When it rains in Starfield, what’s really following you is a small box with a droplet effect. Sounds like cheating? Developers explain why there’s no need for outrage.
For a few days now, some players have been outraged by the rain in Starfield. Because the photo mode reveals: It’s not really raining at all, instead a box of drops simply follows the player characters, giving the impression of precipitation. Was Bethesda too lazy to include real showers?!
What causes astonishment and indignation among some players only elicits laughter from numerous developers. Because it is an open secret in the gaming industry.
That’s behind the rainbox
“Damn it, people! They’ve discovered the rain box! Pack it all up, it’s over!” posts such as David Szymanski, the developer of Dusk.
GAMERS FOUND OUT ABOUT THE RAIN BOX
PACK IT UP BOYS, IT’S OVER https://t.co/Y8oqsh22zc
– David Szymanski (@DUSKdev) September 26, 2023
Such are numerous posts on Twitter in which developers take themselves for a ride. Because many games make use of such tricks.
The “personal rain cloud” is also used in games for snowfall, dust and falling leaves, for example. Because only a few particles need to be simulated instead of filling a large game area with them, performance is significantly improved. This is explained by 3D artist Karl Schecht (at Polygon).
Normally this block would be tied to the virtual camera, but in Starfield it is tied to the game character itself. Therefore, the box becomes visible in photo mode if you zoom out far enough. However, in both first- and third-person perspectives, it looks like it’s pouring from buckets throughout the game world.
Schecht continues to explain:
These are the kind of things we use in the industry to make sure we don’t make your computer melt through the floor with our pixels!
So the rainbox is a widely used visual trick by developers to save performance. Especially in large open-world titles like Starfield, all the parts quickly add up to a gigantic block that makes weaker computers smoke – or doesn’t run stably at all.
