Warning: Full Spoilers for Starfield follow
I’ve already hit Starfield’s credits screen four times. Not because I can’t get enough of playing Bethesda’s latest grand-scale RPG, but because I find the concept that powers its new game plus mode to be completely intriguing. Not to sound too much like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar, but where I once thought I’d be losing dozens of hours exploring places in this galaxy, it’s actually what takes place in one room that has captured my imagination most.
I should probably first explain what exactly happens at the end of Starfield’s story and the beginning of a new game plus run. In the final moments of the main questline, you become a Starborn, a sort of guardian of the galaxy whose job is to collect artifacts, piece them together, and enter The Unity they form on repeat until the end of time. Entering The Unity doesn’t just trigger a new game plus run, though. Each time you step through it, you awaken in a parallel universe where no one knows who you are and almost everything is taken away from you. All you retain from your previous universe are your skill points, as well as gaining fancy Starborn armour, and a sleek Starborn ship.
You’re ushered back down to New Atlantis where your story once again begins at Constellation’s Lodge. This is where the fun begins. Upon entering its mahogany-furnished surroundings you’re met with a choice – reveal your Starborn identity to Sarah and her band of merry explorers, or keep it a secret to play the full main questline again. Picking the former is what I’ve done each time, and while they are perhaps overly accepting of this truth, Sarah points you in the direction of Vladimir and the location of six more artifacts to collect.
It’s a cool concept, one that means your story in this galaxy is continually being written until you decide when your final loop will be. But it also suffers some of the cracks that can be found in many other areas of Starfield, too. There’s very little to differentiate these alternate universes from one another (aside from one thing we’ll get onto later) and I can’t help but feel more attention could’ve gone into making each feel unique. Perhaps a colour swap on some uniforms or buildings. A different haircut for Sarah. A fresh paint job for Vasco. Just something to make it feel like you’re actively visiting somewhere new.
This repetition also stretches to the mission itself. On all three of my new game plus runs so far, the artifacts have been on the exact same planets in the exact same caverns and abandoned facilities. There’s been no variety whatsoever in these locations or how the enemies have been spaced out within them. It seems, then, that the variations between parallel universes are limited just to the Constellation headquarters. On the one hand, this has made it incredibly easy for me to quickly speed through a run, but on the other, I can’t say it’s been too exciting to play. It’s a little bit of a slog and an experience that echoes much of how I felt about Starfield’s main quest, which buries its magic in piles of grey moondust that you have to sift through to find. I couldn’t help but wish the amount of care and attention placed in the fidelity of its potatoes and their physics systems had been put into making more of its quests – and its parallel universe hops – engaging.
You might at this point be asking: Why are you doing this, then? Well, I’d heard rumours. Rumours of weird and wonderful things that await once you pass through The Unity a certain number of times. And, when starting my fifth playthrough, I saw exactly this. When swinging open the doors of Constellation in this new universe I wasn’t greeted by the typical members of Constellation and a confused look from Sarah. Instead, my former companion Andreja met me with a group of House Va’ruun soldiers.
She wasn’t happy to see me, stating “Constellation has brought down the wrath of The Great Serpent and I am his instrument today”. And so, I gunned down the woman I had fallen in love with and married four universes previously. I didn’t want to live here, so it made me instantly want to go through The Unity again to leave this dark reality behind.
That’s when it hit me. Starfield’s new game plus is more interested in telling a story than it is in providing new gameplay experiences. This Andreja had no idea who I was and left no time for finding out. But I still had all of those memories, and so did Starborn Simon. The way your character’s story continues while everything around you starts again is as clever a way as I can remember at bridging the disconnect between player and avatar in a new game plus. It’s nowhere near the storytelling feat of something like Nier Automata, for example, but does offer a reason to keep playing just for that thrill that you might just see something no one else has.
There’s no guarantee that you will, however, and it does seem like we’re firmly in the palms of the RNG gods when it comes to what waits for us in Constellation each time. I’ve heard stories of people being met by an unscrupulous Walter Stroud demanding money or death for the location of the remaining artifacts. Another was threatened by a grown-up Cora Coe, looking for vengeance for her father’s death. A particular odd one sees you greeted by several copies of yourself. And, of course, you might just get the standard introduction, the most underwhelming of all. There’s just no knowing, much like many of its quests, whether Starfield will throw something exciting or mundane your way.
Starfield is undoubtedly a game that shows its best parts to you the more time you put into it, and its new game plus mechanic is no different. It doesn’t change the way you’ll play it in any major way, but may just hit you with a nugget of story that makes you feel something so many of its lifeless planets fail to do. The way it evokes the current culture’s obsession with multiverses, but manages to implement its ideas in a new way is admirable and something I’ve genuinely never seen in a game before. It gets the synapses sparking as you think of the possibilities on offer and a reason to make that journey again. With each loop taking around 90 minutes to complete if you just focus on the artifacts, it can be short by regular new game plus standards, but it’s still a notable time investment to risk seeing a parallel world identical to the one you just left. If you’re lucky, though, sometimes the planets align to make it all seem worth it again.
For more on Starfield’s new game plus, make sure to check out our wiki page and for more Starfield tips take a look at our comprehensive guide.
Simon Cardy is on the search for space secrets. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon.
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