Starfield data miner uncovers fossilized remains of a much cooler, more hardcore game tucked away in its files: 'We had a washed version of the game'

Starfield's Sarah Morgan looks over her shoulder at the player from a ship cockpit.
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Space travel in Starfield is pretty easy. Remarkably easy, actually. You just bring up the map, click a dot and go. Sure, some things might be out of immediate jump range, but if all the yawning void of the cosmos has to threaten me with is "mild inconvenience," then I'm gonna complain that documentaries like Event Horizon really overhyped the horrors that lie in the great beyond.

Things weren't always that way. For one thing, Todd Howard himself has spoken about versions of the game where it was possible to run out of fuel and find yourself stranded among the stars, a feature which ended up getting yanked out because it was a "fun killer". But now a player on Reddit (spotted by GamesRadar) has found evidence lurking in Starfield's files of a much crunchier, and riskier, kind of space travel. 

Early concept/iteration of the starmap found tucked away in data files from r/NoSodiumStarfield

I've spoken with the thread's creator—Reddit user Redsaltyborger—myself, and verified the existence of the starmap texture in Starfield's game files. I'll paste it below in convenient and parseable .jpg form. Yep, it sure does look like a relic of a different, more hardcore Starfield we never got.

The thing that leaps out to me—beyond the fuel consumption gauge, which Todd's already told us about—is the presence of environmental hazards in the game's solar systems. In the texture left lying around in the game files, you can see that Leviathan IV is home to both "Solar Radiation" and "Micrometeoroids." 

The former threatens to weaken your ship's hull while the latter, enticingly, "can cause catastrophic stop." I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind a catastrophic stop or two to spice things up a bit as I'm ticking things off my Starfield task list.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

We've also got filters to see different map modes and a full-on, Mass Effect-style system description for your chosen destination, a nice bit of flavour that's sadly absent from Starfield's final version. Admittedly, Starfield has 120 systems in comparison to Mass Effect's roughly 40, but when you've already got over 250,000 lines of dialogue, what's another 120 paragraphs?

Of course, it's impossible to tell what this bit of ephemera really means for Starfield's development. It could just be a mock-up featuring ideas that were quickly discarded, or perhaps Starfield's space travel was at some point going to be a bit more fraught than it ended up being. Maybe systemic hazards—like fuel consumption—were a "fun killer" in the eyes of Bethesda decision makers.

Either way, it seems convincing that the texture was made for something larger than just "something to slap on a screen in your ship as a display prop." Redsaltyborger told me that they felt "the presence of Xbox controller buttons at the bottom of the map indicates that it was part of [the] UI concept at some point." I can't help but agree.

Other players seem to share my longing for this alternate universe Starfield. In the replies to the original Reddit thread, a user named Space_ananas wrote that, even though they like Starfield as-is, they "wish [Bethesda] continued that way. Every day [it's] more evident we had a washed version of the game."

Another user, TorrBorr, wrote that, "this little tidbit makes things seem a bit depressing with the game and just how much unfinished and/or cut stuff happened to Starfield. As much as I love this game, it needs a serious overhaul."

Alas, we got a Starfield whose easy and overabundant fast travel made its galaxy feel tiny. Perhaps features like these will make their way into the game over the course of its DLC—and plenty already have in the form of mods—but as it is, we'll have to content ourselves with picking through the data files to see the galaxy we might have got. 

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

Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Read more
Starfield First Contact
Bethesda intended Starfield to be more violent, including 'meat caps' for beheaded astronauts, but the gore was toned down for technical reasons and because it 'didn't fit thematically'
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'
Astronaut on alien planet
A recently launched and now terminally sideways Moon lander contains Imagine Dragon's Starfield song, which seems eerily fitting
A spacecraft flying near the sun in Elite: Dangerous
Elite Dangerous just implemented an entire system colonisation mechanic, in case you really want to get off this planet
kingdom come: deliverance 2 fast travel
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 turns boring fast travel into a thing of beauty
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?'
Latest in RPG
kingdom come deliverance 2 thunderstone quest
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's masterful quest design can be summed up by one wonderfully weird search for a magic stone
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'
Latest in News
A gigantic terracotta sentinel made of living armor
Total War: Warhammer 3's army of Cathay has broken containment and is making its way to tabletop Warhammer at last
Two brightly colored stormtroopers dressed like Run-DMC stand in front of PAX Australia's WELCOME HOME banner.
Tickets for PAX Australia 2025 are on sale now
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
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