Highlights
- Starfield modder wSkeever created a mod called Human Activity on Earth, which adds humans and human settlements to Earth in the game.
- The mod reflects the modder's belief that it is unrealistic for Earth to be portrayed as desolate in the game, considering the game's tendency to spawn human settlements in inhospitable locations.
- The mod is compatible with the game's established rules for point of interest (POI) generation and requires another mod called Plugins.txt Enabler for proper functionality.
One Starfield modder managed to bring humans back to Earth in Bethesda's galaxy-hopping RPG. Their achievement adds to the already considerable pile of amazing Starfield mods that content creators managed to put together since the game's critically acclaimed launch.
Although Bethesda has long been claiming that Starfield will be a modder's paradise, the company has yet to actually start delivering on that promise, as the game's official modding tools are still pending release. That still hasn't stopped the most hardcore tinkerers among the fandom from modifying the game using rudimentary methods such as hex editors almost as soon as Starfield hit the digital and physical store shelves in early September.
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The latest such piece of custom content comes from Nexus Mods user wSkeever, who developed a mod that brings humans back to their home planet in Bethesda's latest title. Called Human Activity on Earth, the mod weighs just 27KB, and achieves its stated purpose by adding Earth into the pool of planets and other celestial bodies that feature dynamically generated points of interest (POIs). The modification hence allows all Starfield POIs featuring humans and human settlements to spawn at random throughout Earth.
Reflecting on their achievement, wSkeever explained that they originally took issue with how Bethesda presented Earth as a desolate planet in Starfield; given how the game is happy to spawn human settlements across the most inhospitable reaches of The Settled Systems, the modder found the idea of a barren Earth to be too unbelievable and immersion-breaking. Elaborating on that point, wSkeever argued that it would be much easier for humans to build habitation facilities on their home planet instead of braving the final frontier. Even if that wasn't the case, someone would have surely thought to return to Earth in the 130 years leading up to the events of the game, the modder concluded.
That perceived lore inconsistency prompted wSkeever to bring humans back to Earth, consequently making the RPG a bit more immersive from their perspective. The newly released mod still adheres to the game's established rules for POI generation, meaning that human settlements won't spawn in the vicinity of the existing Earth landmarks, of which there are 10 in total.
The modification itself was developed in the form of a "master" file akin to the ESM mods for Skyrim. But since Starfield doesn't technically support loading plugins and master files, Human Activity on Earth requires the Plugins.txt Enabler, another mod that adds this functionality to Bethesda's space-faring RPG.
Starfield is available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.