Becoming a Space Archaeologist in Starfield
When Starfield was announced, like everyone else I was intrigued by the possibilities of Space Skyrim. As more and more news came out, I realized that the light-hearted daydreams of a cohort of stressed graduate students who giggled at the possibility of becoming Space Archaeologists might actually come true. And it is way more true than I even thought it might be. This post is going to discuss some of the early parts of Starfield, so there will be spoilers for the first 2-3 hours of the game, but there will not be discussions of the main story or specific side quests past that point.
The player ship in front of a planet in the Sol System in Starfield. Image by author.
And then within moments of starting the game and moving through the tutorial, I realized I didn’t just have to build around being a Space Archaeologist, Starfield was all about Space Archaeology. That’s it. That’s the game. Obviously there’s so many ways to play it and a lot more to it than that, but the tutorial ends with digging up and uncovering an Artifact, which is what many archaeologists do every time they go on a dig site. I’ve done it. Now, have I dug up something that spectacular, dangerous, and mysterious? Not quite, but immediately at this point still in the tutorial I learned that I was going to live out my Space Archaeologist dreams.
The Artifact ring at the Lodge in New Atlantis. Image by Author.
Soon after that, players are allowed to create a character, and the Explorer, Professor, and Xenobiologist backgrounds all have some ties to the modern field of Archaeology, but I chose Explorer as it seemed the best suited for the type of Space Archaeologist I was ready to become. The traits mattered less, so I picked Extrovert, Kid Stuff, and Hero Worshipped, which all pair nicely to get some good bonuses from being around other characters, and often Archaeologists tend to travel in herds more than the typical fictional representation depicts.
My player character exploring the ruins of Earth in Starfield. Image by author.
And then we get to where the player really becomes a Space Archaeologist, which occurs after the tutorial is over and players arrive at New Atlantis for the first time. This is where any spoilers will be, but again I will not discuss anything past the next main story mission.
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When players arrive at Constellation HQ, they learn that not only is this a group of knowledgeable explorers, but that they are retrieving multiple Artifacts! The player gets sent out on a quest to retrieve the rest, and that’s the point of the game for much of the main story. The backbone of the entire game is to retrieve glimpses into the human past, and this first mission sends players back to the Sol System - AKA our system. Earth, Mars, the Moon, all of the things we are familiar with. And being able to explore that past and figure out how humans got to where they did in a video game when no one is really sure? That’s Space Archaeology.
Check back in or subscribe to get alerts when new content drops! I plan to talk more about Starfield and the rest of the main story in a separate article, and how it continues to talk about the human past from the perspective of humanity’s future. In the meantime, have you played Starfield, and, if so, what background did you pick?
