One of the aspects of Starfield that's routinely criticised is the excessive number of load zones between, and even in, areas. If there are two doors nearby, sometimes the game needs time to individually load the areas behind each door. Or, the game may pause and load while you're walking across the surface of a planet.
In an interview with the Video Gamer Podcast, former Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile revealed he was surprised to see that the game launched with so many load zones. "It could have existed without those [loading zones]. Like, some of those were not there when I had been working on it and so it was a surprise to me that there were as many as there were," he said.
Purkeypile worked on the game before the lighting engine and other various technical aspects had been completed. This means that Bethesda had to put in loading zones to allow for the technical advancements it wanted to showcase in Starfield.
He goes on to explain that the Creation Engine used by Bethesda relies on map segmentation to optimise performance. This is evident in a city like Neon where zones are "[gated off] for performance." Purkeypile doesn't believe...
