Bethesda games have always been a modder’s paradise. Part of the reason people have played their older games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 for years after release is the amazing mod support that continues to breathe life into these already massive RPGs. Starfield is the studio’s largest and most ambitious game yet, and even before launched was touted as being built with modders in mind. New and creative mods are being made all the time, so keeping up with the rapidly evolving mods is a challenge. We’ve gone through the top mods currently available to give you a great place to start.
As more mods are created, we will update this list with the most exciting and useful ones available.
Starfield Upscaler
By default, Starfield uses the FSR2 upscaler, which is specific to the AMD brand of graphics card. That’s fine for those who have that card, but anyone using a different brand will not be able to take advantage of that technology. Generally speaking, DLSS is the preferred upscaler since it can work on more card types. The Starfield Upscaler mod replaces the FSR2 option and adds in DLSS and XeSS to allow players on RTX or other cards and GPUs to get better performance out of the game.
Achievement Enabler
One major downside to using cheats via the console command menu or mods is that you are locked out from earning any achievements while using them, regardless of whether or not they give you any advantages. If you plan on running some quality-of-life, or purely cosmetic mods, using the Achievement Enabler mod first will let you alter the game as you see fit without removing the ability to unlock those sweet achievements as you play. Just make sure you download and enable this mod before you start adding other mods or using cheats so your file isn’t already marked as being blocked from achievements.
Starfield FOV
Being able to adjust your field of vision, or FOV, is more of an accessibility option than anything else. Many people suffer from dizziness or nausea when playing certain games with low FOV, which makes the lack of any options to change it in Starfield quite disappointing. Starfield FOV does exactly what it says on the tin – lets you change the FOV! You’re able to go from the default FOV up to 120, and it can be set for both first-person and third-person modes.
Cleanfield
If you remember the days when you would start a game and be brought straight to the title screen without waiting for all the logos, warnings, and splash screens to pass each and every time you wanted to play, then Cleanfield will be a breath of fresh air. Simply getting to the menu in Starfield can take an annoyingly long time, especially after dozens of viewings, so this mod instantly loads the menu, cuts the seizure warning, Bethesda logo, and message of the day to give you a fast and clean menu to get right back to playing.
BetterHUD
In a similar pursuit as the last mod, BetterHUD wants to make your actual gameplay experience as immersive as possible. While the default HUD in Starfield is by no means the most intrusive you will find, it can be a little immersion-breaking for some. This mod shrinks down things like location text and XP pop-ups to not be in the center of your vision, removes enemy health bars, adjusts your crosshair, and more. All combined makes exploration feel that much more real and less like a game.
Compact Inventory UI
The screen you will no doubt be seeing most in Starfield, aside from loading screens jumping from planet to planet, will no doubt be your inventory. You’ll be looting, grabbing, and stealing constantly, meaning you will need to manage your inventory every few minutes, which can be a huge chore with how the UI lays things out. Compact Inventory UI lets you view 12 or 17 items at a time over the default of 9, plus a new sorting option by mass, to make navigating and inventory management a bit more efficient.
Less Spongy Enemies
The way Starfield keeps the game challenging as you level up is to scale enemy health as you level. This isn’t all that strange or new, but the way Starfield handles it isn’t tuned quite right in many players’ opinion. The creator of the Less Spongy Enemies mod breaks down how it works in the base game, detailing how the more levels you gain, the worse the problem of enemy health scaling becomes. This mod simply adjusts how much more health enemies will get as you level to be more appropriate and not force you to dump tons of ammo into every grunt you encounter.
DualSense – PS5 Icons
As everyone is no doubt aware, Starfield is an Xbox and PC exclusive game. This makes sense due to Bethesda being owned by Microsoft, however, it obviously has some PlayStation fans disappointed. While you can’t play the game on your PS5, you do have the option to use your DualSense controller on PC to play the game, but the game won’t adjust the button prompts to this controller’s layout. The DualSense – PS5 Icons mod just makes using your favorite controller in Starfield that much easier by replacing the Xbox icons with the PlayStation ones and is a little funny to see at the same time.
Real Life Starfield Experience Reshade by Scottyus1
Visual overhauls will be a massive part of the modding scene, but for right now, the Real Life Starfield Experience Reshade by Scottyus1 looks the best. This mod reshades the game to add much more detail to the textures, lighting, and characters to vastly improve the visuals. It isn’t going to make the game look photorealistic but adds a much-needed level of quality to the somewhat drab planets you will find yourself on from time to time.
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