What are Starfield missions? Blasting off across the solar system is an exciting prospect, but you might be wondering what quests await you in the big black yonder. Well, rather a lot as it happens, and the Settled Systems are chock-full with all manner of missions and side-quests to complete. Aside from the main story, you can become embroiled in large-scale political conflict, battle space pirates, or even make a friend. We’ve compiled a list of Starfield missions just to make sense of it all.
Starfield missions take eager spacefarers on a grand exploration of over 1,000 Starfield planets. According to lead quest designer Will Shen, the Starfield’s galactic scale and procedural generation necessitated a new approach to designing Starfield quests, which often begin in “a dynamically placed settlement that takes you to a dynamically placed dungeon as you’re walking through the planet.” With main quests, countless side quests, and more, here are all of the Starfield missions to keep you busy in space, no matter which way you play.
Starfield mission types
Starfield missions are split into different types, each serving a distinct purpose. Aside from the prospect of a good story, you can expect each mission to reward you with experience, loot, and credits.
Here are the Starfield mission types:
- Main quest
- Side quest
- Companion quest
- Faction quest
- Radiant quest
All Starfield missions
Starfield main quests
Starfield’s main quest line features 19 missions. Here are all the Starfield main missions in order:
- One Small Step
- The Old Neighborhood
- The Empty Nest
- Back to Vectera
- Into the Unknown
- All That Money Can Buy
- Starborn
- Further Into the Unknown
- Short Sighted
- No Sudden Moves
- High Price to Pray
- Unity
- Missed Beyond Measure
- In Their Footsteps
- Unearthed
- Final Glimpses
- Entangled
- Revelation
- One Giant Leap
The main questline kicks off with a very simple premise: after a close encounter with a small fragment of an alien artifact, we are shepherded off to the Starfield Constellation faction– the last bastion of space explorers and adventurers – to discover its remote origins. From there, it’s up to you whether to follow the main quest line, pick up side quests, or both, choose which factions to join and which to reject, or simply explore the planetary systems around you.
Alongside the main Starfield quests, there are missions in which you can recruit Starfield companions, and others that introduce some of the other major Starfield factions in the game. If these Starfield mission types pique your interest, be sure to brush up on the Starfield persuasion points system so you can successfully flex your influence.
Starfield companion missions
There are a total of four Starfield companions – the romanceable NPCs as opposed to those who can join your crew – and each has their own quest to complete if you choose them. The four Starfield companions missions are as follows:
- Andreja – Divided Loyalties
- Barrett – Breach of Contract
- Sam Coe – Matters of the Hart
- Sarah Morgan – In Memoriam
Starfield faction missions
Faction missions must be completed in a linear order, but you are able to join each faction in whichever order you wish. In the video above, Shen confirms that we can “play through all the faction lines independently of each other”, though the outcome of these Starfield quests will depend upon the choices you make. Equally, companions can influence your choices by offering alternative points of view and can speak for you during missions to change the outcome.
These are all of the Crimson Fleet Starfield faction missions in order:
- Deep Cover
- Rook Meets King
- Burden of Proof
- Echoes of the Past
- Breaking the Bank
- The Best There is
- Absolute Power
- Eye of the Storm
- Legacy’s End
Here are the Freestar Collective faction missions in order:
- Job Gone Wrong
- Deputized
- Where Hope is Built
- Shadows in Neon
- Surgical Strike
- On the Run
- First to Fight, First to Die
- The Hammer Falls
The Ryujin Industries faction missions in order are:
- Back to the Grind
- One Step Ahead
- A New Narrative
- Access is Key
- Sowing Discord
- Accidents Happen
- Maintaining the Edge
- Top Secrets
- Background Checks
- Guilty Parties
- The Key Ingredient
- Sabotage
- Executive Level
All faction missions for United Colonies in order are as follows:
- Supra Et Ultra
- Grunt Work
- Delivering Devils
- Eyewitness
- Friends Like These
- The Devils you Know
- War Relics
- Hostile Intelligence
- A Legacy Forged
Finally, the open-world game is populated with a variety of one-off side missions offered by minor NPCs in Starfield cities, or even out in the wilds of remote planets. While they may be optional, we know from experience that Bethesda’s side-quests can often overshadow the main story in terms of their depth and quality. Just be sure to equip your best Starfield guns and Starfield armor – after all, you never know where these random encounters may lead.
Starfield side missions and activities
Here are all the Starfield side missions we’ve found so far:
- A Tree Grows in New Atlantis
- The Akila Run – Mr Sood wants us to smuggle a package into Akila City for Tom Starrett.
- All For One
- Alternating Currents
- The Audition
- Bare Metal
- Beautiful Secrets
- The Best There Is
- Burden of Proof – Jillian Toft on the UC Vigilance wants us to find and bring back evidence about the Crimson Fleet’s illegal activities.
- Captain’s Bounty – Adella Faheem is eluding her tracker in HopeTown
- Charity of the Wolf
- Distilling Confidence
- Echoes of the Past – Gather information at the Key on Suvorov for Commander Ikande.
- Failure to Communicate – Alban Lopez is sending a distress call asking for help.
- Final Thoughts – Hand a poignant voice log over to Claire Mensah in New Atlantis.
- First Contact
- Fishy Business
- Friends Like These
- Groundpounder – There is Spacer activity in the Altair system, as well as an urgent distress call.
- The Kindness of Strangers
- Late Bloomer
- Loose Ends
- Mantis – A dead Spacer had a note about a secret outpost on Denebola I-b.
- Media Sponge
- Out on a Limb
- Power From Beyond – This has a main quest icon but actually categorized in-game as a misc quest since it’s related to collecting artifacts, and collecting them all is not required to complete the story.
- Red Tape Blues
- Red Tape Runaround
- Red Tape Reclamation
- Supply Line
- Tapping the Grid – Collect from Louisa Reyez in the Well on New Atlantis. Note that you may need to find a guard in the landing area to trigger her appearance.
- Taste of Home
Side missions can be picked up on most major planets, with random NPCs dotted around in the most unexpected places, so we’re unlikely to ever uncover them all – or at least not for some time. To find the rarest of side missions, simply explore every nook and cranny of the universe, and perhaps you’ll be the first to discover something new.
That’s everything we know about Starfield missions, so while you’re working your way through them, be sure to take a look at our primers to Starfield ship design and Starfield base building to help you explore distant planets, as well as the Starfield research projects that can provide Starfield food and other essential items for your journey.
Still looking for more? While a good Starfield wiki can be a handy source of information, our new Starfield Database goes further, offering you daily news, searchable databanks, and even interactive tools.