Is Starfield secretly Fallout 5?

 Probably definitely not

The closer the inch towards the release date of Starfield, the more everyone can settle into the reality that we're not getting Fallout or Elder Scrolls anytime soon and this is going to be the Bethesda open world that will hopefully keep us entertained in that time, or at least entertained enough that we don't have to go back to Skyrim for the next five years. (And that's being optimistic!) But what if we don't have to go without our classic Bethesda games for another development cycle? What if, and bare with me here, what if Starfield is secretly set within the same canon as the Fallout games which in itself is set in the same canon as Elder Scrolls? Okay, I made up that last bit- Fallout and Elder Scrolls aren't seriously connected- but there's some rumbling debate about Starfield's potential canonicity as a side story to the Fallout storyline.

First off, Bethesda have of course not commented one way or another and any information derived towards this theory has been extracted from reveal events over the years. Which means that the 40 minute Starfield reveal footage is pretty much the holy grail of crack pot conspiracy fodder through which we can delve into the idea of these two linked universes. And, of course, Bethesda themselves have expressed how Starfield is a game that prioritises the ideals of exploration above all else- which is why they have no interest with us dropping down to walk the streets of Earth when there are dozens of unexplored solar systems to chart. Of course, that's what they're saying publicly so that we have no reason to expect exploring Earth- but we know that the birthplace of man is going to be a planet within the Gameworld, so why can't we go back home?

Games like Elite Dangerous, which also depict expanding out into the vast stars, often bring us down to reality by making it within the lore that Earth travel is forbidden. Maybe you need a special unobtainable pass in order to enter the same 'space ways' as the Sol System, or perhaps there's simply no landing permit that will permit you to go to earth when you, Human Spectre man, are supposed to be chasing a mystery across the vast depths of the outer reaches. But it seems strange for anywhere in a Bethesda game to present a location within the borders of the world that simply- can't be reached. Almost as if there's something to hide there- but what could that possibly be? Well, eagle eyed viewers have spotted what may or may not be a smoking gun in that regard.

During one of the gameplay snippets we actually do get ourselves a look at good ol' Sol and, lo and behold, it actually looks as though the third rock from the sun is a bit more poorly than we remember it. The blue pearl is looking a lot more sickly yellow, in fact the place looks desiccated compared to the earth we know today, possibly telling of some sort of vast shift to the ecological balance that has left the seas dried up and Earth a husk of itself. Is that the secret that Bethesda have been hiding? Is the journey to scan the stars really also a search for a new home for the recently orphaned human race to belong in? Or maybe even looping back around to Bethesda's routes, could the mystery perhaps be about searching for some mystical alien tools that might be able to terraform Earth back to it's former glory? Thankfully there's precious little leaked information to definitively answer such hypotheticals, but it's food for thought.

And how does this tie around to Fallout? Well, obviously the Fallout version of the plant Earth is similarly desiccated after a total global nuclear saturation that wiped out the majority of the world's population. Whether you believe the technically non-canonical alien theory or not, it is somewhat well established that some form of space-faring ability was owned by the pre-war civilisations of Fallout, how else can we account for records that wars were fought on the Moon... for some, as of yet undisclosed, reason. Could it be possible that perhaps colonies shot off from Earth decades before things started to unravel and became self sufficient in the stars- such that when all the world destroyed itself humanities homeworld moved to be New Atlantis instead?

Starfield takes place in 2330 and the latest Fallout game we have (4) takes place in 2287, so the games are far enough removed we can expect a little variation from one depiction of the Earth to another. Still, from the glimpse we see of Starfield's Earth that little ball does look like a totally browned-out dustball- so are we really buying that somehow over the next fifty years of Fallout those idiots find some way to destroy all the remaining oceans on the planet and totally kill themselves off? How, they already used all their nukes! I always thought that the only way Earth would be wiped clean in the Fallout universe would be if someone built some sort of Super G.E.C.K with a wake that would span the entire planet. But the problem with that is the G.E.C.K would have left Earth looking excessively green, not this dire-brown mud ball.

Alternative to this theory could be the idea that what we're seeing of the Earth is merely being caught in bad lighting, underpinning a totally normal Earth, or what I suspect is more likely the case- Earth has undergone a totally separate apocalypse to what the Fallout's version of Earth endured. From everything we've seen it seems totally feasible that Starfield's Earth is ground zero to a more ecological disaster caused by global warming, rather than a sudden blasting end to everything. That would also better suit the general thematic emotional range that Starfield has been trying to put off, as a new age restart of advanced society struck by a new age of exploration that may go some way to right the failures of the past.

Either way there's inevitably going to be some sort of crossover from one world to another, because such an opportunity is probably just too irresistible within the Bethesda offices. Heck, we're already getting a resurrection of the Adoring Fan- I fully expect there'll be some sort of Nirnroot ringing on some distant forest planet deep into the stars. But keeping each franchise fundamentally separate is good to the health of all of them, as the various genres, styles and stories of Bethesda games are rich and diverse enough to deserve their own universe; these aren't Ubisoft games we're talking about here. Besides, if this is a Fallout sequel franchise, then that would make for a very grim portent to all the hopeful society rebuilding efforts we see in the modern Fallout games, eh?