Summary
- Starfield's lack of proper labeling makes navigation in the Starmap frustrating, requiring excessive mouse clicks and screen selections.
- One small feature on the Starmap would greatly improve navigation and allow players to mark important locations, reducing wasted time.
- Bethesda has committed to improving city maps in subsequent updates, but a major issue with space navigation needs to be addressed.
Navigation in Starfield's Starmap can be frustrating. Even for those who have invested hundreds of hours into the game, the base game for Starfield lacks proper labeling, which can make space navigation difficult. While astrological accuracy is undoubtedly something the game has achieved by correctly naming solar systems and planets after natural systems in the known galaxy, not everyone is an astronomer. This lack of decent labeling can make navigating to even the most well-known locations a hassle without the aid of auto-navigation on the mission screen.
Many argue that in Starfield, too much time is spent on navigation screens, but proper labeling could significantly reduce wasted time. While it is possible to view the names of star systems that contain major cities, like Cheyenne, Kryx, and Alpha Centauri, most of the planetary systems in Starfield require people to mouse over them. Worse yet, to view the planets and cities within these systems requires even more selection, further increasing the amount of time spent on the Starmap.
Starmaps Would Be So Much Better With Custom Pins
Starfield's mission system enables quickly setting up navigation paths to the various worlds in Starfield. While this is helpful, it does not encourage space exploration or help outside of missions. Compounding the issue further, is the fact that several overlapping star systems are within certain points across the map, making finding a certain city within the star system a waste of time that requires multiple button presses and screens. While this small quality-of-life feature doesn't seem like it would be an issue, after spending hundreds of hours in the game, navigating these screens could potentially add up to hours of wasted time.
For many, while learning the different names of Starfield's star systems and 1000 planets may be a fun endeavor, others are just looking for the most valuable locations in Starfield. Adding editable pins to the Starmap and on planets would enable people to customize places of high interest on the map. In addition to Starfield's many star systems, useless and significant locations are hard to find without such text or icons. Again, while it's more than possible to rely on mission markers to fast-travel for missions, without these, space travel can quickly result in frustration.
For instance, placing a pin that reads "Outpost" or "Trade Authority" may help people find frequently traveled places on the Starmap without having to memorize the Milky Way galaxy. Selecting different star systems, only to have to exit and enter a different star system because one needed to remember where they needed to go, is a frustrating and unnecessary step that shouldn't be a feature considering how frequently it occurs.
Bethesda Has Committed To Improving City Maps
While the lack of easy or customized navigation in the Starfield Starmap leaves a poor experience, most of the emphasis has been put on Starfield's more local town and city maps. Instead of having a detailed minimap that outlines key vendors and locations within each of the handcrafted Starfield environments, developers at Bethesda opted for a blue, nondescript piece of land with different fast-travel icons.
In some ways, while Starfield's horrid city maps are useful for quick navigation, in other ways, they leave a lot to be desired, especially as people have already experienced much more advanced and detailed map systems in games like Grand Theft Auto Online or the myriad of modern open-world games that have released within the last decade. Indeed, a lack of detailed city maps is also another huge time waster in Starfield, especially in more complex locations like Neon or the underbelly of New Atlantis in The Well.
That being said, Bethesda has already officially committed to improving city maps in subsequent updates, and while that does little to alleviate the frustration of navigating the Starmap, it is something that will be welcomed, even among the biggest Starfield veterans. While this will help travel via foot, there's still a major issue in space navigation.
There Will Likely Be Many Starfield QoL Enhancements
In addition to adding FOV sliders and other accessibility features, like larger menu text — Bethesda has already committed to an expansion in the form of the Starfield Shattered Space DLC, which is available to those who redeemed the premium version of the game. Sadly or fortunately for those who enjoy modding their games, Bethesda has a long track record of releasing less-than-polished games upon initial release.
In fact, this is so bad that many expect bugs and missing features and acknowledge that their titles age better over time. This lack of polish has had the unintended effect of creating a robust modding community for titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the Fallout series of games. To others who expect a fully polished release, especially from a AAA title with a AAA price tag, this does little to alleviate concerns over the finished quality of the game. If there isn't a mod for custom pins, there will likely be one in the future unless Bethesda finds it necessary enough to incorporate it into a base game update.
Custom Pins Would Encourage More Space Exploration
Once one reaches the end game of Starfield, after multiple New Game Plus runs, one of the most interesting and fun aspects of the game is the random space encounters located across the Settled Systems. These encounters make up the bulk of new content experienced in Starfield once the core faction missions of the United Colonies, Crimson Fleet, Ryujin Industries, and Constellation are complete.
However, it's more than likely that one may encounter such missions or random floating ships or space stations while doing a different mission, which means either diverting from the original task, writing down the name of the star system where it's located, or memorizing the location at the time. All of these options are severely lackluster and may prevent some from interacting with some of the more interesting content in the game.
Ultimately, while Starfield is a solid space exploration experience with hundreds of hours of interesting content, there are a few less-than-ideal features that could use QoL updates. Out of all the small but easy things that the developers could add, introducing custom map pins in Starfield would go a long way to helping people enjoy space exploration more.