Starfield's Latest Update Does Away With Unwanted Pet Space Rocks

Starfield's latest update isn't a big one, but does address a few issues some players may have been experiencing surrounding unwanted objects becoming stuck to ships in space travel.

As Bethesda states in the official patch notes, update 1.8.88 does away with the "pet rock" that would sometimes follow players through space. Loading a save, the patch notes state, will remove the interstellar stowaway. However, Bethesda notes that the update won't fix instances of player ships becoming attached to New Atlantis, as a fix for that issue will be coming in a later update.

Aside from removing unwanted space debris, the patch fixes an issue that would cause random guns to spawn inside newly created weapon cases on Outposts. Additionally, the patch looks to fix an issue some players on Xbox or via the Microsoft Store on PC may have experienced, where players during a long playthrough would suffer from game crashes if they prolonged their playthrough without going through the Unity.

Starfield's previous update on November 30 added various stability and performance improvements and bug fixes alongside adjustments to make stealth more forgiving and the ability to eat food placed out in the world without having to pick it up.

Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer recently confirmed that Starfield has been played by more than 12 million players since launch, and said the goal is for the game will to have long legs similar to Skyrim. Bethesda is currently working on Starfield's first expansion, with official mod support for the space-RPG set to come next year.

Starfield was nominated for Best RPG at The Game Awards 2023, but lost to Baldur's Gate 3. Larian's RPG won six awards total, including Game of the Year and the show's fan-voted Player's Voice award.