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How To Visit Earth in Starfield

How to Visit Earth in Starfield

They say that home is where the heart is, but that may not be the case for people playing Starfield. Instead of Earth, you start the game off pretty far in space on a mining facility on an unknown planet. Complicating matters, you begin with no clue how far you are from anything remotely familiar to you. While the characters around you know what’s going on, you have no idea.

How to Visit Earth in Starfield

The moment you get your hands on a ship, you may be tempted to make your way to Earth and maybe find your hometown or another memorable location. Of course, they also say that you can’t go home again, but that’s not exactly true. Here’s how to visit Earth in Starfield and get a glimpse of what remains of the planet and its civilization.

Where to Find Earth

Earth as it's seen in Starfield

You may not have learned this in school, but our solar system actually has a name. It’s not just part of the Milky Way, it’s the Sol system in the Milky Way. To visit Earth in Starfield, you’ll leave the mining planet known as Argos and head toward Alpha Centauri. You’ll need to fly to this start, the star closest to Earth (except for our sun, the aforementioned Sol) toward the city of New Atlantis on the human-established planet of Jemison.

You can clearly see the Sol system, positioned slightly northwest of Alpha Centauri, from the Starmap. Of course, if you try to travel to it, you’ll be met with a window prompt telling you that you can’t travel there yet. This is because you need to do some story stuff first. Specifically, you need to go to the Lodge where the Constellation team is located, and introduce yourself.

After handing in the Artifact and getting acquainted with key member Sarah Morgan, you’ll be given the main quest of trying to find more Artifacts. The moment Sarah offers to get going, that’s when you can end the conversation, leave the Lodge, and head toward the Sol system.

After traveling there, look for Earth in orbit as the third rock from the sun. You’ll notice it doesn’t have that distinctive blue hue as usually seen from space, instead being more of a tan-brown color.

What You’ll Find On Earth in Starfield

In Starfield, Earth has become a barren wasteland.

Once you select Earth from the Starmap, you can Fast Travel to it. From orbit, you can scan the surface of the planet to see that there are certain types of minerals in abundance. You’ll also notice that it’s completely uninhabitable, with no forms of life to be found, and not even a survivable atmosphere to appreciate.

To be fair, there are story missions that will take you to specific locations on Earth, but none of them will appear by scanning. At this point, you only have a choice of two kinds of environments to explore: Sandy Desert and Frozen Plains.

If you go to the Sandy Desert, don’t be surprised to see sand as far as the eye can see. You’ll also notice a lot of dunes and ore deposits scattered throughout. Like a desert should be, it’s extremely hot but there’s also a significant risk of damage and harm from sun radiation. Unless you have a very strong radiation suit, you’re better off exploring the planet at night.

This goes the same for the Frozen Plains. Despite having a more tolerable cooler temperature, you’re still at the risk of the scorching sun. It’s mostly ice and stone scattered around, but the good news is that ore deposits stand out much more than in the desert. Make sure you’re equipped for the chillier temperatures which will only get much colder at night.

The scanner is your best friend for finding points of interest while exploring both environments. It’ll not only lead you to ore deposits, but it’ll also highlight geological features to investigate. These can be craters or meteorites rich in certain minerals, but be careful as their impact has made the surrounding environment more lethal and can do lasting damage to your suit within seconds.

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What Happened to Earth? (SPOILERS)

By the looks of Earth, it’s natural to assume that climate change, environmental disasters, and human conflict lead to the planet turning into such a barren wasteland.

While they definitely had a hand in making things worse, the actual cause is far more sci-fi. In the Starfield universe, the Earth was ruined when its magnetosphere (the planet’s magnetic field) was completely destroyed which led to the atmosphere falling apart. This was caused by the invention of the Grav Drive, the very same device that made it possible for humans to explore the far reaches of the universe. It was human scientific ambition that led to Earth’s downfall.

Written by Andrew Smith