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A destroyed Earth in Starfield

Bethesda Considered Making Starfield’s Earth the One From Fallout

StarfieldĀ director Todd Howard revealed that there was, at one point, talk about making Earth in the game the same one from the FalloutĀ franchise.

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In an interview with The Washington Post, reporter and critic Gene Park noted that, when he arrived on Earth to find the planet uninhabitable, he’d hoped he might instead discover the same nuclear wasteland he’d experienced in Fallout 3. Howard responded by saying, “We talked about it.” There was no further elaboration on the comment, except for Howard noting that there were many ideas and plans forĀ StarfieldĀ that never came to fruition.

Related:Ā Seeing Earthā€™s Fate in Starfield Broke My Heart

Spoilers for what happened to Earth inĀ StarfieldĀ lay ahead.

When players go to Earth inĀ Starfield, they discover that it’s a desolate wasteland with no life or buildings. The reason for this, as revealed in a museum in a key city called New Atlantis, is that scientists discovered in 2150 that Earth’s magnetosphere was collapsing. This urged humanity to band together and take to the stars. In 2203, Earth officially became uninhabitable and has since been devasted by radiation and solar winds. I, personally, found the experience of going to Earth to be a touching one, and if you look at that “Related” link above, you can find my own story of seeing our planet’s fate.

TheĀ FalloutĀ series, which is now published and developed by Bethesda, takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth. However, the planet’s magnetosphere does not seem to have collapsed, and there’s significantly more than on Starfield‘s version of the world. Instead, the destruction of Earth in the FalloutĀ series is the result of a nuclear war. Called The Great War, the event took place in 2077, which is several decades beforeĀ Starfield‘s scientists learned about the fate of Earth. As such, making the two timelines work together may have proven difficult without massively shifting key dates and other lore.

StarfieldĀ is available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.


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Author
Image of Liam Nolan
Liam Nolan
Liam Nolan has been the Managing Editor at The Escapist since August 2023, during which time he's covered Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Starfield, and several other major releases. After getting his Master of Arts in English in 2016, he began writing about comics, television, movies, and video games, with his work appearing at such outlets as Marvel.com, CBR, and The Mary Sue. When he's not writing on pop culture, you can find Liam working on his creative projects or traveling. You can follow him on Twitter @LD_Nolan or on Bluesky @ldnolan.bsky.social.