One Rarely-Occurring Starfield POI Is What The Rest Of The Game Should've Been

Summary Starfield lacks organic exploration, with many repetitive, randomly generated locations.

While mods can enhance gameplay, official updates are needed to address empty-world issues.

Bethesda can improve exploration by learning from successful environmental storytelling in its past games.

Bethesda Game Studios' Starfield allows players to explore vast locations and travel across the galaxy. However, the slate of missing features and the lack of organic exploration in the game left the game's many planets and moons somewhat bare. Constellation spacefarers might have all the stars in the sky to navigate, but not enough places worth visiting.

Starfield, like Bethesda's 1996 release of Daggerfall, utilizes procedural generation to create explorable zones for players. While the studio used this technique in other titles, including Morrowind and Fallout 4, Starfield relies more heavily on these tools due to its massive scale. Rather than focusing on a single region or city, the galaxy-spanning nature of Starfield necessitates that the game rely on procedural generation rather than hand-crafted worlds. This has led to a lack of variety during exploration, where identical points of interest can be found throughout the game.

Related "An Instant Classic": Starfield Review Starfield has plenty of captivating tales and dynamic mechanics that make it an epic science fiction adventure - and an instant classic.

The Reliant Medical Organics Lab Shows What Starfield's POIs Could Be Better

Unique Location On Beta Ternion I

Despite the prevalence of procedurally generated worlds, there are hidden handcrafted gems in the rough within Starfield. Camouflaged within a three-star system, players can access the planet Beta Ternion I. Reddit user Yshnoo found a fascinating location. In the distance, players will spy a golden dome rising from the shell of a building. The ruin is the remnant of the Reliant Medical Organics Labs.

Mechanically, the point of interest contains some maggots and vampire bats for players to fight. Like most locations in Starfield, there is the chance to obtain some good loot, depending on luck. The facility has a massive atrium with flora and fauna for players to explore. Despite the title having been released more than half a year ago, many players in the thread had not yet discovered it.

Unique points of interest like the Reliant Medical Organics Labs show how Bethesda could have made exploration more engaging but missed the mark. Many randomly generated locations in the world often use the same template, dissuading players from visiting their thirtieth research outpost in the game or accessing the same cave with a depression in the middle of the dungeon. As the Shattered Space DLC draws nearer, Bethesda should review the impactful points of interest in its game and see if it can replicate them in other worlds.

Related 10 Starfield Updates That Need To Happen Before The Shattered Space DLC Starfield’s upcoming Shattered Space DLC is exciting, but many things need to be done to the base game first to make it a better experience for all.

Bethesda Excels In Crafting Customized Worlds

Starfield Is Lacking Emergent Storytelling

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One consistent strength of later games in the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series is the environmental storytelling in handcrafted worlds. Bethesda mastered the art of exploration in games like Skyrim, where players could stumble into adventure organically. One minute, while trying to appease a canine companion of a Daedric Prince, the Dragonborn could stumble upon a wounded hunter or a hidden cave. It is easy to get sidetracked on another quest or interesting location when playing Skyrim or Fallout. The same cannot always be said about Starfield.

Travel in Starfield is comparatively more intentional than in its predecessor games from Bethesda. When one travels to a planet, they often do so with a goal in mind, such as settling an outpost or finishing a quest. While the scope of Starfield is nearly limitless with the multitudes of explorable planets and moons, the game can feel a bit lonely and empty. One reason for this perception of emptiness might be the lack of worthwhile exploration in the game. Most interesting locations are tied to quests or highlighted when hovering over a planet's interface, removing the drive for discovery for its own sake. What makes the entire process more cumbersome is that the points of interest players encounter are often repeated on other planets.

These awkward locations force players to suspend their disbelief even further and detract from the experience.

Procedural generation has led to some situations where the congruency between a point of interest's environmental situation and its contents does not make sense. Reddit user Crustypeanut made this observation when they observed a table with cushions and empty beer bottles on a planet with no oxygen and temperatures at -167°F.

Situations like the patio in a barren wasteland in Starfield are common. These awkward locations force players to suspend their disbelief even further and detract from the experience. By focusing more on handcrafted locations, Bethesda can avoid these situations which affect player immersion.

1:44 Related Starfield Players Can Now Finally Craft One Of The Game's Most Essential Items Starfield players looking to keep their pockets stuffed with bullets need not fear as a committed fan shares their method for crafting valuable ammo.

Can Mods Fix Starfield's Emptiness?

Despite the lack of an official Creation Kit for Starfield, modders have already begun to find ways to inject some new life into space. Players might consider using mods like New Landmark Quests - Cut Content Restored, uploaded to Nexus Mods by ConnerRia, which adds new landmarks to Earth and Mars. By adding more variety to familiar settings, Constellation explorers can get more out of searching the planets they have previously visited.

The Creation Kit offers the chance to truly revolutionize Starfield.

Another mod that makes exploration more challenging is Starvival - Immersive Survival Addon by IKocMoHaBTI (also via Nexus Mods). Like Survival mode in Fallout 4 or Hardcore mode Fallout: New Vegas, the mod adds the need for food, sleep, and hydration. The mod also addresses the odd fuel system in the base game. Currently, fuel only acts as a limiter for range for a series of jumps. Once reaching a destination, fuel is replenished. Starvival changes both how players acquire this resource and its availability. By shifting fuel into a depleting energy source while traveling, players will need to make stops to refuel or find ways to steal it from others.

Related You Don't Need To Wait For Starfield Shattered Space For More Side Missions Starfield players can accept more side missions across the Settled Systems than before while they wait for the upcoming Shattered Space DLC.

While game-changing Starfield mods have already been released, more complex mods might have to wait until the Creation Kit, which is slated to be released in 2024. The Creation Kit offers the chance to truly revolutionize Starfield. Given that there is still interest in the game, more modders will be able to tinker with systems and add improvements. One addition that the modding community could make is adding more dynamic points of interest to procedurally generated parts of the planet, reducing the repetition that players will experience.

Todd Howard hinted that more exciting content would be released in future updates. Among fan-favorite requests, like including city maps or customizable land rovers, the studio should consider looking at what made its previous games so successful. With the recent release of the Fallout TV Series, and the next-gen update of Fallout 4, Bethesda has the perfect opportunity to understand what made previous games so loved. By taking note of its predecessors, Starfield can address its longstanding issues of an empty world and finally make exploration a joy for players.

Sources: Reddit (Yshnoo, Crustypeanut), Nexus Mods (ConnerRia, IKocMoHaBTI)