Starfield Ending Explained

Starfield’s story introduces many mysteries. The overarching quest is to find all artifacts to build the Armillary, this teleports the player to a parallel universe where you are “reborn”. People who went through this process are called “Starborn”.

Let’s go over what happens in the game and how it all connects in the end:

Starfield Ending

After collecting all Artifacts, build the Armillary by interacting with the screen in the cockpit on your spacship. Then power up the Grav Drive and it will automatically teleport you to the entrance of a parallel universe, called “The Infinity”. Here you meet a copy of yourself from an alternate universe, who will talk to you. Step into the infinity to be reborn in a new universe, but you will vanish from your old universe.

At the ending you can see illustrations of your story choices – whether you sided with the Hunter or the Emissary, and how you completed the 4 Faction Questlines (if you ignored all of this there won’t be displays of your decisions).

Upon stepping into the gate of light, you are thrust into a new universe and another story cycle begins in New Game+. You lose everything except your level and skills. You have to collect all Artifacts again (their locations are randomized on each playthrough) to rebuild the Armillary and do another cycle, repeating the same.

Story Synopsis & What it all Means

• At the start of the game you meet “The Constellation”, a guild of explorers who seek to solve the mysteries of the universe. You bring them a mysterious artifact found in a mine.
• They send you to find the other artifacts. When all are combined they turn into a machine called the “Armillary”.
• Later you meet the Starborn called “The Hunter” and “The Emissary”, these are people who are after the artifacts themselves. “Starborn” are people who found all artifacts in their home universe to build the Armillary themselves. This thrust them into other parallel universes, in this case they ended up in yours. They have been repeating this cycle of gathering the artifacts many times and visited many parallel universes. Their hope is that eventually they will reach the center of all universes where creation started and to meet the makers of the artifacts.
• During the dialogue with the clone of yourself, you can ask who created the artifacts, and he will reply that they were made by the “Creators” who created everything. It is indicated that they were made by a higher intelligence or an alien race considered to be the creators of the parallel universe system you are in, which means there must be other parallel universe systems where the creators originated from. Starborns’ best guess is that if you jump through the universe enough times you eventually get to an endpoint and “meet the makers”. But there is no proof of this. The Hunter in particular mentions he has seen many universes but never met the Creators. So as far as we know, it’s an infinite loop and it’s one mystery after another and there is no endpoint that can ever be solved. The game leaves the question open how exactly the artifacts came to be.
• The Hunter reveals that Starborn are attacking people because it’s the most efficient way to get the artifacts (he says it’s faster than negotiating and using diplomatic means). Him and the Emissary mention they have seen you many times in other parallel universes they visited and it’s always a slightly different version of the same events.
• There are other Starborn too and they are all after the same artifacts. Their tradition is that after all artifacts have been picked up by someone, they all meet in a temple and fight each other, the winner takes all and builds to Armillary to move on to the next cycle. You will get to decide whether to ally with the Hunter, the Emissary, or neither. If you ally with one they will aid you on the final mission to fight the other Starborn. If you ally with neither you must fight all of them on your own.
• You never meet an alien race, nor the creators of the Armillary. The Starborn are just normal humans like yourself. Though when they become Starborn and are reborn in a new universe, they always start in a special spaceship, indicating that the Armillary has some built-in intelligence and wants Starborn to keep repeating the cycle.
• The Armillary leads to what the game calls “The Infinity”. It looks sort of like a mini black hole and it’s said that it “it spreads the essence of who you are throughout space and time”. So everything goes in cycles, infinite rebirths without an end.

THE END.

For more Starfield guides check out Starfield Wiki & Strategy Guide.