Man up all night playing Starfield saves his family from an apartment fire

Middle-aged people in futuristic setting
(Image credit: Bethesda)

"Starfield saved me and my family's life" reads the title of a Reddit post by u/tidyckilla—complete with picture of a blazing fire overcoming an apartment complex. What at first sounds hyperbolic turns out to be completely true, as one man excited for Starfield since the earliest trademark filing rumors was awake on a gaming binge when a rapidly-spreading fire threatened his home.

"On the night of august 31st I decided to stay up and play as long as possible to experience this new universe. At 2:26 in the morning, while playing the game, I heard an explosion from my downstairs neighbors apartment. I paused my game to see what was happen;when [sic] I opened the door I saw flames rising up our stairwell to our apartment," said tidyckilla.

"I immediately got my wife and cat, rushing us to safety with only minor burns. If I hadn’t been up bingeing Starfield I would have been asleep and we would have all died to smoke inhalation. I want to thank this game from saving my family and me from a horrible fate," the post continues.

If this still sounds hyperbolic to you, it's a very likely scenario. Tidyckilla says the explosion was below them, and his wife did sleep through it. With the fire spreading so rapidly and sealed doors between their apartment and the fire, tidyckilla thinks their smoke detectors wouldn't have gone off until the fire had blocked the family into their apartment. As it was, they family could neither see nor breathe during their actual escape. "Just had to feel my way out," he said, with a "wall of fire coming up the stairs." He noted that the smoke alarm in their apartment "didn't go off till my wife opened the door to run."

As for escape via the windows? "Wish we could have," tidyckilla said. "Fire went up our front and back of our building and blew out all the windows. Just barely made it down before that happened."

While the circumstance is a bit funny, it's still a grim story. The poster's belief is that a woman in an apartment below was on oxygen and also smoking—the explosion heard was the detonation of the oxygen tanks from an accidental light-up, which is fuel and heat that would also account for the fire's immediate rapid spread.

As for tidyckilla, he and his family are at a hotel for now, where he has assured everyone that he has his xbox and is still playing. Thank goodness for small mercies.

The story is proof that Starfield is a family game, right up there with the best choice you can make in Starfield being the one that gives you parents.

Starfield saved me and my family’s life from r/Starfield

Incredible find, Eurogamer.

Starfield guideStarfield traitsStarfield companionsStarfield romance optionsStarfield console commandsStarfield mods

Starfield guide: Our hub of advice
Starfield traits: The full list, with our top picks
Starfield companions: All your recruitable crew
Starfield romance options: Space dating
Starfield console commands: Every cheat you need
Starfield mods: Space is your sandbox

Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.

Read more
A man in a gas mask and hood
While I'm trapped indoors by one of the UK's worst storms, I'm enjoying one of my favourite pastimes: trudging through gnarly weather in videogames
Skyrim intro cinematic skill - Hey, you. You're finally awake.
A Skyrim dev broke the game before launch when they made thousands of tiny ants cast individual shadows: 'Why is the game running so slow?'
The creepiest guy leans in front of an NPC mid-conversation in Starfield.
Starfield promises it still exists as silence drives fans to space-madness, but it mostly just annoys everyone: 'They are deliberately choosing not to communicate more'
Starfield's companion robot giving a thumbs-up
Former Bethesda dev who quit Starfield to go solo says it's 'much less stressful as an indie' without daily meetings or 'office politics': it's 'very refreshing to just care about the game'
Astronaut on alien planet
A recently launched and now terminally sideways Moon lander contains Imagine Dragon's Starfield song, which seems eerily fitting
Stalker 2
It launched upside down and on fire, but busted and brilliant Stalker 2 has attracted 6 million players to the Zone in the last 3 months
Latest in RPG
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Sphene applauds in Final Fantasy 14's patch 7.2 story.
I'm not yelling 'we're so back!' yet, but Final Fantasy 14's patch 7.2 story could be the first sign the MMO is returning to what made it so critically-acclaimed
Latest in News
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event