Players Discover That Starfield Has Solar Eclipses In-Game

Over the past week, players have been discovering a bunch of amazing details in Starfield. One of the coolest among them was found by Reddit user UsernameIWontRegret. As they were traversing the cosmos in Bethesda’s expansive RPG, they noticed a neat little detail that not a lot of players have come across yet: a solar eclipse. The player almost thought they had encountered a visual glitch at first.

I thought my graphics were glitching out, then I realized it was a solar eclipse!
byu/UsernameIWontRegret inStarfield

It is not hard to see why the player might have felt like their game was glitching out at first. The large dark spot on the planet’s surface looks like the lighting in the area is not properly rendering, at first. But upon further inspection, it becomes clear that this is the shadow of a celestial body that is close by. Considering how small of a detail it is, most players might not even notice it exists during their playthrough.

Despite this, fans on Starfield’s subreddit were ecstatic to see the sheer amount of neat details it has to offer. Another player mentioned that one of their favorite details in the game is how the celestial bodies are always in orbit. That’s in sharp contrast to No Man’s Sky, where the sun is really just a point of light in the skybox. In Starfield, the planets and moons actually have their own orbits they move in, based on a sped-up calculation.

Unfortunately, for all its neat details, Starfield does have its fair share of limitations too. As of yet, the game does not offer players the ability to seamlessly land on surfaces while in space. Even if you were to choose to land on the planet and see the solar eclipse from the surface level, you would likely miss it. This is because of the drastic changes that appear in the locations of the celestial bodies when you fast travel. 

Additionally, a player noted how once they were directly behind a planet facing its respective star. The space around them was almost entirely black since there was no light. This made their journey through the asteroid field quite difficult because of the limited visibility. Fans have been enjoying the game’s great attention to detail, with it crossing 6 million players worldwide recently.