Even in Starfield's sci-fi future, NPCs are frustratingly slow

Starfield seems to be continuing the long standing tradition of your walking speed never quite matching an NPCs, and players aren't happy about it.

You would hope that at this point Bethesda would have walking speeds down pat. It's been doing this whole game development thing for quite a while now, after all, with Starfield supposedly being the culmination of all its games that came before. And yet, the walking speed just isn't quite right. Specifically, when it comes to walking at the same speed as NPCs, who all seem to be either too fast or too slow.

Bethesda Has Once Again Managed to Make a Game Where the Walking Speed is Too Fast and the Slow Walking Speed is Too Slow When Following Someone
by u/QuiteTheFisherman in Starfield

As you can see in the clip shared above in the Starfield subreddit, no matter what you do, if an NPC is walking, you just can't match their speed. Going for a regular brisk pace? You're too fast. How about taking it slow? Nope, you're too slow now. It is, quite simply, slightly infuriating. It's not enough to be a game-ruining experience, but it's one of those things that will slowly grind you down the more you have to experience it.

More than one commenter noted how Cyberpunk 2077 handled walking speed very well where if you are following an NPC you match their exact walking speed. It's something I appreciated about the game myself (even if for some reason this stopped working while on stairs). Game development isn't a simple thing, though, so what works for one game might not work for the other, for whatever reason.

If you're playing on PC there is technically a fix you can use at the very least. Another Reddit user also shared on Starfield's subreddit that you can use console commands to change your walking speed. Don't worry if you haven't used console commands before, though - we've got a guide set up that shows you what to do, along with all of the cheat codes.