Bethesda’s titles are known for tapping into horror, which makes for a more interesting game world.The Elder Scrollsseries has its fair share of spooky quests, while theFalloutseries has been leaning into cosmic horror more and more heavily with each passing release. That said,Starfieldcould benefit from the same treatment.
Starfieldis set in the vast outer space, meaning there are plenty of new planets, settlements, and intergalactic races for players to encounter. It’s also the perfect setting to hide a couple of incomprehensible horrors.
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Cosmic Horror in The Elder Scrolls Series
The Elder Scrollsseries is primarily known for its fun, open-world gameplay set in a fantasy world. The titles come with a whole slew of quests, from the main campaign to multiple faction questlines, and then dozens more side quests. Some of those quests dive into spooky, oftentimes macabre territory. For instance, “Blood on Ice” and “The House of Horrors” are justtwo ofSkyrim’s scariest quests. However, they don’t exactly fall under the category of cosmic horror.
The most notablereference to cosmic horror inThe Elder Scrollsseries comes fromOblivion, specifically the settlement known as Hackdirt. In the quest, “A Shadow Over Hackdirt,” the player must save an Argonian woman from the strange village, only to find that its townspeople are engaging in human sacrifices for their mysterious masters, the “Deep Ones.” After saving the Argonian, there’s not much else to be found about the so-called Deep Ones. However, many in the community have pointed out that this quest is very similar to H. P. Lovecraft’s novellaThe Shadow over Innsmouth. So, that’s a clear connection to cosmic horror.
Skyrimdoesn’t have a quest that directly references Lovecraft, but it does feature a key character that could be categorized under the cosmic horror category – the Daedric Prince, Hermaeus Mora. In the quest “Discerning the Transmundane,”Skyrimshowcases just how powerful the Daedric Prince’s knowledgecan be as simply reading their Oghma Infinium – a Daedric artifact – causes an NPC to disintegrate. Moreover, the entirety of Apocrypha, which is Hermaeus Mora’s realm ofOblivion, oozes cosmic horror as the area takes shape as a huge library holding esoteric knowledge.
Cosmic Horror in the Fallout Series
Of Bethesda’s two most popular IPs,Fallouttends to lean into cosmic horrormore.Fallout 3started the trend with the chilling story of the Dunwich Building. However,Fallout 4doubled down on the fear factor, introducing more areas and questlines that were inspired by Lovecraft’s brand of cosmic horror.
Thecreepiest area inFallout 4is, of course, the Dunwich Borers, a quarry owned by the people from the Dunwich Building. Hiding in its subterranean caverns is a terrifying story involving human sacrifice and some sort of god, laying dormant just underneath the rubble. That god is likely Ug-Qualtoth, who was given a name inFallout 3.Aside from this, there’s also the Pickman Gallery and the Cabot family questline, both of which reference different works by Lovecraft.
EvenFallout 76carries on with this trend, particularly with its inclusion of a creature known as The Interloper, which also happens to be connected to the Cult of the Mothman. The stories surrounding these entities are more obvious in their cosmic horror inspirations as a relevant NPC talks of their “unknowable horrors” and how even he must become a “conduit of the unknowable.” And that’s only one of thescary things inFallout 76.
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Cosmic Horror in the World of Starfield
Given that Bethesda is sprinkling cosmic horrors into its most recent games, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that the company intends to dothe same forStarfield. After all, the game’s intergalactic world is a prime setting for such inclusions. It also gives the developer more room to innovate its methods of introducing these cosmic horrors.
PerhapsStarfieldcould even hint that theterrifying creatures fromThe Elder ScrollsandFalloutexist across universes. For instance, some fans in the community believe that Ug-Qualtoth and Hermaeus Mora are the same entity. This is because Ug-Qualtoth is often compared to a being known as Yog-Sothoth in the Lovecraftian mythos. And despite having multiple forms, Yog-Sothoth is commonly known to appear as a mass of glowing orbs, eyes, and tendrils. That sounds an awful lot like how Hermaeus Mora is presented inThe Elder Scrolls.
Starfieldcould play a part in connecting these two entities by including a variant of Hermaeus Mora/Ug-Qualtoth somewhere in its game world. If anything, the intergalactic setting is the perfect place to do this as Yog-Sothoth is described as an “Outer God” or, in other words, a cosmic entity residing beyond the confines of Earth. More specifically, Yog-Sothoth is believed to reside outside the universe. These ideas alone would make foran interestingStarfieldquestwherein the player has to journey to the furthest reaches of the game map – only to find an unspeakable horror waiting at the edge of the universe.
However, a creature tied to Hermaeus Mora/Ug-Qualtoth doesn’t have to be where the cosmic horrors end. Bethesda can also implement gargantuan beasts similar to theAnglerfish of theOuter Wilds. Doing so would certainly make for more interesting space exploration. Plus, it gives players a sense of just how small they are in the vast, vast galaxy.
Finally, players can probably expect more quests thatdirectly reference Lovecraft’s short stories. The exact stories, however, will only be revealed once the game is released. One potential reference could beAt the Mountains of Madness, which tells of an expedition into a snowy land that very quickly becomes dangerous when those involved begin to discover strange, prehistoric specimens and even stranger architecture buried beneath the frost. Another option would beThe Shadow Out of Time, which involves a strange alien race that can travel through space and time. These are just some of the many ways Bethesda can incorporate cosmic horror into its upcoming IP.
Starfieldreleases in 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
