What is Quantum Essence in Starfield?

By Jesse Lennox Published September 7, 2023

Taking place over 100 years in the future, there will be a lot of things you come across you’re unfamiliar with in Starfield. Also, since this is a Bethesda title, just about everything that isn’t nailed down can be picked up whether it’s useful to you or not. There’s one special item you won’t start encountering until you reach a specific point in the story, and after that only get it very rarely. Quantum Essence sounds very mysterious, and the game hides away what it actually does. Here’s everything you need to know about this special material in Starfield.

Note: We will be spoiling minor parts of Starfield ahead. No specific story details will be mentioned, but some mid-game mechanics will be discussed.

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What is Quantum Essence?

A chart of symbols showing starfield powers. — Bethesda Softworks

Quantum Essence is a special resource only dropped by the Starborn enemies that show up between a quarter and halfway through the game. They show up most often, but not always, after you visit a temple and collect a Power. After defeating one, you may notice the notification that you’ve collected a Quantum Essence without needing to loot it off the ground yourself.

The only place you can see how many Quantum Essence you have, or what they do, is in the corner of your Powers screen. Here, you can use a Quantum Essence to temporarily increase how quickly your Power recharges. This meter slowly fills on its own over time, but if you want to sling Powers one after another, you will need to eat up some of these resources.

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Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over five years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…

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The best abilities in Avowed

A player casting an ice spell in Avowed

As a new arrival in the Living Lands of Avowed, your character has to learn a lot of tips and tricks to survive in this powderkeg of an island. You have an important mission to find a way to cure the Dreamscourge, but there's a lot of danger between you and that goal which will require more than just your weapons. Leveling up will let you spend your points on new skills, just like most RPGs, but they are split between several pages. You are not locked into a single class and can invest your points into one or all of them, but there are some skills that you will want to prioritize getting first. Here are the best abilities you should work toward unlocking in Avowed.
Best Fighter abilities

Charge
Charge is an easy pick to invest your first few points into on the Fighter tree. It is a powerful dashing attack that can interrupt enemies with an explosive hit that breaks through guards. For bosses, saving this move to stop a deadly attack while staying in melee range is always reliable. The explosive damage is good for splash damage but also has utility outside of combat. Instead of wasting grenades to break walls, you can just use this skill to blast down cracked walls.
Constant Recovery
No matter what weapons you focus on, you're going to get hit eventually. Melee fighters especially will be tanking a ton of hits, so Constant Recovery will keep you alive without draining all your potions. When hit, you can recover 50% of your HP lost over time, and with further upgrades, this skill can eventually let you restore all the damage you took.
Devastating Criticals
There's nothing more satisfying than a critical hit. You can increase the chances of landing one with your character traits, but this skill makes each one count by upping the damage by 30% at the first level and 60% at max.
Reflect
The main issue with being a melee class is all those pesky rangers. Having a second loadout with a ranged weapon is always a good idea, but Reflect can almost do the job on its own. If you time your block perfectly when a projectile is about to hit, you can send it back to hit the attacker.
Best Ranger abilities

Gaming

Where to find the cartographer in Dawntrail in Avowed

An environment shot of the Dawnshore Eastern Overlands in Avowed.

After the tutorial teaches you the essential tips and tricks for playing Avowed, you will be set free in the Living Lands. Almost right away you will encounter a man named Sanza who has an important side quest for you to locate a missing cartographer. While you might be eager to complete the main story, side quests are important for unlocking new abilities and exploring the world. Unlike most side quests, however, this one only gives you a vague written description of where the cartographer is instead of a marker on your map to travel to. Even though each zone in Avowed isn't massive, there is still a lot of ground to cover when looking for a single person. Here's where you can find the cartographer in Dawntrail.
Where to find the missing cartographer

The side quest only says that the cartographer should be located near some cliffs on the east side of Dawntrail, which is quite a big place to search. The area you're looking for is called Usher's Hand and is directly east of Paradis. If you go out the eastern exit and head north, you will find it no problem.

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How long is Avowed?

An environment shot of the Dawnshore Eastern Overlands in Avowed.

When it was first revealed, Avowed drew a lot of comparisons to Skyrim. Both are fantasy RPGs playable in first or third-person and set in open worlds, so it made some sense to compare the two. However, Obsidian later clarified that Avowed was not an open world in the same sense as an Elder Scrolls, and was more hub-based like The Outer Worlds. This left fans wondering just how long of an RPG this would be. Even though the game will be available on Game Pass, it is important to know how long or short of a time investment is before deciding when you want to start it. Here's how long you can expect to spend exploring the Living Lands in Avowed.
How long is Avowed?

Even though the world in Avowed isn't anywhere close to as big as Skyrim, each zone is dense with activities, side quests, and secrets. Your playtime will heavily depend on how much optional content you decide to partake in. In our experience, doing most of the primary side content, our playthrough took around 35 hours. Had we focused only on the main story, we predict it could be finished in between 15 and 20 hours depending on the difficulty level and your individual skill. This is roughly the same as The Outer Worlds.