Starfield Ending Explained – IGN

So you’ve made your way out into the Starfield and embarked on a journey to discover the secrets of the known universe. But what happens at the end of Bethesda’s latest RPG?

If you’ve reached the end of Starfield, you might be wondering exactly what you just experienced. Luckily, we’re here to help you make sense of it all. Read on below for our explainer on just what exactly happens at the end of Starfield, and what waits for you afterwards.

Warning, full spoilers ahead beyond this point for the end of Starfield.

Starfield’s Biggest Secret, Revealed

On the surface, Starfield is a highly straightforward game. You play as an Asteroid miner who encounters a mysterious artifact that sends you on a vision quest. Following this experience, you team up with an organization called Constellation who has made it their mission to discover more of these artifacts and uncover their secrets.

These artifacts, it turns out, make up something called The Unity, the focal point of multiple universes which when complete grants its discoverers the ability to travel across parallel universes as Starborn.

The player will become a Starborn thanks to this mission from Constellation, but not without a few twists and turns.

What Happened to Earth in Starfield?

Once the secret of The Unity is revealed, it helps to explain the entire origins of Starfield’s universe. Early on in the game, the player learns that Earth is a desolate wasteland that is no longer hospitable. While this could’ve been explained by natural disasters, it turns out Earth’s fate was caused by The Unity.

In the past a scientist named Dr. Victor Aiza discovered the technology for grav drives — the tool in which space travel was made possible in Starfield — thanks in part to touching an artifact piece of The Unity. Like the player, touching the artifact granted Aiza a vision that inspired him to create the grav drive.

However, repeated use of the grave drives had a negative impact on Earth, destroying the planet over repeated grav drive use and forcing humanity to leave the planet and settle distant planets.

As mentioned by IGN commentor WildAttorney, a voice memo next to Aiza’s corpse reveals that along with finding out about the grav drive, he was told that it would ultimately destroy earth’s atmosphere in the progress. However, Aiza concluded that were humanity to remain on Earth they would deal with war and famine, and thus believed leaving the planet was the best call.

The Hunter and the Emissary

During this quest, the player will encounter a few mysterious figures. One is the Hunter who is hellbent on claiming pieces of the Unity for themselves and will hunt down members of Constellation to do so.

It’s revealed that the Hunter is a version of Father Aquilus who became a Starborn after passing through The Unity, though his motivations are much darker than the version you encounter in your universe.

The other is the Emissary, a mysterious figure who seems to know more about the artifacts than others. That is because, and this is one of the game’s biggest twists, the Emissary is a member of Constellation you already know just from another universe. Who it is exactly, depends on your choices during the game.

Who Is the Emissary?

The identity of the Emissary changes depending on specific decisions you make as the player in the mission ‘High Price to Pay’. During the game, the Hunter will attack The Lodge and you can stay there and defend the Constellation headquarters, or head to The Eye to help fight back and potentially save who is currently there. Whichever location you choose will result in the death of either Sam, Sarah, Barrett, or Andreja.

However, the Emissary will reveal themselves to be whichever Constellation member died, only they’re not the Sam/Sarah/Barrett/Andreja you know, but rather a Starborn version of them from another universe.

Starfield’s Biggest Choice

The Hunter and the Emissary present different versions of what happens to people who pass through The Unity. The Hunter becomes obsessed with its power, killing those who stand in the way of him and more versions of The Unity to collect. Meanwhile, the Emissary wants more people to pass through The Unity, but would prefer to choose who is able to interact with it and become Starborn, representing a heavy-handed approach to its powers. The player can choose to side with whichever Starborn they align with, philosophically.

You can also choose to side with neither The Hunter or The Emissary if you feel like neither is trustworthy, rejecting their help and deciding to go solo in order to find the secrets of the universe(s) yourself.

Players can ultimately choose to become Starborn, which will put players through to the New Game Plus which once completing the main story path takes on an entirely new meaning thanks to The Unity’s multiversal abilities. It’s worth reading more about Starfield’s New Game Plus here to discover why starting again in Starfield is much more complex than you think.

If parallel universes sound a bit too scary, however, or you just can’t bear to leave all of your friends and faction buddies behind, simply turn around and return back to your ship to roam the galaxy.

This is our ending explainer for Starfield. For those of you who completed the main campaign, check out IGN’s Starfield guide for details on the most important sidequests to check out, and let us know in the comments which side you ended up choosing, and how your adventures as a Starborn are going in New Game Plus.