Starfield modder shows flight from orbit to ground with no loading screen
Modder Frederik Wessberg has shown footage of a Starfield add-on that lets players fly from orbit straight down to a planet's surface with no loading screen.
The project is a mod, a fan-made change built outside the game's studio, and it is still in development for PC only. It has no release target yet, but when finished it will be free to download on Nexus Mods, a site where PC players share community creations. Eurogamer
In Starfield as released, landing is menu-driven. Players pick a spot from orbit, then sit through a loading screen and a landing animation before stepping out. PC Gamer
Wessberg's work replaces that cut with a flight. Players can steer the ship themselves into the atmosphere, cruise in low orbit and choose their own touchdown point. A demonstration video shows the system working in its current, unfinished state.
The inspiration came from two earlier community projects, the Seamless Grav Jumps and Seamless Planet Takeoff mods, which smoothed out other parts of space travel. The landing project follows a parallel effort on departures. A separate takeoff mod described in July 2026 aims to cut the loading screen when leaving a planet and place the player's ship in the sky above the landing site for a smoother exit. IGN
One detail will catch frequent flyers. Switch on autopilot and you can get up from the pilot's seat and walk around the cabin while the ship descends on its own from orbit to ground. Manual control stays available for players who want to keep hold of the stick all the way down.
Control is the point. The mod gives players finer choice over where they land, including putting down on water, rather than locking them to pre-set landing zones. Favourite coves, open seas and remote stretches of land become possible stops in a way the base-game menu does not allow.
The sky itself is new. Wessberg has built the atmosphere from 3D layers of volumetric clouds, thick clouds with depth and volume, driven by climate data and weather systems drawn from Starfield's own files. The result is a visible descent through cloud and weather, rather than a fade to black.
It has been slow work. The project has taken more than a year so far, according to GamesRadar, and the maker has not named a date for release. That timescale reflects the complexity of joining up space and surface, two areas the base game keeps separate.
For fans, this means a different rhythm for planetary visits. No menu, no pause. Just the drop through cloud, the skim over land and sea, and the choice of where to stop.
What makes this stand out is how it changes the feel of travel without changing the game itself. The planets, ships and systems remain as players know them. The journey between them becomes continuous, flown rather than selected.
