Want to know which of Starfield’s planets you should visit first? When we’re eventually able to set foot on them, Starfield’s diverse range of heavenly bodies offer a massive amount of different biomes, fauna, flora, gravity, and atmosphere. Sure, some planets might be more dangerous to visit than others, but which will look the most breathtaking?
In the lead-up to Starfield’s release date, we were able to take part in a deep dive into Starfield’s planets and moons during Sunday night’s Starfield Direct. There are a lot of them, and they’re all stunning. Still, that many planets just naturally comes with some stinkers, and we were only shown a small selection of Starfield’s planets and moons in the presentation.
Here’s a super subjective ranking of all the planets and moons we saw during Starfield Direct.
The worst planets
These planets and moons will be instant fails just from looking at them.
Porrima IV-C
Look at this planet, it’s just like Skyrim. Apart from the chunks of grass floating in the water, that’s a Skyrim Daggerfall mountain range in the distance, and those mushrooms make up a Morrowind Solstheim landscape.
In case you can’t place where you’ve seen the Pleiades IV-C moons before, the landscape has been featured in a ridiculous number of open-world games, including Skyrim and Dragon Age: Inquisition. It would be pretty funny to find out that, up at the space station, it was actually sponsored by the Skyrim airline, Skyrim Air, but it’s probably an instant fail from the outset.
The planet does feature a few alien structures, which is the only reason for it to avoid being The Worst. But those structures must be monuments to someone’s embarrassing failures; an unmarked gravesite if you will.
Earth
Earth just isn’t worth your time. After Fallout was released, things went sour very quickly as it became saturated with dinosaurs. Besides, all the elements and materials you could want are floating around in space, so why bother?
To top it off, these dinosaurs can mutate into horrific creatures and give you a bunch of diseases too. We’re talking about a lush jungle covered with more dinosaurs than King Kong, irradiated mongrels, and glowing radioactive hot spots. Earth is an open-world game writers’ paradise, but unfortunately a terrible wasteland.
Bardeen III
I thought this new Tron-like light system in Starfield was great until we went up close to this Bardeen III alien. The contrast between it and the sky is so jarring, it’s giving me a headache.
It does look beautiful, but those giant yellow spikes on the end that are just floating – it’s hard to blame the locals for their instant dislike of this visitor. You hardly see an animal with a weapon primarily function to inflict pain on others, but there’s gotta be a backstory here.
This is perhaps best illustrated by the incredible Starfield trailer at The Game Awards 2022 and the incredible journey that one Bardeen III spider has taken across several games – starting with Red Dead Redemption 2 and extending via Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 76, and most recently Starfield. Bravo, spider, bravo.