Starfield is notorious even among its player base because of its various bugs and glitches. Somebody even made Todd Howard confess through a fake Honest Conference that there is something wrong with the game that even he couldn’t put a finger into.
Some glitches are downright funny, especially the bulging eyes of NPCs that look into the camera unnecessarily during conversations. Others are incredibly terrifying, like fauna attacking NPCs while they are speaking or this shark-like creature that a Reddit user has come across… in dry land.
Interestingly enough, this glitch appeared in the Honest Conference video as well. This must be more common than the Reddit user thought, and it made another participant in the discussion theorize that Starfield devs must be planning to include underwater exploration in a future DLC.
Another user with the handle OhJarnathan pointed out that there were plans for underwater exploration, adding that NPCs can actually swim underwater if you can convince them to do so.
This user also echoed the sentiment that future content might take place under Starfield’s oceans, which occasionally let its fauna spawn for the player to scan.
Unfortunately, no news or official statements from Bethesda confirm at least shelved plans for underwater content to verify these claims.
However, Todd Howard confirmed that they initially planned to incorporate Fallout 3 assets into Starfield, specifically the decimated Washington D.C. from that game. However, he said time constraints made them scrap that plan together with many others.
It’s also worth noting that a player in Charybdis III spotted a Fallout 3 reference. On this planet, you can find a cloning facility with a pod labeled Gary_23, 2277, and V-108.
Howard's pronouncements and the recurring bug that lets aquatic fauna appear on dry land might indicate that the code contains ocean content. All we can do now is wait for a DLC update to prove our hunches are correct.