Here's what happens to Starfield when you stuff 50,000 potatoes into one room
Players are piling even more potatoes into a single space, all in the name of science
If you've been wandering around rooms in Starfield wondering what would happen if you filled one with thousands upon thousands of potatoes, then wonder no more, as one player has done just that and recorded it for your viewing pleasure.
Inspired by the recent footage of one Starfield fan's potato-laden ship, streamer and Sony Santa Monica dev Alanah Pierce made it their mission to take experiments involving space spuds one step further, by seeing how many they could add to the game before it crashed. "I'm sure this will happen pretty quickly," she said in a video posted on YouTube, adding that she was keen to know if they continue to have physics if you crank up those numbers.
Pierce started things off slowly by adding just 100 potatoes. These move around if you step on them but don't get crushed under your weight, so presumably, the people of the future have found a way to make them sturdier. Things stayed pretty steady as the streamer added another 1,000 to the mix, at which point they really began pilling in the potatoes.
At 20,000 plus, the game started running noticeably slower, but undeterred, Pierce spawned in another 10,000. "Look at this horrific potato sea we've made," she said as companion Barrett, seemingly unsure of what to do in this situation, decided to creep slowly out of the room. Can't say we blame him.
After 40,000, the streamer reduced the graphical settings to the lowest possible. "I can't play the game anymore, and it looks terrible," she said, "and there's just so much constant noise that's either crewmates walking through potatoes because we now have so many of them or it's potatoes jumping on themselves."
Down to 6fps, Pierce added a further 10,000 and amazingly, even with 50,000 potatoes rolling around, the game still worked. "I'm not sure who this is useful for," she admitted, adding, "I just wanted to see what would happen." She then opted to throw caution to the wind and add another 50,000 all at once, at which point the game, rather unsurprisingly, crashed completely. It turns out there is such a thing as too many potatoes in Starfield, but that number is a lot higher than you'd think.
With a near-endless supply of planets and systems to explore, spawning endless amounts of random everyday objects just for the heck of it probably isn't what the folks at Bethesda thought would be the captivating players in the days following Starfield's release, but here we are.
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Elsewhere, GamesRadar's Sam Loveridge has become obsessed with Starfield's doors and it's taking over her shipbuilding.
Originally from Ireland, I moved to the UK in 2014 to pursue a Games Journalism and PR degree at Staffordshire University. Following that, I've freelanced for GamesMaster, Games TM, Official PlayStation Magazine and, more recently, Play and GamesRadar+. My love of gaming sprang from successfully defeating that first Goomba in Super Mario Bros on the NES. These days, PlayStation is my jam. When not gaming or writing, I can usually be found scouring the internet for anything Tomb Raider related to add to my out of control memorabilia collection.