These include support for the DualSense’s adaptive triggers, which offer different resistances depending on the weaponry (even those on starships). The in-built speaker will play audio logs and intercoms between ships, while the Light Bar displays your current remaining health, changing colors based on how well (or terribly) things are going.

Finally, you can use the Touchpad as a shortcut for several functions, such as changing the perspective, scanning the world or accessing other key menus. For those on PS5 Pro, two graphical modes are available: Pro Visual and Pro Performance. The former outputs at native 4K and targets 30 frames per second, while promising “maximum visual fidelity”, while the latter targets 60 FPS for a “faster, more fluid experience.”

And while it didn’t reveal the resolution in Pro Performance, Bethesda confirmed that PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution is active in both. Starfield launches on April 7th for PS5, retailing for $49.99. You can pay $70 for the Premium Edition, which includes Shattered Space and the new Terran Armada expansion, or $10 extra for the latter alone.

The highlight, of course, is Cruise Mode. Players can now travel between planets in the same star system by actually flying rather than enduring numerous loading screens. They’re still present when landing and taking off – you can’t win ’em all – but there’s new content to discover in the Free Lanes, including new points of interest, Anomalies and Interdictions, which can include enemy attacks.

But that’s really only the tip of the iceberg, as the update also brings new Legendary Ranks, X-Tech for rerolling them and upgrading ship systems, the ability to bring items through the Unity to New Game Plus – the list goes on. You can check out our feature for all the juicy details.

Starfield’s Free Lanes update and Terran Armada are live on April 7th for all platforms, including the PS5 version, which launches on the same day. Head here to learn more about how it leverages Sony’s hardware (especially PS5 Pro) to deliver an immersive experience.

Standard and Premium Editions

Remember when PlayStation allegedly eyed Bethesda to secure PS5 exclusivity status for Starfield? Remember how big a “get” it was for Microsoft? It feels almost surreal to see it coming to PS5, but that’s not all. The Standard Edition will retail for $49.99, reflecting its recent price drop on Xbox and PC. The Premium Edition costs $69.99 and not only includes the new Terran Armada DLC but also the first expansion, Shattered Space. You also get 1,000 Creation Credits, the Constellation Skin Pack, and a digital artbook and soundtrack.

DualSense Support

Starfield fully supports the PS5’s DualSense, from different adaptive trigger resistances depending on the weapon to the light bar reflecting your current health. You can even listen to non-local ship comms and audio logs through the speaker. The touchpad is also host to many functions, from swapping between first and third person to scanning your surroundings, which feels more seamless.

Graphics Modes on PS5 Pro

Much like other first-party titles published by Xbox Game Studios, Starfield supports PS5 Pro with two modes: Performance (60 FPS with “improved visuals” per the PlayStation Blog) and Quality (4K/30 FPS). But what about 40 FPS or even an uncapped frame rate, which the Xbox Series X version received in a post-launch update? And will they be available on the regular PS5? Time will tell.

Terran Armada Lore and Enemy Types

Thanks to Bethesda’s deep dive, we learned a bit more about the Terran Armada and why they are the way they are. As it turns out, they were previously part of the United Colonies and Freestar Collective, but when the Colony War broke out, they chose to abandon the Settled Systems rather than participate. Now they’re back and seemingly out to cause mayhem. Finding out their true motivations is ultimately what drives the plot of the DLC, which will apparently have “consequences that ripple throughout the galaxy,” per Bethesda.

If the Terran Armada thinks of itself as Earth’s “true” children, then one has to ask: Why all the robots? That’s probably one of the mysteries that the player must solve (not that there aren’t humans to deal with as well). But you’ll battle quite a few different tiers of robot foes, from the rank and file soldiers to lieutenants with some variants thrown in. It feels like Bethesda is keeping some of those other types close to its chest, so expect the unexpected.

Incursions

Which also ties into the new Incursion system. These appear throughout the Settled Systems, with some mandated by the story and others made optional, offering extensive loot. Depending on the size and scale of the incursion, you’ll have multiple objectives, like rescuing hostages, setting a refinery to melt down, and shutting down the Terran robots. Be careful, though, since they have jammers which can prevent grav jumps, meaning only Cruise Mode is viable for escape.

Delta

Model G and Muria are companions for base game players, but Terran Armada owners get something even better: Delta. He’s a robot from the Terran Armada that’s been “reprogrammed.” By whom and why? Unknown. However, designer Emil Pagliarulo described him as “not evil, but he’s definitely not good.” Your average KOTOR fan is probably getting flashbacks to HK-47, and you have to wonder how Vasco will get along with him.

Anchor Point Station

A new era for the game demands a pivotal new location where players can discover quests, and Anchor Point Station is it. You’ll have to find it (which won’t be too hard), and upon landing, there are several new characters and quests to discover. How deep the rabbit hole goes remains to be seen, but it does tie together with Free Lanes.

Interdiction Events

Since you can travel between planets in a star system courtesy of Cruise Mode, there are various discoveries and anomalies to be had. And while you could just put the ship on autopilot and craft, chat with crew members, optimize systems with recently discovered X-Tech, and so on, something may suddenly pull you out of Cruise Mode. Known as interdiction events, these may result in the ship being attacked, “or worse,” per Bethesda, and you’ll need to respond accordingly.

New MGP Weapons

New threats mean new corpses to loot new weapons, including the MGP Ballistic Rifle. Unlike the guns circulating in the Settled Systems, these are described as “more contemporary” and “less sci-fi.” Ballistic and energy weapons abound, and you can modify them to your liking. Based on what we’ve seen so far, they have a satisfying kick with each shot while packing a significant punch.

New Rank 4 Legendary Perks

With X-Tech, players can now freely customize Legendary weapons with their desired perks, but the real fun begins at Rank 4. It packs several new perks that can completely revamp a weapon. Thanks to the deep dive, we’ve learned about a few more options, including Reckless, which reduces the magazine size to 1 and cuts your health in half but increases weapon damage by 500 percent, making it a fantastic option for snipers. There’s also Barbaric, where attacks and movement speed become faster and each successful hit increases damage dealt, which is pretty much built for melee weapons. Even the suits get some nifty perks, like Enigmatic, which creates holograms in combat to bamboozle enemies, thus drawing aggro away from you.

Reworked Perks

Some of the older, less ideal perks are also getting changed. Take Space-Adept, for example. In its current form, it increases damage by 30 percent in space but decreases it by 15 percent planetside. For Free Lanes, the downside has been removed entirely, so as long as you’re in space, you get a huge boost.

New Weapon Skins

Crafting benches can have more of an identity thanks to faction-specific skins, and that extends to weapons as well. Bethesda has added “quite a few” new options to the mix, including the Crimson Fleet, Gilded, and so on. However, the existing Constellation and Neon skins also now support a greater range of weapons, extending customization even further.

All-In-One Outpost Module

As cool as shared-outpost storage and a Milliewhale pet can be, sometimes you just want to throw down a base on a desolate planet. A short stopover before going on your way. That’s where the new Elevated Cabin comes into play, serving as an all-in-one, fully furnished module with all the essentials. And you can still customize it as you see fit, moving or replacing the furniture entirely.

New Terran Armada Ship Parts

We’ve already gone over the new ship modules and how they enable functions like cloaking or an EMP. Of course, you’ll also find new Terran Armada ships that can be commandeered to your liking, but schematics of their parts also drop. This means you can outfit your own vessel with a “big new cockpit” and a double-decker habitable area. So if you want to bring a more tactical feel while traveling starside, it’s something else to get invested in.

Why It’s Not Starfield 2.0

Rumors have been claiming that this isn’t a “Starfield 2.0.” Todd Howard has been saying the same before the update’s reveal, and now lead creative producer Tim Lamb has reiterated the fact, once more. During a roundtable Q&A (via WccfTech), the latter said he would “push back” against the notion. “There’s a narrative baked into what that label would mean. We looked at a number of systems where we had interest or had heard things from the community, and we tried to level up a number of them.

“Free Lanes is huge, and getting it to work with all of the existing content we shipped at launch was significant. But I wouldn’t call it 2.0. A number of systems have been made incrementally better. We’ve added a ton of content. It’s the best version of Starfield.” To that end, Bethesda still has “things” that it wants to pursue in the future and teased how there’s a “lot more in the lore.” Regardless, if you’ve never played Starfield, then Free Lanes and Terran Armada would be the best time to jump in.

“We have our own opinions as far as things we would like to see,” said studio design director Emil Pagliarulo. “After we release the game, we keep on playing it – we say, ‘oh, I wish this had more of X or more of Y as well.’ And then as we play more, we are also seeing what is connecting with players and what isn’t – where our thoughts align with player feedback, which reinforces our beliefs.”

Using exploration as one of the examples for this, Pagliarulo spoke about how players provided feedback about wanting to find going off the beaten path that a quest might lead them down more rewarding. This, in turn, leads the development team to making a list of priorities, like fleshing out points of interests, or making dungeons more interesting.

“It still amazes me how different Starfield is now compared to launch,” he said. “We were doing an update every six to eight weeks for the first year, addressing all of these little things. But with all of those smaller things that we did, they are big and meaningful to the person who was waiting for that one thing.”

Creative producer Tim Lamb spoke about how updates for Starfield had slowed down since its initial launch. However, this means that the development team has been able to bundle up what would otherwise be smaller patches into something larger, like Free Lanes.

“I feel like we held back a little while we were working on all of this stuff,” he said. “Based on everything you’ve seen in Free Lanes, would that feel different if it had been spread out over six or eight weeks? I think there’s a certain punch to it, when you get it all together in one day.”

As for the obstacles that Bethesda might face, a major one comes in the form of the sheer amount of player feedback it gets, and how fast this feedback tends to come in. Art director Istvan Pely spoke about how the in-game experience of a community at large also tends to be different from the developers’ own experiences.

“What the community or internet is experiencing is not always what we’re experiencing,” said Pely. “You might have a streamer who is very popular and they have an issue, a thought, or maybe they want some very specific thing which is isolated to that person, but then it gets a voice and gets a lot of people around it. Then it comes back to us and we’re like, oh, we have a laundry list of stuff we need to do before we can get to that.”

Lamb explained that, while Bethesda gets feedback from across several venues, he sits on a call each week to sift through community discussions. “We’re always looking at how we’re doing with certain problems and how we are funnelling that up to the team, and that’s been consistent for us for the three years,” he said. “So we’re always checking in on what’s on the list, and looking for things that bubble up to the threshold where something becomes really important to address.”

As for the future of Starfield, Lamb noted that Bethesda doesn’t really think of any change that could be made to the game as being “impossible”. However, he brings up the importance of being able to add community-requested features in a way that actually satisfies the community, especially in light of the studio having limited time on its hands.

“I’m not going to undersell what it took to get that right, but we wanted to deliver that,” he said, referring to interplanetary travel. “There’s always a balance. We have finite time, right? We always want to say yes to our players if it aligns with the things that we agree with, or if they have played the game so much and now really want to poke into this corner or explore that thing next. That’s what helps us to decide what to work on next”

Starfield is available on PC and Xbox Series X/S. The title will be coming to PS5 on the same day as the Free Lanes update—on April 7th. The free update and PS5 launch will also be accompanied by a new expansion: Terran Armada. Recent reports have also indicated that Bethesda has remained hard at work on a Nintendo Switch 2 port of the game. However, “it hasn’t been a smooth process,” according to an industry insider.

He also praised the work that went into the backwards compatibility features of modern Xbox consoles, especially when it came to running titles like the original Xbox’s The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, and Xbox 360’s Fallout 3. “They did an incredible job with backwards compatibility,” he said. “Right now, you can go and play the original Oblivion, you can play Morrowind, you can play Fallout 3. It’s backwards compatible, it’s 4k, and like, great.”

“So that to me was like, job number one – can you play them as they were?”

He also revealed that work on The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered started because the idea of remastering older Bethesda games “kept coming up.” The fact that there hadn’t been a new mainline entry in the fantasy RPG franchise since 2011’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim also likely proved to be enough motivation.

“Feeling like this also serves the Elder Scrolls audience that we hadn’t had this, this is good for that audience, and having a single player game and kind of this pocket of time. But there’s a million ways that that could have gone wrong,” he said.

As for the Fallout franchise, a report from last month has indicated that the team working on Fallout 3‘s remaster is aiming for a similar level of polish and quality as The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. “The game is still in active development, and I understand Bethesda is keen to ensure it’s as well polished as the surprise release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered last year,” wrote The Verge’s Tom Warren.

More recent reports have been adding more fuel to the fire when it comes to a remaster of Fallout 3. Earlier this month, a listing for new McFarlane toys indicated that an “Elite Edition” for Fallout 3 Remastered was planned. This edition would include a 7-inch-tall “T-45B Nuka Cola”. While few details were revealed, the name indicates that it might be a figure of power armor featuring a color palette based on the Nuka Cola brand.

Interestingly, a remaster of Fallout 3 might involve more work than previously thought. Former Bethesda developer Bruce Nesmith spoke about this back in April 2025, noting that the project would require a major revamp of the RPG’s gun-based combat. He referred to Fallout 3‘s gun combat as being “not good,” especially when compared to its contemporaries.

“[Fallout 3 combat] didn’t hold up to shooters at the time,” Nesmith explained. “Also, it’s an RPG shooter; it’s not a run-and-gun shooter. But a lot of work was done on that for Fallout 4. So I anticipate seeing a lot of that work go into it, assuming they’re doing the same thing.”

Insider NateTheHate claimed on Twitter that it’s still in development, but “it hasn’t been a smooth process. Cross fingers and hope for the best.” You’ll probably recall another reliable insider, shinobi602, alleging last month that the port was “pushed out” and “might not even come out at all.” It seems that Bethesda hasn’t given up on it just yet, but once again, there’s no guarantee.

This wouldn’t be the first time that a big developer has had trouble bringing its game to the Nintendo Switch 2 – see Gearbox and Borderlands 4. Bethesda has had success in porting The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Edition and Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition, the latter faring better than the former. But Starfield is on a whole different level in terms of scale.

It’s also becoming more complex thanks to the upcoming Free Lanes update, which adds interplanetary travel within the same star system (but no seamless landing or taking off from planets). New X-Tech gives players a way to further upgrade their gear and ship while you can recruit new companions and even take advantage of cross-outpost storage. Check out our feature for more details.

The US region’s PlayStation Store—as caught by Fextralife—has Starfield Premium Edition taking the number one spot, followed by 007: First Light in second place and LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight in third. Interestingly fourth place was the base edition of Starfield, which might be a further indication of just how popular pre-ordering Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG might be. The title is similarly noted as being near the top spot in the UK PlayStation Store as well.

Starfield‘s PS5 release date was announced earlier this week, and while its base edition is priced at $49.99, the Premium Edition comes in at $69.99. The latter includes the upcoming Terran Armada DLC, as well as the previously-released Shattered Space DLC, along with the Constellation Skin Pack, a digital art book, a copy of the soundtrack, and 1,000 Creation Credits. Players who decide to pick up the base edition can also grab the Premium Edition upgrade later for $24.99.

Both Terran Armada, as well as a brand new free update dubbed Free Lanes, will be going live across all platforms on April 7th, coinciding with the game’s PS5 launch. The update will bring with it a new resource dubbed X-Tech, allowing players to roll for Legendary Perks on weapons. Improvements are also being made to the game’s planetary Outposts, and players will be getting a new pet Milliewhale to accompany them.

Terran Armada will bring with it a new set of story missions that revolves around an entirely new threat: the eponymous Terran Armada. The new faction is composed of members of the United Colonies and Freestar Collective who had disappeared during the Colony War, and believe themselves to be the “true” children of Earth. Its military forces are also described as being quite advanced, and being largely made up of robot soldiers. However, not everyone from the faction will be hostile. Players can meet up with a new companion, Delta, who adds a tinge of moral ambiguity to the player’s party.

Lead creative producer Timothy Lamb has noted that, while the Free Lanes update might bring in major improvements to the game, players should temper their overall expectations. When asked whether the update would mark the beginning of Starfield 2.0, Lamb responded: “No. I’d push back against that: there’s a narrative baked into what that label would mean. We looked at a number of systems where we had interest or had heard things from the community, and we tried to level up a number of them…A number of systems have been made incrementally better. We’ve added a ton of content. It’s the best version of Starfield.”

In the meantime, Starfield remains available on PC and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review of the base game and the Shattered Space expansion for more details.

“I don’t want to count The Elder Scrolls 6,” he said, laughing. “Starfield was long. But other than that, they’re usually pretty short.” He went on to note that Starfield’s development time was anchored by the fact that it is a brand new IP rather than being a sequel to another long-running franchise. Much of the development time also happened to overlap with global pandemic-induced lockdowns, as well as Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda being completed.

At this point, thanks to the fact that games like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and the Fallout series continue to be quite successful, Bethesda as a whole is in a good position. Interestingly, this has also brought on the added challenge for the studio since it now also has to make sure that players for these older titles continue to be engaged. “We also, again, have that benefit of having so many millions of people playing our other games that we’re actually trying to figure out how to serve those other audiences while we make a new one,” he said.

This means that Bethesda has had to grow out its development teams. “We sort of top out with partners, four or 500 people. That’s kind of like our peak,” said Howard. “We’re seeing that growth is slow for us, to be honest, compared to, I think maybe the rest of the industry, where we still want to be who we are and making a game.”

When it comes to making a game, Howard describes the process as revolving around long pre-production periods where the “a good kernel of a game” is fleshed out before development then continues. “We really want to get a good kernel of a game that we’re ready to then put more people on and start moving faster,” he explained. He also noted that the industry at large was struggling with the idea of when more money should start being invested in a project.

“It’s something a lot of people are struggling with,” he said. “Which is really, how much time and money can you invest… just pick a game that you have in mind. The industry is in a difficult spot, where can you, you know, what’s your confidence in that making any money, right? Because the expenses are high. So I think every studio’s dealing with that in their own way.”

In the same roundtable interview, Howard had also confirmed that the majority of developers at Bethesda Game Studios are working on The Elder Scrolls 6. “The majority of this building is working on The Elder Scrolls 6,” he said. “It’s amazing for us to come back to it. I gotta be honest, right? Being in that world after not developing in Elder Scrolls – it’s so different than Starfield, so different than Fallout – it feels great for us.”

While recent news about the game has had players in a frenzy, Lamb disagrees with the notion that it’s an overhaul that’s along the lines of what happened with Cyberpunk 2077. As reported by WCCF Tech, Lamb acknowledges that the sprawling sci-fi RPG is now closer to its final form than it ever has been, but was quite dismissive of the notion that Free Lanes was essentially Starfield 2.0.

“No. I’d push back against that: there’s a narrative baked into what that label would mean. We looked at a number of systems where we had interest or had heard things from the community, and we tried to level up a number of them…A number of systems have been made incrementally better. We’ve added a ton of content. It’s the best version of Starfield.”

We’re rather inclined to agree, as Starfield was quite a potent mix of Bethesda Game Studios’ best at the time of its release, and things have only gotten better for it as more content has been added to the game. Unlike Cyberpunk 2077’s messy launch, this one’s list of flaws was a lot shorter, and the new update and DLC are only going to mean that there’s more of the experience for fans and newcomers diving in on PS5.

Either way, April 7th is a big day for all you Starfield fans out there, and a chance for many of you to dive into an adventure that’s going to stay with you long after you roll the credits on it.

This is largely due to how Resident Evil games tend to offer more linear and focused experiences, while Bethesda’s titles tend to be more open games with many systems working on top of each other.

“I really, really like the Resident Evil remakes and those are super cool where it was like, totally remade, but I don’t think that’s really viable for a Bethesda game to do that,” he said in an interview with KiwiTalkz. “With that many systems interacting, to try and get that to actually behave in the same way. Ugh, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

Purkeypile also spoke about The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, and how it was achieved by the developers making use of Unreal Engine 5 on top of the RPG’s own engine, both working in tandem. He also acknowledged that a “from scratch” remake for an RPG of such scale would be too expensive to consider.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered was released last year, and quickly became quite the hit, reaching 9 million players just a few months after its release. The title was developed by Bethesda working together with Virtuos, and was built by making use of Unreal Engine 5 to handle the visual side of things while the original Gamebryo Engine powering Oblivion took care of the gameplay logic. For more details, take a look at our review. While it is currently available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, a Nintendo Switch 2 port is also in the works. However, Bethesda hasn’t yet confirmed a solid release date aside from a general 2026 window.

In the same discussion, fellow former Bethesda developers Jonah Lobe and Bruce Nesmith discussed how they wouldn’t be too surprised if the company were to give the responsibility of developing Fallout 5 to another studio. While typically unlikely, Lobe brought up the fact that the company likely has its hands full for now with the development of The Elder Scrolls 6.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Bethesda gave Fallout 5 to a different production studio,” said Lobe. “I think that they’re doing more and more of that already, they’re bigger and bigger than ever. I feel like The Elder Scrolls 6, the expectations are already beyond the screen here, and they already have their hands full with that.”

Nesmith noted that it would also be advantageous for Bethesda to release a new entry in the Fallout franchise while Amazon’s live action adaptation is still running. “I wasn’t necessarily with you before, but when you say that, I totally agree,” he said. “Having the game come out while the show is either still running, or still very fresh, would be a huge advantage.”