Starfield might be Bethesda’s newest RPG but the company is still using some of their old tricks to keep things interesting. Players who get caught doing crimes and go to jail will get actually punished by taking away players’ hard-earned XP.
A fan on the game’s subreddit confirmed that those who go to jail will get negative XP when released. This means that they won’t be able to level up until the negative XP turns back into regular XP. So if players get negative 100 XP, they have to “gain” 100 XP to remove the negative.
If jail punishments sound familiar, that’s because Bethesda’s Oblivion actually punished players for going to jail as well. When players get out of jail in Oblivion, they get decreased stats and must level up to increase them again.
Hearing about these jail penalties is amusing since the Starfield developers did say that they encourage fans to commit crimes in the game. That being said, they also told fans not to get caught when doing these crimes and now we know why.
Referencing Oblivion is actually worth noting, as Xbox boss Phil Spencer said Starfield was more like Oblivion than Skyrim. Now we know why, as the penalties for jail time are only one of the ways Starfield is similar to the Bethesda classic. Annoyingly, that one Oblivion NPC is also in the game because he had to be referenced.
Granted, it’s not all Oblivion references as the company does mention the infamous Skyrim meme. The game also has a number of bugs since it is a Bethesda game and most fans have learned to live with that fact.
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Starfield is now available if players purchase the Early Access edition. Most players will be able to get the RPG on September 6 for Xbox Series and PC.