With the unprecedented success of Elden Ring, reaching critical and what I am sure will be, commercial acclaim. Eyes will certainly be on Starfield now to produce the goods. Very little is known about Starfield, but I am hopeful that will change very soon. Those of you who know me will know that I’m pretty passionate about Bethesda Game Studios games. I get pretty involved in looking into the lore and doing fun character builds and things like that within the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games. As a fan of science-fiction, especially Star Wars, as well as space travel and science in general, I am very excited to see what is to come. Combine this with my love for Bethesda Game Studios games, and the result is I ended up dreaming I was playing Starfield, but in my dream, my playthrough was real life. As in, I was my character… But more on that later. First let’s talk about what we know about Starfield.
Into The Starfield
As previously stated, there are only a few things we know about Starfield and to refresh those memories:
- It is going to have heavier RPG mechanics that more recent Bethesda Game Studios games. This was announced by Bethesda during the Tokyo game show. As a big RPG fan myself, I am extremely excited about this. In my opinion it is one of the very few shortcomings of Skyrim and Fallout 4.
- Although it is sci-fi, the technology and mechanics are based, where possible, on real life science. Supposedly set around a few hundred years from today’s settings. It has been described as ‘NASA Punk’.
- It is multiplanetary. Based on the above, potentially Earth is one of these.. All the systems we know of can be found (Bethesda Website) but it extends up to 50 lightyears from our Solar System. 3 of these ‘settled systems’ being New Atlantis, Neon & Akila.
- Each system has its own species with their own laws and cultures. One of them is rich in a narcotic substance which is harvested and taken by people on the system ‘Neon’. (Looks kind of like a cross between Kamino and the home of the Gungans of Naboo in Star Wars) More on this later…
- There are two ‘step out’ (into the world) moments. (Usually in Bethesda Game Studios games there are one.) People have speculated that one will be seeing the starting place, the other will be your first journey into outer space.
- Bethesda Game Studios plan to continue to have mod support. It was confirmed in a 7-minute video with Todd Howard and other senior Bethesda Game Studios executives. Link below:
- It is ‘very big’ and ‘very long’.
- It is a next-gen experience. Only available to previous generation machines (Xbox One family of devices) via streaming.
So there, even with watching all the content from the Bethesda website and reading it all too, there is very little we actually know. However, I am taking a complete guess at a quest within the game, which I feel is a good guess and could be representative of the sorts of quests we can expect, based on similar style quests that have occurred in past Bethesda Game Studios games.
Starfield – Sniffing out the smugglers
The setting: The settled system of Neon, on a quest on behalf of the United Colonies to investigate a suspected drug smuggling operation. Arriving on the system after being asked to investigate the smuggling of aurora to the other systems, which is decimating productivity of the citizens and causing large scale theft and violence amongst the United Colonies, as well as widespread health repercussions. As you arrive you are greeted by an entourage of very official looking locals.
You are welcomed warmly by one of the locals who introduces themselves as the second in command of Neon, specifically they oversee the harvesting of aurora. You are told they have been expecting you and they offer to show you to the head honcho, and the place where you are to be based from while you carry out your investigation. Upon meeting the chief of the system of Neon, you are again welcomed, but when your concerns are raised, they are very dismissive, and the entourage of guards mutter suspiciously under their breaths. You are assured however, to do what you need to do. And any support or access requirements for your investigation, can be provided by the deputy who greeted you when you landed. You are then taken back to your quarters where you are able to speak to any locals to gather clues. Sadly, you are not able to gather much, but you are told of the location of the fishermen who catch the fish to harvest aurora. You then are able to rest before the quest progresses.
As you wake up a new quest objective pops, and you venture off to the fishing dockyard. When you arrive, you are met by the captain of the fishing fleet. He is a classic weather-beaten sailor, with a grizzled voice and plenty of scars. He is not very pleased to see you but co-operates. He begrudgingly shows you around their operation and informs you that the aurora is safely stored at the bottom of the ocean, under Neon. If you want to investigate further, it will require you to dive deep under the ocean. Sadly, something your ship cannot do. You make your way around the crew and are able to bribe, charm or intimidate a crew member into giving you the keys to one of the aquatic ships, but they warn you to go only under the cover of night. (They also look visibly frightened) …
Welcome to The Pleasure City of Neon
You can wait around until nightfall, go explore areas of Neon, or go back to your quarters and rest. Either way, when you go at nightfall to the harbour where the aquatic ships are kept, you must sneak in or assassinate any guards. It must be done stealthily though; any other way will trigger the guards and you will fail the quest. Getting past this and into the ship you get to dive deep underwater, and Neon. To reach your goal you will have to manoeuvre your way past giant man-eating fish. Once you get to the underwater containers, you are able to look around. At first everything seems normal, but upon further investigation you see the edges of a small pipe that appears to be siphoning out aurora. At this point, you get a quest update telling you to report your findings to the chief of Neon. You turn around, get in the ship, and make your way back to the surface. When you arrive back it is evident that someone is onto you, there are guards everywhere, and you overhear them wondering who took the missing ship.
Navigating your way back, again undetected, you get back to your quarters and speak to the chief’s deputy. Unfortunately, the chief has been detained by a ‘disruption’ out of town and you are encouraged to relax, have a drink, and wait for him to report your findings. A few minutes in to drinking suddenly your vision starts to go blurry with crazy colours, until you are unable to see anything at all… Then the screen fades to black.
You awake to find you are locked in a cell in a currently unknown location. You look around, and you can see these giant crazy looking aliens with insane looking laser-sword weapons (a shout-out to the lightsaber). At this point you then realise all of your inventory has been taken (but you have massive physical stat increases), but for your lockpicking device. You must pick your way out, and after sneaking past one or two of these bizarre and terrifying looking creatures, you find some of their weapons and armour which you can equip. Once you have this you are able to fight your way through this bizarre looking place (where you are obviously still tripping from the drink that was spiked). Eventually, you get to a locked door in an apparently empty looking room. The door looks familiar though, similar to the ones by the fishing boatyard. You try to open the door, but it requires a key. When you turn around to look to start looking for it, suddenly you see a demi-boss. They laugh and berate you, telling you how you fell into their trap and that you will never stop the smuggling of the highly sought-after drug, aurora. After defeating him (you discover it was the captain of the fleet), you are able to loot him, and you find the key out into the dockyard, which is empty. There is, however, a door near to the original exit you took, but that must have been invisible to you prior… Perhaps because of the effects of the aurora. You are able to open it with the key from before and you travel up a long, eerie staircase. Along this staircase you find a storage locker with all of your inventory in, and some healers…
Continuing on, the decor starts to look familiar again as you realise you are just under the main chambers of the aristocratic lot, who serve the Chief of Neon. Just as you think you are about to make it out alive you enter a large, empty, ovular chamber. You must be sure to have equipped your old weapons, because you realise that the weapons you looted were just fish bones and other useless scraps. You discover that the Chief’s deputy is the one in charge of the smuggling operation, and is in fact a gangster, one of the ones you have heard of. Who’s notoriety carries across the known universe. A very tough boss battled ensues.
Once you defeat them, you are treated to some top notch, levelled loot; as well as the option to take on their role in the operation. If you do, the game will react to it, crime and poverty will increase, but you will benefit with great riches and be able to get mercenaries to back you in tricky quests. If you choose the good path, crime will dry up and things will improve with new quests revealing themselves and more merchants will appear, and you will be gifted a house in Neon.
This could be a pretty cool standalone side quest, or could be the start of a much longer questline that includes intergalactic gang warfare.
Keep in mind this idea all stemmed from a dream I had, and my hype for Starfield. What do you think, would it make for a cool quest? Do you think it is the sort of quest that might be in the vanilla edition of the game? Let me know in the comments or on Social Media.
