A conversation about space is never complete without discussing celestial events, the most common of which is the eclipse. As a sci-fi game, how does Starfield treat eclipses? Does it even feature a lunar or solar eclipse at all?
The answers to these questions have been unearthed by not just one but two Reddit users during their enjoyment of Bethesda’s biggest open-world RPG to date.
The first user, Rascar_Capak, captured the entire event on video. He was approaching a planet, which he didn’t specify, and encountered a huge circular shadow covering one side of the planet. After a few seconds, he turned his ship away.
Rascar_Capak posted the video on Reddit, asking if what he witnessed was rare in Starfield.
The second account was posted by Redditor u/d4rkinv4d3r, who posted a capture in Photo Mode of a small moon casting a shadow on its gas-giant planet.
In both cases, other users pointed out that the phenomenon is only visible on a spaceship outside a planet or a moon.
What happens when you’re watching it from the planet? Unfortunately, the Redditors say that no shadow appears to cover that part of the planet that the celestial body has obstructed. Of course, you could still see the planet or moon blotting out the star like in real life.
These “eclipses” prove how Bethesda has thoroughly considered real-life astrophysics. Planets can move out of your sight in real-time as they move around their pre-set orbital patterns, as one streamer found out just days after early access.
Be sure to check out the beta testing phase of Bethesda’s latest patch for Starfield, which will add, among others, native DLSS and frame generation support for PCs with Nvidia GPUs.