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If there is one feature Starfield promotes the most, it’s freedom. But do you have the freedom to be a pacifist if you want to? Not many RPGs, even choice-heavy ones, give you the option to avoid killing people in the game. If you want to know if you can do this in Starfield, you’re in the right place.
To rip the bandaid right off, no, you can’t 100% be a pacifist in Starfield. There are a few quests in the game, including some main story ones, that require you to eliminate someone from the galaxy. Unless you avoid doing these missions, you’ll have to kill someone at some point in the story. That said, outside of these few missions, you are surprisingly free to avoid violence in most instances in Bethesda’s space RPG.
How to Avoid Killing People in Starfield
There are many missions in Starfield where you don’t have to kill someone, contrary to what the quest might tell you. For instance, you might get a quest where you have to kill someone and collect a debt or item from them. Oftentimes, you’ll have the chance to convince that person to pay up their debt or give an item to prove they’re dead, even if they’re not.
Other times, you might have to get an artifact in the main story that space pirates stole. In these cases, you have the chance to just run or sneak past the enemies firing at you, take the artifact, and leave without killing anyone. I did this quite often in my playthrough of Starfield when an objective didn’t require me to kill someone since it made everything faster anyway.
Another way to avoid killing people in Starfield is to use persuasion and intimidation dialogue options. If you have these skills, you can sometimes avoid fights through a battle of words. Finally, the last option to avoid killing people is to use electromagnetic weapons.
The EM class of weapons exists for both guns and ships, so you can disable but not destroy both NPCs and crafts alike. This is perfect for when you want to board a ship and steal it, for instance. While you can’t be a true pacifist, you can go quite a long time without eliminating someone if you try hard enough.
Starfield is available for Xbox Series X/S and PC.
