Starfield's shaking up pickpocketing from Skyrim and Fallout

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Starfield quietly makes a huge change to pickpocketing for Bethesda games.

If you haven't played any RPGs from Bethesda's illustrious history, you might not know that pickpocketing always caused time to stand still, so your character could figure out what to steal. Starfield's changing all that, so that pickpocketing is done in real time while the world's still moving around you, as we can see from the clip below.

This is the first Bethesda game that features pickpocketing in real-time from r/Starfield

The days of quietly snooping around and ganking stuff from whoever we please are apparently over. From the looks of things, we'll actually have to be pretty quick on our feet if we want to successfully pickpocket someone, following their predetermined path around a location and staying within rough proximity to them.

"I wonder if lock picking will be the same way. It is in dying light and adds a considerable amount of anxiety while trying to lock pick with baddies nearby," adds a commenter. That's a fair point - lockpicking would become a hell of a lot more hazardous if everyone around us isn't suddenly pausing to let us go about breaking into someone's home.

We can't help but wonder how many other features Bethesda has quietly changed for Starfield. Could the classic system of following someone while crouching to increase our 'Stealth' skill finally be done too? That's a truly tried and tested method from Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 4, and countless other great Bethesda RPGs.

Be warned if you've pre-ordered Bethesda's new game from Walmart: the retailer is canceling some Starfield Constellation Edition pre-orders, limiting who can get the chance to play Starfield Early Access.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer is already playing Starfield for himself, and as you can probably imagine, fans are suffering from serious jealousy.

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Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.