Summary
- Fast travel is necessary in Starfield for interplanetary exploration, but manually flying from planet to planet would enhance immersion.
- No Man's Sky allows travel between planets in the same solar system without fast travel, but not between solar systems.
- There may be practical gameplay reasons why space travel is the way it is in Starfield.
Fast travel serves as the backbone of interplanetary exploration in Starfield, but the idea of flying directly from planet to planet is an appealing one. Encounters happen in space, from dogfights to random missions, but they tend to appear near the orbits of planets. Although the ability to skip over long stretches of space flight is necessary to keep up the pace in a game of Starfield's scale, handling things manually would be a nice feature for immersion. In any scenario, the minutiae of landing on a planet's surface without wrecking the spacecraft is off the table.
There's some precedent for a game like Starfield allowing true interplanetary travel. It's possible to move between planets in the same solar system in No Man's Sky without engaging a fast travel mechanic, although this doesn't extend to travel between solar systems, which would take obscene amounts of time even if it was possible. Bethesda's prior RPGs like The Elder Scrolls 6: Skyrim and Fallout 4 have made it possible to traverse the entire map by foot, a feature that isn't surprising considering their significantly smaller scale.
Flying To Other Planets In Starfield Is Sort Of Possible
The dedication of one streamer has revealed more about Starfield's setup than was previously known, an undertaking described in a tweet from the Kratos. Alanah Pearce spent a whopping 7 hours flying to the surface of Pluto, eventually clipping through it upon arrival.
Although this might seem like a somewhat underwhelming conclusion, it does eliminate the theory that space was arranged into distinct skyboxes that prevented travel between the many planets of Starfield altogether. The task is indeed possible; it just doesn't lead to the rewards that one might hope.
Fast Travel Is The Only Way To Land On A Planet In Starfield
An article from fast travel scanner workaround, but there's no getting around fast travel itself.
In the same vein as many expansive ventures, Starfield accompanies its substantial possibilities with a wide variety of limitations. Proper interplanetary travel ends up on the absent end of that equation, and it may never have even been seriously explored during development. However, even with its reliance on fast travel, the game doesn't entirely exclude the existence of long flights. It's possible to fly to other planets in Starfield without using fast travel, but the game doesn't offer any resolution or reward for doing so.
Sources: Kratos/Twitter, TheGamer
