After so much time and waiting Starfield has finally launched. The huge big sci-fi space game that Bethesda has been promoting for what feels like decades is finally available to play and there’s so much to do. Just like in Skyrim, you can’t walk more than a few feet without your Activity Log tracking a new thing to investigate or a new person to talk to about a mission. Because of this, time will pass quite quickly with everything that you’ll be doing. Even so, there will be times when you’ll just want time to pass faster than playing will allow.
Fortunately, like in other Bethesda-developed games, there is a way to simply wait and pass time. The system works largely as it has in other games from the studio. However, if you’re new to the genre or just need a refresher, don’t worry. This guide will explain exactly how to wait in Starfield.
How Time Works in Starfield
While Bethesda has been pushing just how much attention to detail has been given to Starfield, there are some understandable gaming elements. One of them is time, and true to form, time passes much faster in Starfield than in real life. To be precise, it operates on a 20-to-1 ratio, meaning that for every one minute that passes in reality, 20 minutes will pass in Starfield. By that calculation, a full day will pass in around 72 minutes. The convenient thing is that all planets seem to have a standard 24-hour cycle, which makes time much easier to track.
On the side of realism, most inhabited areas have a schedule. This means that characters won’t always be available to talk to whenever you need them. Depending on the time of day, they can be found in different locations. If it’s nighttime and you can’t find someone, that’s because they’re likely at home or in bed.
This also means that certain businesses will open or close depending on the hour and the legality of the operation. This makes it a bit tougher to do things like buy and sell ship parts. Then there are time-sensitive missions with certain events only triggering at certain times of day or night. Lastly, characters or the Activity Log can prompt you to come back at a later time to check on the progress of something mission-related and sometimes you just don’t want to wait.
How to Wait and Pass Time in Starfield
Sometimes you don’t want to kill time before making progress in research or something similar; you want the results now. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this game takes place in the 26th century where travel between solar systems is possible and lightspeed travel has been achieved, time travel still evades your grasp. So, if you’re looking to make things happen by reaching a certain hour in the 24 hours, you can choose to wait and pass the time.
To wait in Starfield, you need a chair or something else you can sit on. These are found all over the place in public spaces, in businesses, or just randomly scattered around. Approach the chair to interact with it and sit down. Once you do, you’ll get a pop-up window showing the current time and asking you how much time you’d like to wait. Move the slider to choose the number of hours, and then you’ll fade out and back into a later hour. You can also find beds to lie down and rest in where you can also pass the time, although you’ll need to make sure that the bed isn’t owned or occupied by anyone else.
Frequently Asked Questions
