The 10 Best Starfield Mods You Need to Install First
Play your way.
Starfield may not be all that players were hoping for at launch, but let’s be honest, Bethesda games typically only reach their full potential with mods. Skyrim has had the advantage of 10 years to build up a library of mods — some helpful and some absurd — but Starfield is just getting started. Still, whether you want to make the view from the cockpit a little prettier or go for more substantial overhauls, you have plenty of mods to choose from.
Right now, Starfield mods are only available on PC, but Bethesda's Pete Hines says Xbox mods will get official support at an unspecified date.
Here are our picks for the best mods in Starfield.
StarUI Inventory
There’s a good reason StarUI Inventory is the most popular Starfield mod on NexusMods at the moment. Starfield’s menus are frankly a mess, and navigating them takes way longer than it should. With a simple visual redesign, StarUI Inventory makes checking your inventory at a glance much easier, so you can spend less time fiddling around with it.
StarUI HUD
A great compliment to StarUI Inventory, StarUI HUD cleans up your heads-up display. Like StarUI Inventory, it gives you more information in a smaller layout for a smoother, better-looking experience. Plus, it offers custom HUD colors to give you more control over how Starfield looks. The only thing missing is an actual minimap, but hopefully, that’s a job for another mod soon.
Quantum Reshade
Quantum Reshade makes the galaxy a much brighter place in Starfield.
Reshade mods are some of the most popular enhancements out there, as they can totally transform the look of a game by tweaking its lighting. Quantum Reshade pretties Starfield up by making its colors much more vibrant and removing the brown-gray haze that constantly hangs over the world.
Neutral LUTs
The best Quantum Reshade alternative out there, Neutral LUTs removes Starfield’s color filters without changing anything else. That means the game retains its vanilla look, just without the blurry color wash over the screen.
Starfield HD Reworked Project
Even with better lighting, Starfield isn’t the best-looking game around. Starfield HD Reworked Project attempts to change that by replacing nearly every texture in the game with a higher-resolution version. This mod is still in development, so not every texture is affected yet, but it already does a great job making Starfield look like a whole new game. It also comes with far less of a performance hit than you might imagine for a mod that changes so much.
Starfield HD Reworked Project on NexusMods
EXE - Effect Textures Enhanced
Small details get a big upgrade with Effect Textures Enhanced.
Despite only altering a few types of texture, including EXE is a huge update to Starfield’s appearance. It replaces effects like explosions, fire, and electric arcs with enhanced versions, making combat look far more dynamic. Outside of that, upgrades to water and fog have a subtler but just as impressive impact. It’s a great alternative to Starfield HD Reworked Project if you’d prefer more focused adjustments.
EXE - Effect Textures Enhanced on NexusMods
Improved Combat AI
Combat is a big part of Starfield, but it’s never been Bethesda’s strong suit. Improved Combat AI makes firefights more dramatic by making enemies more likely to take cover, react to your presence quicker, and giving them a better chance at landing their shots. Improved Combat AI increases Starfield’s difficulty without simply cranking up enemy health by forcing you to think more strategically.
Improved Combat AI on NexusMods
Burden Me Not - Clutter Begone
Save your inventory by highlighting clutter with Burden Me Not.
Why are people in the 24th century so messy? Burden Me Not offers a better way to manage the junk littering every surface in Starfield. It includes options to highlight useless items with a different color from usable objects, make them unlootable, or remove them from the game entirely.
Burden Me Not - Clutter Begone on NexusMods
Starfield Galactic Radio
It’s lonely out there in space. Starfield Galactic Radio makes it a little easier to bear by adding a radio function to Starfield. By default, it lets you cycle through three stations from the fan-made starfieldradio.com, but you can add any audio you please to the playlist. You can set Starfield Galactic Radio to play at all times or just when you switch on the radio for a more immersive feel.
Starfield Galactic Radio on NexusMods
Spoken Hazard Alerts
With Spoken Hazard Alerts, you’ll never accidentally hang around in poison gas again. The mod adds a configurable verbal alert whenever you’re near environmental hazards, so you don’t need to rely solely on visual cues. Every sci-fi story needs a good robot voice to keep its hero in line, after all.
Spoken Hazard Alerts on NexusMods
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