New game Starfield is a visual masterpiece (when it comes to onions)

New video game Starfield released in early access and last week and has become the year's biggest release for PC and Xbox Series X, but fans have been brutal in their assessment of its 1,000 explorable planets, with some cricitising its visual fidelity… except when it comes to onions.

In a year where we've seen Unreal Engine 5 games raise the bar (read my hands-on with Lords of the Fallen) some players have felt underwhelmed by the graphics in hot new role-playing game Starfield. But some cheeky players have pointed to the rendering of the game's onions as evidence Starfield is setting a new benchmark. 

"Those must be photo scanned, they're just so real," wrote Jamie Macleod on Twitter/X, while another, Ethan, replied, "onions so realistic I'm tearing up". Some couldn't resist criticising these are only white onions, leading to Ethan to writing, "[the] community will deliver with a red onion mod no doubt, just give it time".

Joking aside, many players have bemoaned Starfield's visuals, some criticising its grey depiction of space, poor lighting and shading, and many have found the 'ugly' non-player characters laughable. There's a Reddit thread dedicated to Starfield's graphics.

Starfield is the latest game from developer Bethesda, known for its deeply immersive role-playing games, and has been in development for over a decade. It's been responsible for a 1,000% increase in sales of Xbox Series X consoles on Amazon ahead of its full release this week. The criticism of the game's visuals is a little overhyped, as this is a huge and expansive game and the developer has keenly chosen where to focus the graphics budget, largely on areas the player will look and and interacy with, like, well… onions? But you can see for yourself when the game launched globally for all Microsoft systems this week.

If you've yet to buy a new console, read my Xbox Series X review as to why Microsoft's games machine and an Xbox Game Pass could save you money. Starfield is exclusive to Xbox and PC, it's in early release but everyone can play it from 6 September, where we can all experience those photo real onions.