Starfield is a massive new role-playing game that many have invested countless hours into already. Quests in this game will have players taking on many tasks across the universe as they travel across the stars. With over a thousand planets that span over many systems, many of them can be landed on with a ship and explored. Of course, space travel to other worlds will require a ship, but the traveling itself is not what one might expect from a game that involves space travel coming out after No Man’s Sky. However, the way it works does make traveling between planets much more time efficient. This feature is unlocked after you are given your ship, and you have been set loose.
Space Travel
Unlike No Man’s Sky, you can’t manually take off from each planet, fly through space to your next destination, and land wherever you may please on that planet. Instead, the travel time is cut out to possibly give you more time to complete objectives for your quests.
One way to travel would be through accessing the starmap which is seen in the player menu along with your inventory, skills, and quests. On the starmap, you will see the planet you are currently on as well as the other planets in that system. If you want to travel to another planet, you will need to move the cursor so that it is hovering above the planet you want to travel to before you select it, and then a menu will pop up giving details on the planet as well as a button prompt to travel there. Pressing that button will launch you into a loading screen which will then lead you to the space just outside of the planet. One option from here is to pull up the map of the planet from the star map to select a landing point, or you can activate your scanner which will bring up all the landing points on your HUD where you can then hover the reticle over the one you want before a prompt pops up with a button you can press to land.
If you want to travel to where one of your tracked missions takes place, you can set a course to that planet by accessing the objectives for that mission where a prompt will appear at the bottom corner of the screen which will bring you just outside the planet where you can do the same process as mentioned before.
Use the Starfield Starmap
Traveling to a planet in another system adds just the extra step of backing all the way up in the starmap until you reach a map of all the different systems where you will be able to select one to look at where it will bring you to a map of that particular system, allowing you to select which planet you want to travel to. Keep in mind, your ship has a set amount of fuel, so some systems may require you to select a destination that is a bit closer before traveling to that system.
If you don’t like the idea of having to go through menus every time you want to travel somewhere in Starfield, there is another way to do so. In order to do this you will need to be in the captain’s seat of your ship which will give you multiple prompts on the center of the screen that give you the option to get up from your seat, exit the ship, or takeoff from the planet. Taking off will put you in a cutscene of your ship leaving the planet as you enter the space outside of the planet. At this point you can pull up your scanner in order to see where other planets or systems are at. If there is a mission on an adjacent system, you will be able to hover over the waypoint marker with your reticle to bring up a button prompt that allows you to travel to the planet in the next system after locking onto it.
Starfield is out now on Xbox Series X/S and PC
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