How long is Starfield?

By Jesse Lennox August 31, 2023

Bethesda Game Studio titles are notorious for being some of the most expansive and long-lasting RPGs of their type. Starfield is the first new IP from the studio in over a decade, and yet it follows the same basic formula of the company’s staple series of having just one main quest, but hundreds of sidequests, activities, and places to explore. The difference here is you’re not locked to a single landmass like in an Elder Scrolls game, but have an entire universe to explore. Before you get in the pilot seat and blast off to adventure, it’s best make sure you have enough supplies to last the trip. Here’s how long you can expect to spend in Starfield.

How long is Starfield?

The Starfield title screen. — Bethesda

There are a few ways to break down how long Starfield will take you. Let’s start with the easiest measurement, which is how long the main story will take. If you were to only focus on following the critical path, you could probably get through Starfield in around 20 hours. That’s a decent chunk of time, but will obviously only show you a fraction of what the game has to offer. Many people do ignore the main story in BGS games, however, we strongly recommend you see this story through before completely losing yourself to side content.

If you’re easily distracted, or just more interested in exploring the stars, establishing outposts, or playing out your fantasy of rising through the ranks of one of the various factions, then the length of your playtime will explode. We can’t claim to have done and seen everything possible in Starfield, and don’t think anyone else will be able to make that claim for a long time either. As far as meaningful content is concerned, which would be things like companion missions and doing all the faction stuff, estimating around 100 hours to get through it wouldn’t feel like an exaggeration. If you’re a completionist who really wants to live in this world doing everything possible, well, people have put over 1,000 hours into Skyrim, and there’s more to do here, so you can rest easy knowing you can play Starfield as long as you are having fun.

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Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…

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Where to find The Den in Starfield

A spacecraft in Starfield.

For all you Starfield players who prefer to live a life of crime, then you'll no doubt know that collecting and selling contraband is one of the most lucrative ways to spend your time. However, you aren't able to just take these illegal items and sell them freely, especially if you don't have a ship that can hide your questionable cargo. If you want a safe place you can land and find a willing buyer for whatever haul you've got in your ship's hold, The Den is where you want to go. This is a hotspot for all sorts of illegal activity and nefarious players in the Starfield world but isn't exactly a place that advertises its location. If you want to pay a visit to The Den, here's where to find it.
How to get to The Den

To travel to The Den, open your star map and look for the Wolf system. This will be to the right of the Sol system and near the Narion and Alpha Centauri systems. Once you zoom in on the Wolf system, you won't find a planet named The Den because it isn't a planet at all - it is a space station. The Den is actually orbiting the planet Chthonia, so locate that and then look for an icon of an outpost near it called The Den. Select it and you can fast travel over.

Gaming

What happened to Earth in Starfield?

what happened to earth in starfield

Unlike The Elder Scrolls series, which takes place in a completely fictional setting, Starfield takes place in an alternate future of the world we currently live in. Set a bit over 300 years in the future, humanity has not only traveled the stars, but settled down on multiple planets across the galaxy. Cities like New Atlantis in particular have essentially become the new home world for humans, which raises the obvious question of what became of Earth? You'll get some clues very early on that our beloved home planet is no longer habitable like it was, but what caused this? The answers are there in Starfield, so let's go over exactly what happened to Earth.
Why is Earth uninhabitable in Starfield?

The entire population of Earth was forced to abandon its home planet in the mid-2100s after Grav Drive technology was discovered. Dr. Victor Aiza was the one to make this initial discovery that propelled our species into space to begin colonizing other planets. This came at a cost, however, as by 2150, Earth's government realized that the planet's magnetosphere would collapse in just 50 years as a result of this testing. The planet would become completely uninhabitable, which forced a complete exodus from the planet during those 50 years. By 2203, Earth was reduced to a barren wasteland.

Gaming

Nvidia DLSS support for Starfield teased alongside stability-improving update

A ship lands on a planet in Starfield.

Bethesda Game Studios just released the first update for its sci-fi issue Starfield. It's a smaller hotfix-level patch mainly focused on improving the game's stability and fixing some quest-blocking bugs. A message from the developer also confirmed that a lot of major features that are in the works for future patches, including Nvidia DLSS support on PC.

The list of patch notes for Starfield update version 1.7.29 explains that it made "various stability and performance improvements to reduce crashes and improve frame rate," including one related to installations on Xbox Series X/S. Also, quest-blocking issues in All The Money Can Buy, Into the Unknown, and Shadows of Neon are now all fixed. While that list isn't long, a blog post and tweet from Bethesda explains that it's just the start of "a regular interval of updates that have top community-requested features."