Highlights
- Starfield, Bethesda's latest open-world RPG, has received mainly positive early reviews, with its immersive atmosphere and customization options being praised.
- The game features a vast explorable universe with over 1,000 procedurally generated planets, allowing players to encounter civilizations, recruit NPCs, and battle alien creatures.
- A touching tribute to a fan named Alex Hay, who passed away before the game's release, can be found in the form of a hidden journal entry in The Eye spaceport, showcasing Bethesda's connection with its community.
Starfield contains plenty of hidden secrets and details, including a heartfelt tribute to an eager fan who passed away before they got the chance to experience the game for themselves. After five years and much hype and speculation, Starfield finally launched on PC and Xbox Series X consoles earlier this week in early access - allowing players who ordered one of the game’s premium editions to start playing a good five days before its full launch on September 6. Early reviews of Bethesda’s latest open-world RPG have been mainly positive so far, with many praising Starfield’s immersive Skyrim-like atmosphere and in-depth customization options.
A large part of Starfield’s appeal lies in its vast explorable universe, which consists of over 1,000 procedurally generated planets filled with different environments, lifeforms, and landmarks to uncover. Players can encounter scattered civilizations and recruit NPCs to their growing space crew, navigate barren wastelands and battle hostile alien creatures, and basically tell their own stories within the massive sci-fi sandbox Bethesda has created. Naturally, the developers of Starfield have hidden plenty of Easter eggs to be uncovered by eagle-eyed players, and some of the game’s early fans have spotted a touching tribute to someone who couldn’t make the journey into space.
Reddit user HunterWorld was one of the fans with early access to Starfield, and they recently shared a hidden message paying tribute to a r/Starfield user named Alex Hay. Hay was an independent iOS app developer and fan of Bethesda games who was looking forward to Starfield. Unfortunately, he passed away from lung cancer in March - several months before Starfield’s early access launch. In his honor, Bethesda placed a journal entry at the entrance of The Eye, in which Alex Hay tells anyone who finds it that he will always be with them out in the titular starfield.
Alex Hay’s fellow Reddit users expressed their condolences, with some even promising to name their customizable Starfield spaceships in his memory. In a post before his death, Hay addressed r/Starfield with the somber news that he had been placed in palliative care after ending treatment for his lung cancer. According to him, playing games on his Xbox was a form of escapism in the face of his worsening condition, though he acknowledged that he likely wouldn’t survive long enough to see Starfield’s release.
Alex Hay ultimately didn’t get to play it like he wanted to, but it seems that Bethesda was in contact with him and allowed him to write a heartfelt message that the developers would include in the recently released Starfield. Now any Starfield player who reaches the spaceport known as The Eye can find this message, a fitting tribute to a fellow space explorer who left the real world too soon.
Starfield is available on PC and Xbox Series X.