One Starfield Trackers Alliance Mechanic Is A Huge Missed Opportunity

Summary Trackers Alliance quests add bounty hunting to Starfield but underutilize scanning mechanics.

Starfield's scanner is initially used for an interesting quest, but later missions lack variety.

The concept of scanning criminals could have been expanded to make Trackers Alliance stand out.

Although the Trackers Alliance quests were a welcome addition, especially before the release of the Starfield Shattered Space DLC, one intriguing concept is sadly incredibly underutilized. Starfield's release has generally been relatively divisive, with some people falling in love with the largely procedurally generated universe, characters, and plot. That said, there's another side that believes the game doesn't fulfill its potential.

Initially released in June with Update 1.12.30 along with the long-awaited Starfield Creations hub, Trackers Alliance adds a whole new mission to Starfield's base game and introduces a new sub-faction. The Trackers Alliance is a group of hired bounty hunters that locate and capture some of the most villainous astronauts in the Settled System, with the main quest "Starjacker" and "The Vulture" (paid DLC) being added to the game as additional content. Though the missions in themselves are interesting, there's one element that's severely underwhelming.

Related Starfield's Trackers Alliance Is The Key To Fixing The Game's Biggest Problem The bounty board mechanic brought in alongside the Trackers Alliance missions has so much potential for both good and less-than-legal activities.

Scanning & Interrogating Are The Most Interesting Parts Of Trackers Alliance

The Quest Starts Strong But Is Ultimately Underwhelming

Custom Image by Katarina Cimbaljevic

One of the best portions of the Trackers Alliance quest, "Starjacker," is right at the beginning of the quest, when the agents of the Trackers Alliance task the player with hunting down a character named Adrastos. In order to find the elusive character in Akila, it's necessary to track them down using Starfield's scanner. Although a relatively minor task and easy to do, investigating different townies via the scanner to ultimately find him is one of the more interesting mechanics in the entire questline.

The scanner has always been in Starfield, but is typically used for fast travel and to find different elements and valuable Starfield resources.

Upon discovering Andrastos, who will be highlighted in red, players can interrogate him to give up the information required to complete the quest. Sadly, throughout "Starjacker" and the rest of the Trackers Alliance Radiant quests, this is the only time players have to use the scanner to find the target. While it is possible to find random targets walking around after the completion of the quest using the scanner, none of these targets actually have any meaningful story or dialogue lines associated with them, and hostile targets may make the city or other NPCs act in odd ways, completely breaking immersion.

Related All Companions In Starfield, Ranked Worst To Best Starfield has 27 different companions to choose from, and some are certainly better than others. Here's the full list, ranked.

Interrogating Random Targets Feels Incomplete

The Radiant Quests Don't Add Much

Close

As with other Starfield sidequests, upon completion of "Starjacker," players can either take up a new bounty via a paid DLC or run newly-added Radiant missions for the sub-faction. Sadly, all of these missions are relatively similar to other bounty hunting missions that have been included in the past, and none of them require the use of the scanner like at the start of the mission. Rather, these repeatable missions entail tracking down criminals and killing them or taking them alive in another rinse-and-repeat compound or ship.

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As it stands, it's possible to find other criminals using the scanner randomly in cities, but because of the procedurally-generated nature of NPCs and dialogue, these all feel generic and NPCs act strangely when the suspect pulls out a weapon. Instead, players are given three binary options and hostile criminals won't even shoot at the character. Even adding just a few repeatable scenarios would have made this portion of the game feel much more fun.

Town NPCs will run away and act scared as the target gets hostile, and this effect doesn't go away until reloading the area. Players that shoot the target after surrender will accrue a bounty.

The concept of scanning criminals is not new to those who have played another sci-fi RPG in Cyberpunk 2077. In that game, it's possible to find criminals all across Night City and dispatch them for a bounty. Starfield had the opportunity to expand upon the idea by adding at least a few unique scenarios to make Trackers Alliance stand out, but it ultimately feels like something that could have easily made it into the launch version and lacks anything that actually feels fresh.