Devastating Starfield Fail Sees Player Losing Loot in Silly Way

Highlights

Starfield player shares a funny fail where pirates clip through a spaceship loading bay, preventing the player from looting their bodies. The clip of the glitch gains attention on the Starfield subreddit, with fans calling it a “classic” Bethesda bug. Despite the glitch, early player impressions suggest that Starfield is less buggy compared to previous Bethesda games, with potential patches in the works.

One Starfield player has recently taken online to share a humorous fail that saw them lose out on some loot in a rather silly fashion. While the spacefaring RPG is officially releasing on September 5, gamers who bought one of its higher-tier editions have been able to play Starfield early since September 1.

Bethesda Game Studios’ titles historically had somewhat buggy launches, as tends to be the case with ambitious open-world RPGs. Nevertheless, the company was looking to end that unenviable track record with its latest project, with Xbox Game Studios Head Matt Booty recently suggesting as much by promising that Starfield will have the fewest bugs of any Bethesda game ever.

Some technical issues still made their way to the early access version of Starfield, as recently discovered by Reddit user thedemonsoul; while following the game’s main quest on Kreet, an Anselon moon in the Narion system, this player stumbled upon three pirates who managed to clip through a spaceship loading bay. Since the group was clustered together as a result, the fan decided to dispatch them with a single well-placed grenade, but they didn’t get to looting their bodies because the ship immediately took off with the corpses still stuck head-first in its hull.

The footage of this silly scene hit the front page of the Starfield subreddit during the game’s first any only early access weekend, prompting dozens of highly entertained responses. Most of the reactions to the clip expressed amazement at this turn of events, labeling it as a “classic” and even “all-time great Bethesda bug.” One fan likened the glitch to a well-known phenomenon that allowed Skyrim giants to send players and enemies flying because of how the game’s engine converted excess damage on fatal hits into force.

It remains to be seen whether the issue of NPCs clipping into objects ends up high on Bethesda’s list of priority bug fixes for its latest title. The early access version of Starfield already received one comprehensive update before the game was even out, addressing a wide variety of technical issues with the RPG. The studio’s support track record suggests that another such patch might be planned to launch in the coming days, not least because all of its games since Skyrim received two updates each within weeks of hitting the market.

Irrespective of some silly glitches, early player impressions indicate that Starfield’s launch is indeed less buggy compared to a typical Bethesda game. And as the online reactions to this newly shared fail illustrate, some players aren’t opposed to harmless bugs and even consider them to be an inherent—if not integral—part the Bethesda experience.

Starfield launches September 6 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.