Starfield: Our #1 Top Tip For New Players 1
Image: Pure Xbox

Starfield's early access period rumbles on, and one issue that the game's first players have been fairly vocal about so far is feeling a bit rudderless and unenthused in the first 10 to 12 hours of the epic campaign.

It's kinda understandable really - this is a huge RPG, easily Bethesda's biggest, and with all the freedom that entails you can end up getting more than a little lost and bogged down in doing the wrong things to make the most of your early adventure. However, in the opening few hours of the game there is one specific mission you can undertake that we reckon helps to side-step those creeping early feelings of a slight lack of focus.

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Starfield: Our #1 Top Tip For The Early Game

So, what is this magical mission then? Well, as soon as you find yourself in New Atlantis, the capital city of the planet Jemison and one of your first ports of call in the game, you should make a beeline for the MAST Headquarters in the centre and head into the main lobby. From the front desk hang an immediate left to find the UC Vanguard recruitment desk.

Speak to Commander Tulsa here and you can choose to begin your enrollment into this faction - the very first you'll encounter in Starfield. Don't worry too much about getting bogged down in the Vanguard's ethics or moral standing, you won't become a full member right away, and signing up brings with it some benefits that really help ground you in the game.

Benefits Of Joining The UC Vanguard Early

The benefits, obviously, consist of a bunch of pretty cool side missions that get you kicked off properly into some monster mashing and exploration, but the most crucial element here is a walk through a museum area in the UC Vanguard training area of MAST HQ that acts as a great way to learn about the universe you're about to explore.

We hit the Vanguard training area to get our licence via the space combat training simulators down here - another great bonus as they'll teach you all the ropes to becoming successful in dogfights - and emerged with a working knowledge of Starfield's history, its politics, great wars of the past, various factions and where the galaxy stands as things are right now.

It gives a huge boost to your sense of being grounded in the mythos and conversations and events that are being talked about make a hell of a lot more sense as a result. It's totally optional whether or not you choose to join the UC Vanguard early on, and you can drop the whole thing once you've investigated the museum's history lessons, but we 100% thoroughly recommend making this a very early port of call in order to relax into the game's fantastic narrative.

All of a sudden you'll feel a little more knowledgeable in conversations, and in the decisions you're asked to make as you deal with various parties, and that makes the opening hours of this epic feel all the more personal and immediate!