I think it's fair to say that Starfield launched on PS5 and PS5 Pro with no smaller measure of instability, with users and reviewers like our own Oliver Mackenzie reporting regular crashes on both systems from the very start of the game. Bethesda has seen those reports and took to social media to promise solutions to the issues, with an immediate hotfix now available for one potential crash on Enhanced mode and a more comprehensive update that is planned to arrive later this week.

It's rare to see such a compromised launch on PS5, especially for a title that has already been available on other platforms for years and was not under any particular time pressure to ship.

We experienced crashes after only a few hours of stress-testing, on both the base console and the more powerful PS5 Professional, and crashes continued into regular gameplay too. This tended to happen in more CPU-bound areas, such as in New Atlantis and Akila City, but other users saw crashes minutes into the game on a fresh save file. That makes it hard to point to a specific trigger, but it's clear that there are some fairly deep-seated issues here.

Have you experienced crashing in Starfield on PS5 or PS5 Pro?

The timing of these issues is also notable, as the PlayStation launch coincided with a major content patch for all platforms. It's possible that the combination of supporting a new platform and shipping a massive update simultaneously could have introduced unforeseen bugs, and indeed we do see issues like stuttering on the Xbox Series versions that weren't present in the prior patch.

It's fascinating to consider that the original launch of the game on Xbox Series consoles and PC in August 2023 was actually less problematic. While the 30fps cap and long load times were less than ideal, the game was relatively stable and crashed only infrequently, a dramatic improvement from Bethesda's prior console releases which often shipped in a less-than-ideal state. In this way, the current issues are a regression to the mean.

Ultimately, the issues are disappointing for players on PS5 that have waited for years to play Starfield, and suggest something of a breakdown in quality assurance practices - something we haven't seen in other Microsoft ports to PS5, with Forza Horizon 5, Sea of Thieves and Hellblade 2 all arriving largely intact and sans issues. Furthermore, these games also took better advantage of PS5 Pro, which again is confusing for a game that is arguably higher profile than any of these other PS5 releases.

For now, we recommend players wait for the upcoming comprehensive fix before diving deep into the Settled Systems. While Bethesda's acknowledgment of the problem is a positive first step, the bar to clear remains a version of Starfield that matches the stability of its original release.