A common perception of Bethesda’s titles is that the real meaty and quality content comes from the side quests. This is kind of true becauseFalloutandSkyrim’s side quests often outshine the main ones. InStarfield, however, there’s a lot of great main quests, and they’re varied, too.
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They can focus on the story, be incredibly action-packed, give you a ton of freedom in how to complete it, offer memorable scenarios, and much more. The two best main quests, in particular, are some of the greatest Bethesda’s ever crafted in their execution, level of freedom, and depth.
Spoiler Warning
8Back To Vectera
As the title suggests, Back to Vectera makes you head back to your starting planet in the hopes of finding Barrett. It’s always cool to go back to a starting area to explore places you couldn’t before and to see what’s changed. You get some interesting lore here and the Heller’s Cutter weapon, which is a great mining tool this early in the game.
After this starting area, the quest really shines because you’re tasked with finding a crashed ship on another planet. Which planet the ship crashed on is random on every playthrough. Because you’ll likely have two other main quests going on at this point, you could find the crashed ship while doing another mission and completely skip the first part on Vectera. That’samazing attention to detailand makes this quest rather special.
7High Price To Pay
High Price to Pay is the big turning point in the story, where one of the central characters will inevitably die. Dealing with a Starborn attack, you can either defend the lodge or travel to the Eye to save your troubled companions from the Hunter. This choice is extremely well executed because, going in, you don’t know the Hunter’s multiverse nature and specific abilities.
Many people will make the Neo decision and save their companions, not knowing the multiple Hunters are doing the real damage back in the lodge. No matter what choice you make, one of your companions will die tragically. If you choose to stay, you get a great moment near the end once you return to the lodge and see the devastation of the attack on the city. It’s dead silent and really effective.
6Revelation
Despite not being the last quest, Revelation is the game’s climax and even contains the final boss. With you needing to collect the final artifacts to reach the Unity, you’ll face a ton of opposition. If you haven’t dabbled much in the side content,prepare for this one. The final area, in particular, is quite memorable.
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You know you’re in for a fight if the game gives you aDoomorSerious Sam-like huge ammo dump at the start. You also have to love the various dead soldiers who are closer and closer to the artifact. The last one is mere steps away; you just have to feel bad for them. Thefinal boss is also greatwith you teleporting to various areas of the game, and it’s an all-around solid climax.
5The Empty Nest
The Empty Nest is your first mission with Sam Coe and a great introduction to his character and the Freestar Collective questline. The latter half of the quest is the usual in Starfield, which is to clear out a hideout of enemies, take the artifact, and deal with a gang leader after the fact. What makes this mission great is the first half.
Before you really get things going, you first need to deal with bank robbers huddled up in Akila City’s GalBank. This is a really hard persuasion to do early on in the game, but if you do it, the Marshal will be impressed and ask you to join. This main mission is the only one to naturally and significantly lead to a faction storyline, which makes it especially standout across the 19 total.
4Unearthed
Not every mission needs to involve combat, as Unearthed is a pure story quest meant to keep you thinking. After a brief visit to Luna, you go through the rest of the mission in the NASA Launch Tower.
With little combat, it’s refreshing to see the game slow down so you can enrich yourself in the story and the vast world-building of this mission. You learn about the ending of old Earth and what went down, and because you’re not shooting most of the time, you get invested much easier.
3All That Money Can Buy
Another mission that works as an introduction is All That Money Can Buy. Likely being the first time you enter Neon, it introduces a lot of core areas of the city, like the Astral Lounge and Trade Tower Elevator. The first half concerns a negotiation deal to get an artifact that’s well-handled and satisfying, but the second half is truly special.
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You’ll have to go all the way up the Trade Tower, which takes you to a great stealth section. You must follow Issa’s directions to avoid detection here. This is a smart move, as most won’t knowhow to properly use stealthat this point, and this section can act as a secret tutorial of sorts. You can’t get much better for Neon’s starting mission — it’s well-designed from top to bottom.
2Entangled
One element that a lot of people love in games is the dual-world system. Switching between two identical but different areas almost always leads to fun puzzle-solving and exploration. Starfield tackles the concept in the Entangled quest and does it phenomenally. It’s enticing for the entire quest to learn about the story and explore the whole place.
You actually find the same text log in two different universes, and it’s so cool to see that. In the end, you can also do a secret third way to finish the mission by saving both universes. The game doesn’t directly tell you about this on your mission objectives, and you just figure this out by reading the many text logs in the area. That’s especially cool, and it rewards players who actually pay attention.
1No Sudden Moves
The pinnacle of Starfield’s main quests is No Sudden Moves. You have so much choice and freedom here. The artifact is stored in Captain Petrov’s special vault, and you can access it in various ways. You can talk to him to get in, go through a tucked-away back entrance, or go through the front. The best part of this mission is the Zoo filled with alien creatures.
With master lockpicking, you can unleash them all and head straight for the vault. You won’t have anybody on your tail as all the soldiers behind will be dealing with the monsters. It feels amazing to have this idea in your mind and for it to actually work out as planned. This mission is pitch-perfect and a shining example of Bethesda’s great quest design.
