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Orbital dogfights and vertiginous dives to avoid hulking freighters – these are all guaranteed in Bethesda’s space-faring RPG, but can you fly on planets in Starfield? With some pretty vocal concerns around planet boundaries and invisible walls, there are questions around those that haven’t sampled the game yet around whether it’s possible to fly your space ships around on the different planets that make up Starfield’s numerous solar systems.
Flying on planets in Starfield
We’ll cut to the chase here: no, it’s currently not possible to fly above the surface on planets in you favourite customised ships. All action and exploration on the surface of planets takes place on foot or onboard a sand buggy-like rover vehicle called the Rev-8, which was introduced in an update in August 2024. You can explore inside your spaceship on planets but there’s no way to take off and explore the surface from the comfort of the cock pit.
All flight between orbit and a planet’s surface is implied via loading screens rather than experienced first hand. In other words, you can’t fly directly from space through a planet’s atmosphere and near the its surface. Instead, this is done via menus where the player navigates the surface map, chooses a place to land or a space port, then sits through a fast travel loading screen before appearing on the planet’s surface moments later.
It’s unfortunate, but given the complexity of using procedurally generated planet surfaces and the technical challenge of bringing to life a living, breathing universe into a collection of cohesive polygons, it’s understandable why Bethesda opted to not include ship exploration on planet surfaces. As it stands, there doesn’t seem to be any plans to integrate it in any future updates, though there is, of course, always a small chance, but we wouldn’t recommend holding your breath.
About the Author
Starfield
- Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series X
- Genre(s): Adventure, RPG, Science Fiction, Space
