Mastering the Skills in Starfield: A Comprehensive Breakdown

The pressure on Starfield's success as Xbox's next big first-party title and Bethesda's opportunity for the limelight is undeniable. However, the recent Starfield deep-dive has left fans feeling positive about the game's future. Despite past skepticism towards Bethesda's hyped-up language in trailers for Fallout 76 and Fallout 4, the 45-minute overview of Starfield showcased a good portion of the game's new features, including ship combat, character creation, ground combat, open-world exploration, dialogue options, and more. Of all the game's core systems, the skill system stands out as a classic Bethesda feature that has been greatly improved upon.

How Starfield's Skill System Works

In Starfield, players will begin their journey by creating a unique character using Bethesda's advanced character creator. Once they have crafted their appearance to perfection, players can choose a background that will provide their character with a foundation for their adventure. These backgrounds will influence how NPCs perceive and interact with the player, creating a personalized and immersive experience. For example, selecting the Beast Hunter background could lead to missions focused on hunting alien creatures.

However, the most significant aspect of choosing a background in Starfield is the three skill points that are granted in relation to the selected origin. These skills will provide a boost to the player's abilities and assist them in the game. Additionally, players will receive a skill point for each level-up, allowing them to further customize their character's skills. The game features five distinct skill trees, including Physical, Social, Combat, Science, and Tech, each containing 15 unique skills that offer players new abilities and traits to explore.

Upon unlocking a skill in Starfield, players can now access its unique upgrade path through the Rank system. This linear path allows players to increase the skill's effectiveness in a significant way. As an example, the Intimidation skill's base version can make enemy NPCs flee if they are lower level than the player. However, reaching Rank 2 on the Intimidation tree will allow the player to intimidate a target NPC up to 10 levels higher than them, making it a powerful tool to use in battles.

To level up a skill in Starfield, players must complete a specific in-game challenge. For instance, to level up the Intimidation skill, players must eliminate a certain number of enemies in combat. For the Security skill, which enables players to hack advanced locks, players need to pick a specific number of locks to unlock its subsequent Ranks. With four individual Ranks for each skill, players have an abundance of challenges to complete, offering ample rewards to strive for.

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