10 Starfield Mods That Xbox Players Desperately Need ASAP (2024)

If there's one thing Starfield on Xbox could benefit from, it's community mods via the Creation Club. Whether it's Skyrim or Fallout 4, players have been using mods for quality-of-life updates and also to add creative new fabrications. Mods come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from small menu adjustments to new sets of armor and weapons, and everything in between.

Despite its high anticipation, Starfield's launch was anything but smooth as players expressed their frustration with the volume of bugs and poorly optimized performance upon release. Fortunately for PC players, many of these issues have been smoothed out with mods, but Xbox players are still waiting to be afforded this same liberty. It's unclear when modding capabilities will be added to Xbox, but when they are, there are several mods players should download quickly.

10 Starfield Desperately Needs Better NPCs

The Better NPCs mod by author nexstephen on Nexus Mods is loosely based on one of the best Fallout 4 mods, Realistic Conversations. The NPCs in Starfield are one of the most distracting flaws in the game, often wandering around aimlessly with no goal or objective in sight. Spend a few minutes in any large city or settlement doing some people-watching, and it becomes glaringly obvious the NPCs don't do anything besides walk around.

The Better NPCs mod gives all of Starfield's NPCs more depth and makes them feel more realistic. Characters will engage in conversation and will also not focus on the player from hundreds of feet away, as well as now do simple things like blinking, and not idling for strange amounts of time after not being engaged. This mod makes the NPCs in Starfield feel more like actual people who live in a settlement, and less like what an AI program thinks real people are like.

While it makes sense for traders to have a limited stock of items and currency, it makes Starfield so much more difficult. Perhaps the only more frustrating thing than how easy it is to get over-encumbered is how hard it can be to get rid of the extra carry weight without leaving things in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, the Richer Merchants mod from Nexus Mods user JustAnOrdinaryGuy provides an efficient workaround for this problem.

After downloading this mod, every trader in Starfield will have more supplies for trading, anywhere from 2x up to 10,000x, basically unlimited stock. This means no more spending 30 minutes traveling to five or six different planets to offload unwanted gear or buy more ammunition. Considering how long it takes to get around from planet to planet in Starfield, this mod is a necessity.

8 Combat & Stealth AI Overhauls Add Immersion

If there's one thing that needs a major reworking in Starfield, it's the AI's behavior in combat. Enemies often behave with no discernible care for their safety, standing right beside cover but not utilizing it, and moving in random patterns while not responding at all to the player's movement. Fortunately, the Combat and Stealth AI Overhauls mod by creator NickMillion adds a sense of actual immersion to combat.

With this mod, enemies will react faster, stay suppressed longer, and actually use cover if it's nearby. Instead of behaving algorithmically, which is how the AI feels by default in Starfield, they play much more like human characters fighting for their lives. As soon as Starfield mods can be downloaded on Xbox, Combat and Stealth AI Overhauls should be high on everyone's list.

7 Starfield Feels More Natural Without Zoomed-In Dialogue

From the opening mission, it's impossible not to notice the camera shift in every dialogue scene in Starfield. Even if the player is standing five to 10 feet away from the character they're having a conversation with, the camera zooms in as if they're nearly face to face. This can be quite distracting and is also completely unnecessary, given Starfield's characters show next to no emotion when talking.

The No More Zoomed In Dialogue Camera mod from author walmont on Nexus Mods puts a quick fix to this and changes the focus, so the camera doesn't focus so heavily on the NPCs' often-lifeless faces. It removes all quick cuts and zoom-ins and makes the conversation feel much more natural and realistic. There is a lot of dialogue in Starfield, and this is the perfect quality-of-life update to make getting through those conversations a little easier.

6 Ship Skip Saves Hours In The Long Haul

Something really exciting for the first couple of hours playing Starfield, which gets old quickly, is the ship animations when taking off and landing on planets. Using the Grav Drive to jump from solar system to solar system is beautiful, but it wears thin after the first few times. This also isn't an animation that can be skipped, so for players that are 20–30 hours into the game, watching a ship land or take off for the 200th time doesn't have the same bite.

Bub200's Ship Skip (via Nexus Mods) is one of the best Starfield mods and removes the slow cutscenes of taking off and landing on planets, which add up throughout the game. Completing the main story in Starfield requires the player to travel to many star systems and planets, and by the end of the game, players deserve the option to skip the pointless cutscenes and move on with the mission. Sadly, the most appealing updates are almost all based on improving quality-of-life and not fun additions like new weapon mods, but that's what happens when a game is released in a poorly optimized state.

5 Keep Track Of Carry Weight Easier With Scanner Encumbrance Display

On top of dealing with other issues like long loading times and awkward dialogue camera cuts, it's also incredibly easy to overload carry weight in Starfield. Weapons, miscellaneous items, and spacesuits, in particular, are extremely heavy, and picking up several of them in quick succession is a surefire way to get over-encumbered. Even more frustrating is the fact it takes several steps to get into the menu to check the carry weight.

The Scanner Encumbrance Display With Time mod by author YoddleBerry on Nexus Mods doesn't add extra carry weight, but makes encumbrance levels easier to track. After downloading this mod, players can find their carry weight by using LB to open up the scanner. This is yet another small update that inevitably saves a ton of time, and should be one of the first mods on Xbox player's radar upon Creation Club integration.

4 BetterHUD Improves Accessibility

There few things more distracting in Starfield than the large display in the middle of the screen anytime a player enters a new area. Between the bullet count and health on the bottom right, a small scanner on the left, and the area name in the middle, nearly half the screen is occupied. While this may not bother some players as much as others, it's still something that should've been an adjustable option in the base game.

Nexus Mods user KhaoMeat's BetterHUD mod adds options to move around and scale up or down whichever parts of the HUD the player desires. The mod is currently undergoing what the author calls "a major revision" that will add even more accessibility options, but the standard version is still available for download. This is a simple yet important Starfield update that will make playing the game on Xbox more simple and enjoyable.

It is both overwhelming and confusing loading up the inventory and looting dead bodies the first few times in Starfield when it's unclear what anything is. Guns, melee weapons, and other miscellaneous items have random names that don't allude to their intended purpose at all. Fortunately, the community delivered a mod that eliminates the need to memorize the name of every piece of equipment in the game.

The IconSortingTags mod on Nexus Mods by author mcguffin adds small logos beside every item that help classify what they're meant to be used for. Picking up a MagPulse or a Head Target is a lot less confusing when there's an icon resembling a rifle beside it, and likewise for health-restoring consumables. The gear and inventory system is frustrating and overly complicated, but having labels makes the menu much more accessible.

2 Players Shouldn't Have to Enhance The Dialogue Interface

This is the kind of thing that should've been in the base game and, at the very least, should have been released in a patch shortly after. Adjusting the size and translucency of dialogue text boxes is the most basic accessibility function. It's a major disappointment that it was left to the community to add this to the game.

The Enhanced Dialogue Interface mod by author Seb263 (via Nexus Mods) adds the option to adjust the size, color, and even move the dialogue box to different parts of the screen. Just having the option to move away from the large, clunky black boxes makes this one of the best Starfield mods. As soon as the Creation Club is added to Xbox, players should download this mod quickly.

1 StarUI Inventory Is A Complete Overhaul

Of all the best Starfield mods that have been released since launch, few are as crucial to improving the quality of life as StarUI Inventory by Nexus Mods author m8r98a4f2. Starfield's inventory system is clunky, to say the least, and often only displays afew items at once. Players are left with no choice but to scroll up and down incessantly trying to compare items, instead of having everything available on one screen.

This is yet another feature that is woefully absent from the base game. Options to increase or decrease the size of things on the menu and dialogue are standard accessibility features that are inexcusable to not include. Thankfully, the StarUI inventory mod makes it easier to compare items and decide what's worth keeping and what's not.

It's a true shame that when mods can be downloaded on Xbox, most Starfield players will have to waste space on loads of quality-of-life mods. It has yet to be announced when that update for Xbox will come, but players would benefit from it being sooner rather than later. With the Shattered Space DLC on the horizon, Starfield has room to improve by patching these issues, leaving room for more fun mods and fewer quality-of-life improvements.

Source: Nexus Mods (nexstephen, JustAnOrdinaryGuy, NickMillion, walmont, Bub200, YoddleBerry, KhaoMeat, mcguffin, Seb263, m8r98a4f2)

Starfield

Bethesda Game Studios presents Starfield - the first original IP from the studio in twenty-five-plus years. Set in the year 2310, the United Colonies and Freestar Collective are observing a shaky truce after a war set 20 years prior. The player will customize their character as a member of a space exploration team called Constellation while navigating The Settled Systems and the conflicts between the warring factions. According to Bethesda, players can explore over 100 systems and 1000 planets to find resources and build their ships, living out their own sci-fi journeys.

Platform(s)

PC , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

September 6, 2023

Developer(s)

Bethesda

Publisher(s)

Bethesda

Genre(s)

Action , RPG

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs, Strong Language, Violence