Starfield patch brings welcome stability bump, less welcome fix for the RPG's easiest money exploit

Starfield NPC behind a desk
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Starfield update 1.7.33 has arrived with a small cargo load of performance and stability improvements, as well as an economy-saving exploit fix that cheesy players will be less happy to see.

Bethesda released the short but impactful Starfield patch notes earlier today. The standout is this unassuming line: "Addressed an issue that allowed for a vendor’s full inventory to be accessible." 

For those that missed it, Bethesda's referring to that tiny little loophole that let Starfield players rack up functionally infinite credits and supplies just by crouching down in the correct spot and plundering vendor inventories hidden in plain sight. This Starfield money glitch is a Bethesda classic dating back to Skyrim, but this time around the developer's patched it out in record time, just weeks after it truly started to circulate in the RPG's community. 

Another amusing line seems to address the error that allowed one confused player to accidentally buy an entire faction's colossal base ship. "Fixed an issue where Star Stations would be labeled as a player-owned ship," Bethesda says, killing hopes of blindly stumbling into base ownership. Oh well. Here's how to steal ships in Starfield for you regular-sized space pirates. 

The rest of the small update, which is now live on PC and Xbox, is padded out by minor bug fixes and technical tune-ups. Another Bethesda classic tops the list: "Fixed an issue that could cause some characters to not be in their proper location." That is, indeed, an issue. My personal pick of the performance improvements prevents the Hand Scanner from causing frame rate issues, which I know was a bother for some people. 

In the most Bethesda moment of all time, an RPG scientist has broken Starfield, Skyrim, and Oblivion with thousands of physics objects just to see how far we've come. 

Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.