Starfield vehicles

While Starfield ships are a great way to get around, Starfield vehicles are now the best way to explore a planet’s surface. As of August 20, 2024, the Starfield REV-8 rover (or buggy, if you prefer) is available in-game. The vehicle was shown in its full beauty as part of the Gamescom 2024 trailer below.

What Starfield vehicles are there?

Currently, the only Starfield vehicle available to players is the REV-8 land rover.

The latest trailer and subsequent update demonstrated a high-speed mode of transportation which can be ferried from planet to planet, and used to traverse terrain quickly and easily with the help of thrusters. Of course, this presents some risk if you fall into a canyon or crevasse, but the REV-8 comes equipped with vertical thrusters which enable the player to effectively fly the rover out of small craters and dips.

The REV-8 is a welcome addition to the game for many fans, but no other ground vehicles are currently available. 

Beyond the REV-8, there are no additional vehicles. However, given numerous phrasings in the Starfield settings menu, the initial dialog boxes you get when buying the REV-8, and the unique “garage” that these vehicles live in, it is very likely that additional vehicles will be added in the future.

Almost immediately following the release of the REV-8, fans began assembling new Starfield mods to introduce more vehicles to the game, including a HALO Warthog, a Star Wars Speeder, and more.

Are there Starfield ground vehicles?

The first Starfield vehicle is the REV-8, which operates like a motorized buggy with rocket packs, thrusters, and room for Vasco. Beyond this first vehicle, it is unclear if there are additional ground vehicles that the player will be able to build, customize, and drive in a future Starfield update.

Previous footage in one particular Starfield trailer showed tire marks leading away from the Starfield ship’s cargo bay. This evidence was all fans had that Starfield land vehicles might be in the game at launch, except for some old concept art of a Lunar Rover-type vehicle. However, now reviewing that footage, it’s likely that Bethesda had planned ground vehicles from the beginning, and that players will use a new ship component to transport the rover from one world to another.

Ground vehicles in Starfield represent the first time Bethesda has ever included them, unless you count the horses that were included in The Elder Scrolls series.

It’s believed that Bethesda haven’t included vehicles in previous games due to the technology available at the time, with fast-moving transport leaving the game world struggling to load in time for your arrival. However, with Starfield’s many loading screens, it may be that the previous limitation has been removed.

Are there Starfield air vehicles?

At present, you can land anywhere on a planet, but there isn’t atmospheric flying. Taking off and landing just to move forwards a few kilometers is a bit bulky, so the introduction of an in-atmosphere vehicle, even with the border limits that exist on any procedurally-generated world, could be a great mechanic for Bethesda to introduce. A small jet or hovercraft would make the initial exploration of a planet much easier. However, as Bethesda have yet to explicitly confirm the presence of land vehicles, it may be some time until we see anything like the Vertibird air transport system from Fallout 4.

Starfield water vehicles

Numerous Starfield planets like the one hosting the Starfield city of Neon are largely aquatic. Previous Bethesda titles have included rivers, lakes, and oceans, but they’ve always been left by the wayside compared to their on-land counterparts. Fallout fans in particular know that large bodies of water are fatal to explore without the proper armor or skills, and are usually featureless or contain cut-content.

At Starfield’s release, it was soon discovered that Bethesda addressed the swimming issue in Starfield by simply disabling it, preventing players from going beneath the water’s surface without some Starfield console commands. It is also a well-known fact within the Starfield data-mining community that there exists a considerable amount of cut content that would have populated underwater regions.

So, it stands to reason that, with the overall ship mechanic existing in the base game, that boats and submarines are possible on the Creation Engine 2. Of course, whether Bethesda choose to introduce such a vehicle, either in an upcoming update or in some Starfield DLC remains to be seen. If we’re lucky, a talented member of the Starfield modding community will find a way to make this reality possible, restore the cut content, and introduce a host of vehicles to make exploration in Starfield much smoother than many players have thus far found it.

Previous Starfield vehicle leaks and teases

The feature was teased in the 1.11.33 update announced on May 1, 2024. Footage was shown of a developer playing an unknown build of the game in which a rover was seen. Though the footage was blurry, you can see a distinct land vehicle at the 4:43 mark in the video below.

Previously, vehicles were speculated to be available from launch as a means of exploring planets quickly and easily. To the lament of many players, vehicles were not included in the game at launch, with Todd Howard stating that the Starfield boost pack was your closest equivalent to a ‘vehicle.’

However, in December 2023, the official Bethesda Starfield Reddit account commented on a thread that “new ways of traveling” were in the works, and that this update could be seen as early as the New Year, 2024. This almost certainly alluded to the now live REV-8 vehicle which is similar to the NASA Luna Rover if you strapped weapons to it.

On July 25, a never-before-seen screenshot of a Starfield buggy was published to 4chan forums. The alleged “leaker” made numerous claims about vehicles, including the fact that they were due to have color customization options, two variants, onboard weapons, and many other features that had not been discussed by Bethesda or Todd Howard in any pre-existing interview.

Interestingly, the details in the leak proved true, though whether this was coincidence or not remains to be seen.

Of course, the most important Starfield vehicles are the ships that carry you across the galaxy. Fortunately, we’ve got plenty of guides on that topic, from an introduction to Starfield ships to deeper dives on Starfield ship types, Starfield ship manufacturers, and Starfield ship customization. Each of those gives you a better idea of how to get a ship, upgrade it, and the best possible parts to use.