Peak Bethesda: RPG scientist breaks Starfield, Skyrim, and Oblivion with thousands of milk cartons, cheese wheels, and melons to show how far physics have come
I've never seen so many cheese wheels in one place
An RPG scientist is attempting to break Starfield, Skyrim, and Oblivion to put all three games' physics to the test - using thousands of milk cartons, melons, and cheese wheels.
After several Starfield players put the recently-released game through its paces (using props like toilet paper, milk cartons, and potatoes), YouTuber Dennios is pushing Bethesda's RPGs to its limits once again, but this time is using the developer's other RPGs, Skyrim and Oblivion, for the ultimate physics test. In the creator's most recent video, they take all three games and see how they run after spawning thousands of objects at once.
For Oblivion, Dennios got hold of watermelons. For Starfield, the trusty milk cartons are back. For Skyrim, we've got cheese wheels. As you can imagine, having thousands of any object on screen is going to be tough on the game, but it's more apparent in some of the titles than others. As you can see in the video below, Oblivion is struggling amongst all 10,000 melons, which causes a lot of lagging.
As for the other two games, Skyrim appears to handle all 2,500 of the cheese wheels fairly well, as they bounce their way down the mountainside. However, any more than this crashes the game, according to the person behind the experiment. As expected, Starfield has no problem whatsoever as 10,000 of the milk cartons roll down a hill with barely any lag. This shows just how much Bethesda's games have improved between Oblivion (2006), Skyrim (2011), and Starfield (2023), we really are living in a time where our PCs and consoles can handle 10,000 milk cartons.
Fellow Starfield players also appear to be impressed as shown in the comments of the video: "Surprised by the physics in Starfield, they did a great job," one viewer said. "Starfield handles quantity of objects much better than their older games. They don't spawn in the same spot overlapping each other anymore," another viewer explains. "Starfield has set such a high bar for item physics," a final fan also adds.
Wondering if your PC is able to handle 10,000 milk cartons? Here's the Starfield system requirements.
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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.