PSA: Play Starfield’s campaign before doing side quests

polygon.com:

Bethesda games typically open with a big bang, so it’s ironic — and potentially off-putting — that the studio’s first game in literal space does not. Know that Starfield does eventually get its explosive narrative moment. You’ll just need to get through a few campaign missions first.

Compared to the intros of Skyrim (dragon immolates a small village) and Fallout 4 (humanity immolates Earth), the opening hours of Starfield are almost offensively low-key. You’re cast as a space miner, and you spend time doing menial space miner things: wandering around a cave, pointing a laser at a rock, fighting off some space pirates. You might get aspirations of striking out on your own, seeing what wonders the galaxy holds. Don’t. If anything, prioritize the campaign — at least for the first few missions.

After completing the initial two missions, you get three missions at once: “Back to Vectera,” “The Empty Nest,” and “Into the Unknown.” You can tackle them in any order, but I’d suggest going with the latter. I hit “Into the Unknown” second, and dawdled my way to it, not starting the quest until roughly 20 hours into the game. Knowing what I know now, I’d have made it my top priority to complete “Into the Unknown” as soon as I could. That’s when you get a chance to see what Starfield is all about.

That is, in other words, when the Cool Shit happens.

[Ed. note: Spoilers follow for Starfield.]

Just so we’re on the same page here: You get space superpowers. Yes! Space! Superpowers!

“Into the Unknown” tasks you with investigating a gravitational anomaly in a temple on an uncharted exoplanet. You solve a brief environmental puzzle by flying around with your jetpack (sorry, “boostpack”). And then you get the ability to create a localized