Starfield Players Are Already Filling Up Their Ships With Random Junk [Update: Potatoes]

I did not expect Starfield to have so many useless items lying about that I could pick up and do absolutely nothing with. A few hours into the sprawling sci-fi blockbuster and my first ship is already full of junk I’m just dumping on the floor, unsure where to place it, and apparently I’m not alone. Starfield players just can’t stop themselves from turning their space wings into portable junkyards.

If you think I’m the galaxy’s only Michael Scott driving around in a dumpster’s worth of fish filet wrappers, you’re wrong. One of the biggest posts on the Starfield subreddit right now is user swampyswede sharing a money shot of their space load. “Just because you can pick it up, doesn’t mean you should,” reads the first comment. “Succulent farmer should be a side quest. I would be on the leaderboard,” swampyswede wrote back. Other Starfield players confess to filling their ships up with foam cups, spoons, plushies, and more.

Thirty years of playing video games have taught me that if you can press a button to grab a thing and add it to your inventory you should definitely always do that. Space bases in Starfield are full of notepads, glass vials, cutlery, and all manner of found objects that you can take with you. None of it does anything, and as far as I can tell you can’t even scrap it for crafting materials like you could in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.

All you can do is sell it, which the game incentivizes you to do by displaying tantalizingly inflated prices next to each item description. There are just two problems with this. Becoming a NASA-punk pawn star requires 1) finding a place to actually sell the stuff with no real map and 2) transporting it there with a laughably low encumbrance threshold (carry too much stuff around in Starfield and your lungs will fill with CO2 until you die).

But Starfield does give every player a ship right at the start, and you can dump all your crap on the ground in it and it will…just stay there. Succulents, sandwiches, shotguns—you name it. Is there a cargo hold you can stow stuff in? 100 percent. Did I figure out how to use it? Not for several hours. And even now it’s so much faster and simpler just to toss new things on the existing pile.

Space hoarding can be quite lucrative if you stick with it though. Some players are already dreaming of paying off their first house (though you can start with one and a big loan if you choose the Dream Home perk during initial character creation). But me, personally? I’m kind of in love with my little trash mound and don’t know that I’d be willing to part with it. Go explore the great unknown they said! I got the great unknown pile of crap right here baby.

Update 9/5/2023 11:28 a.m. ET: Junkyard ships were apparently only the beginning. One enterprising Starfield player loaded up their entire cockpit with potatoes. It’s incredibly to behold and terrifying to ponder, just like the cosmos themselves. I can’t believe the game didn’t break:

Behold 2023’s Game of the Year: Spudfield.