Starfield Trailer Easter Egg Hints At Fallout Crossover

Space, the final frontier - well, it is for Bethesda, anyway. The acclaimed developer behind the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games is boldly going where everyone has gone before, and is reaching for the stars with Starfield. Now, a sneaky Easter egg has hinted at a sneaky crossover with Fallout. 

Bethesda games have always been massive, and whether it's exploring the Wasteland in Fallout 4 or Tamriel in Skyrim, they only seem to be getting bigger. Yeah, good luck imagining how big The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be. Set around the year 2310, Starfield has the usual Bethesda arc of you picking a side between various warring factions, except this time... it's in space.

Is Starfield Set In The Same World As Fallout?

Although Starfield was pitched as one of this year's big games, we all know it didn't pan out that way. Joining the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 and Bethesda's fellow Redfall, we now know it will debut in the first half of 2023. As a release date looms, we still know relatively little about Starfield, meaning fans are poring over every tiny detail in the game's marketing.

After Bethesda debuted 15 minutes of Starfield gameplay, redditor u/Private_Milkman (via PCGamesN) noticed a potential connection between the upcoming game, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 76. It turns out, it all has to do with little green men. It's a complicated bit of Fallout history, but basically, an enemy form called the Floater appeared in the first two Fallout games, Fallout 76, and was cut from New Vegas (but remains in the datafiles). 

Floaters are basically mutated versions of flatworms that look a bit like Drifloon from the Pokemon franchise. The OP notes that the "Diseased Metropus Floater" seen in Starfield bares an uncanny resemblance to the standard Floater - and even attacks in a similar style. They ask, "If this is canon with Fallout, does this mean Floaters come from space, or is this earth?" It's raised some interesting canon questions.

Are All Bethesda Games Connected?

Not everyone was convinced by the connection though. One redditor responded, "They're different universes, and we have no reason to think they're connected," while another added, "Floaters in Fallout are mutants in another universe compared to Starfield. These are similar (you just know they share AI and movement sets) creatures in space but called Floaters because it's a good name for them."

Someone else suggested a clever idea of having a mission in Starfield where you obtain a "looking glass" to peer into an alternate version of Earth that was destroyed by bombs. Fallout 4 was set in the year 2287, and even if not everyone is sold on Starfield effectively being a sequel to this, we at least know the Wasteland is connected to Skyrim in some way. 

Fallout 4 includes an experimental plant called NRT-0001, which is the same as the addictive Nirnroot from The Elder Scrolls. Elsewhere, we've seen a Dragonborn helmet sticker, Lorenzo Cabot has an Oblivion crown, and there's the pretty major fact that Fallout 4 cut a whole quest that would've used Elder Scrolls magic. 

Debunking the whole thing, Bethesda has previously said that its games aren't set in the same world. Then again, things change. Imagine that Skyrim is some distant version of Earth that's been so ravaged by radiation, your humble house cat has been mutated in the Khajiit. Even if they aren't connected, there are sure to be a tonne of Fallout Easter eggs in Starfield, and to be honest, we're hoping that New Vegas' Mr. House has evolved into some sort of HAL-inspired AI that's set on murdering a crew of explorers.