Glitch Reveals Why One Big Starfield Element Was Left Out

Summary Starfield offers thousands of barren planets to explore, with rare bodies of water creating a sense of emptiness for players.

A Reddit user discovered a major glitch in the game, showcasing a floating river as a result of possible procedural generation failure.

The lack of water placement in Starfield may be attributed to the game's procedural generation system failing to match terrain elements together.

While Starfield is littered with planets for players to explore, one unlucky fan may have just figured out why one common aspect of most natural landscapes is a strangely rare sight. One of the most agreed-upon criticisms of the sci-fi RPG is that while Bethesda tempted the community with thousands of worlds to discover, most of them are barren with nothing especially interesting to find. There are some rare exceptions, but many users were shocked to discover that most of the explorable planets are seemingly wastelands devoid of any bodies of water.

Now the community might know why that's the case based on a Reddit post by user B1G_L04f wherein they include a screenshot of what appears to be a river caught in a major glitch as it hovers above the natural landscape.

The player notes their surprise at the fact that they've managed to spend 150 hours in Starfield but has never encountered an instance of "failed" procedural generation this severe. It's unknown whether the glitch is permanent or simply a result of a bug causing the textures to load incorrectly, but it's certainly an extreme instance of the game incorrectly creating a landscape.

Related Rarely-Seen Starfield Glitch May Be A Hint For Shattered Space DLC A new visual glitch spotted in Starfield could just be a bug, but players are theorizing that it's building up to the upcoming Shattered Space DLC.

Starfield Is An Oddly Dry Game

Rivers And Lakes Are A Rarity

While it should be noted that bodies are water can be discovered in Starfield, most of the prominent ones are reserved for areas that players must travel to during key quests and missions. When users begin exploring off the beaten track and land on one of the thousand or so planets in the game, it's exceedingly rare to encounter any kind of water. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule but these are so uncommon that following Starfield's launch, the community felt obliged to share pictures of their lakes and rivers as evidence that they do, in fact, exist.

The issue of water placement in Starfield may simply be an issue with the game's procedural generation system that cobbles together unique maps and terrain whenever players land on an unexplored planet. When implemented correctly, these mechanics can result in one-of-a-kind experiences that are unique to the user given the nearly infinite amount of possibilities that the engine could generate. Unfortunately, the downside to using this approach is that locations often lack a sense of curation and end up feeling hollow and empty, like many planets in Starfield.

Whether Bethesda aims to address these glitches with Starfield remains to be seen but the game's community is steadily becoming more frustrated with the developer's lack of communication. Aside from a general message at the end of 2023 promising that more content was on the way, very little has been done to build upon the RPG post-launch. Aside from a relatively minor update that simply added a photo mode and a few small quality-of-life improvements, players have overall been disappointed with how Bethesda has supported Starfield.

Source: B1G_L04f/Reddit