock, and undock are cool and everything, but after you’ve seen them all dozens of times, they can start getting on your nerves. Thankfully, the Ship Skip mod allows gives you the option to turn them off entirely, so that transitions from flying your ship to exploring on foot become much, much quicker.
Smooth Ship Reticle by alexbulluk
The improvement on offer here is a very specific one, but one that you’ll likely appreciate if you spend a lot of time flying your ship. If you’ve ever felt that your ship’s reticle looks a bit stuttery, that’s because it does, given that it’s capped at 30 FPS, which can be an issue if you’re playing at a higher frame rate. With this mod, however, the ship’s HUD runs at 120 FPS.
Neutral LUTs by fadingsignal
Starfield makes liberal use of filters, as any piece of visual media does, of course, and while a lot of those filters do a great job of adding to the game’s visual style and aesthetic, that’s not always the case. With this mod, however, you can remove all colour filters from the game, which means the game has a more uniform look, and a much, much deeper black pallet. How much you’ll like it will obviously boil down to preference, but you will notice greater detail and sharpness on several occasions.
Starfield Upscaler by ureDark
Starfield not having DLSS support at launch was quite a disappointment to many. Sure, it features support for AMD’s FSR, but it’s fair to say that the results aren’t as impressive as they would have been with DLSS. Thanks to the Starfield Upscaler mod, however, you can replace the game’s FSR support with support for either Nvidia’s DLSS or Intel’s XeSS. The current version of the mod, however, only supports DLSSS2.
Starfield High Definition Texture Pack by epiphanyabsolute
The name’s pretty self-explanatory. The high definition texture pack uses AI upscaling to, well, upscale all textures and assets in the game. As per the mod’s creator, it achieves a 2x improvement, and honestly, the results can be instantly apparent in quite a few cases. The mod’s a work-in-progress right now, so hopefully we can look forward to even better improvements.
Starfield FOV by hellstorm102
There’s no in-build FoV slider in Starfield at present, and though the lack of such a feature is always disappointing, there’s actually a pretty easy fix for it. By default, first person FoV in the game is 70, while third person FoV is 85. With this mod, both can be changed to allow for a much wider view on your screen.
Jetpack Overhaul by IxionXVII
The Jetpack Overhaul mod doesn’t necessarily overhaul your boost pack as much as it improves it, but it is admittedly quite a noticeable improvement. Rather than controlling your jetpack with repeat button presses, this mod allows you to control it by pressing and holding the button. That, of course, means you can now also use it for ever shorter bursts, allowing for more precision in movement, which can be particularly useful in zero-g environments.
Stealth Overhaul by IxionXVII
If you’ve ever felt that Starfield’s stealth can be a bit too punishing (especially without enough stealth skill upgrades), the Stealth Overhaul mod might be worth looking into. The mod reduces a number of things that make stealth a bit more forgiving, including enemy vision cones, how much sound you make when you’re in stealth, how quickly enemies can detect you based on the sound you’re making, how quickly sleeping NPCs became aware of you, and more.