Little was known aboutthe fate of the Earthprior to the release ofStarfield, with many left to wonder whether it would be possible to visit the planet in Bethesda’s expansive space exploration game. Those people need wonder no longer though, as the fate of humanity’s birthplace has now been revealed.
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As it happens, what happened to Earth played an important role in the events leading up toStarfieldand explains how humanity came to take its place among the stars. Players can visit what remains of Earth right from the get-go, but won’t be able to find much in the way of lifeforms there due to a series of unfortunate events that took place a few hundred years ago.
Warning: The following guide contains major story spoilers forStarfield.
How to Visit Earth in Starfield
to visit Earth inStarfield, players will simply need to make their way to the SOL star system, which is not too far from Alpha Centauri. The first chance that they’ll get to visit Earth comes after playersdeliver the first Artifact to Constellationduring the game’s opening stages. However, it’s not until the Unearthed main story mission toward the end of the game that they’ll learn exactly what happened to the planet and why humanity was forced to abandon it.
What Happened to Earth in Starfield?
At the end ofthe In Their Footsteps main story mission, the Emissary will give players a key to the Nova Galactic Research Station on Earth’s moon. There, players will learn about a super-intelligent AI system, which at first appears as though it might have been the cause of Earth’s demise. However, they’ll eventually come to learn that the AI was connected to an experimental grav drive, which leads them to the old NASA facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Down in the depths of the derelict facility, players will learn more about humanity’s first Grav Drive and the circumstances that led to its development. To cut a long story short, humanity found one of the Artifacts duringan expedition to Mars. Upon touching it, Doctor Victor Aiza experienced 12 days of lost time, during which, he met a version of himself from another universe and learned the secrets behind Grav Drives.
Over time, Aiza’s Grav Drive prototype caused Earth’s atmosphere to sputter away, which made the planet uninhabitable and forced humanity to abandon the planet. This mass exodus took place between the years 2149 and 2199, with billions of people left behind to die. This is made all the worse by the fact that Aiza knew exactly what would happen when he began working on the Grav Drive, yet chose to go ahead with the project anyway for science and the greater good.
Starfieldis available now for PC and Xbox Series X|S.
