I went into Starfield expecting the game Bethesda had teased for a decade and came out feeling like I'd gotten most of one. That's not nothing. I sank plenty of hours in anyway. The scale is genuinely enormous, a universe rather than a world, but loading screens between planets keep breaking the illusion of one seamless place, unlike Skyrim's map. Exploration on individual planets runs thin too, procedural terrain without enough handcrafted content to reward wandering the way Elden Ring does. The questlines are solid Bethesda writing, and ship building hooked me longer than expected. It ranks here for scale and ambition, not for the discovery it promised.


Starfield
September 6, 2023ShooterESRB M
Available on
Overview
About Starfield
Starfield is a single-player action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and set in an open-world space environment. Players create a customizable character and explore a region of the Milky Way galaxy spanning approximately 50 light-years, landing on over 1,000 planets with procedurally generated landscapes. Gameplay includes first-person and third-person combat using firearms, explosives, and melee weapons, as well as spaceship construction, outpost building, resource gathering, and crafting. Players recruit companion characters, join factions, and progress through skill trees spanning Physical, Social, Combat, Science, and Tech categories.
Story setup
In the year 2330, twenty years after a devastating interstellar conflict known as the Colony War, the player character works as a space miner for Argos Extractors. During a routine dig, they uncover a strange artifact with unusual gravitational properties and experience a powerful vision upon touching it. This discovery draws the attention of Constellation, a renowned group of galactic explorers who believe these artifacts represent one of the greatest remaining mysteries in the settled systems. After delivering the artifact to Constellation's headquarters in New Atlantis, the capital of the United Colonies, the player joins the group in their quest to locate more artifacts scattered across known space. Their search soon draws competition from the Starborn, enigmatic beings with their own claims to the artifacts, raising the stakes of what began as simple exploration into something far more consequential.
Reference
At a glance
- Released
- September 6, 2023
- Platforms
- PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X/S
- Genres
- Shooter, RPG, Adventure, Action
- Play modes
- Single Player
- Age rating
- ESRB M
Media
Screenshots
Click any screenshot to view it full size.
Playing together
Multiplayer & game modes
Starfield offers various play modes for different gaming experiences.
Play Modes
Single Player
Content
Age ratings
How rating boards around the world have classified Starfield. Open a board for its content descriptors.
ACBR 18+
Interactive drug use
CEROZ
- Violence
- Crime
CLASS_IND16
ESRBM
- Blood
- Strong Language
- Suggestive Themes
- Use of Drugs
- Violence
GRAC19+
- Language
- Crime, Anti-Social
- Alcohol, Tobacco, Drug
- Violence
PEGI18
- Violence
- Bad Language
USK16
Also in our guides
Often listed alongside Starfield
Titles that appear in the same guides on this site. Grouped by where they show up, not by recommendation.
Coverage
Featured in our articles
This game appears in 1 article on this site.
#10
Game data and imagery provided by IGDB.com
