Starfield has arrived on PlayStation 5 with a wave of stability problems, leaving players on both the base PS5 and PS5 Pro dealing with frequent crashes. Some are calling the game unplayable and asking for refunds, while Bethesda Game Studios says a hotfix is on the way this week.
Reports began surfacing over the weekend on the Starfield subreddit. One player described crashing every two minutes despite trying every troubleshooting step available: deleting saves, switching between performance and frame rate modes, and reinstalling the game entirely. “This is not acceptable. They should refund us!” they wrote. Others reported the same pattern, with crashes appearing more often on save files deeper into the game.
What players are experiencing with Starfield PS5 crashes
The problems are not limited to one hardware configuration. Players on both the standard PS5 and the PS5 Pro are affected, and disabling PSSR on the Pro model does not reliably stop the freezes. Symptoms range from slowdowns to complete hard freezes that force a system restart.
One player who contacted Bethesda’s tech support and filed a ticket summed it up: “I have done every single troubleshooting step and it’s the only game I own that hard freezes like this constantly. Feel seriously ripped off. I want to play it because I like what I actually did get to play but this is actually bs.”
Several players drew comparisons to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim‘s troubled launch on PS3 back in 2011, when severe frame rate issues and corrupted saves plagued that version for months. The frustration is compounded by the wait: the sci-fi RPG launched on Xbox Series X/S and PC nearly three years ago, and the PS5 port was widely anticipated.
Digital Foundry and the day-one patch
Technical analysis from Digital Foundry flagged a significant number of bugs in the PS5 version that it said need immediate attention. A day-one update did ship alongside the console release, but it did not resolve the crashing or the save file issues players are reporting.
The PS5 launch arrived at the same time as a free content update for existing platforms and the new Terran Armada expansion, so Bethesda is managing several moving parts simultaneously.
Bethesda’s response
On April 13, Bethesda acknowledged the situation on X. “We’re aware of some reported PS5 crashing issues and have narrowed them down to a small number of causes,” the studio wrote. “We’re addressing these in a hotfix we’re aiming to release this week.”
No specific release date for the hotfix has been given. Players waiting for a stable version of the PS5 port will need to keep an eye on Bethesda’s official channels for an update.