How many planets are in Starfield & do they have life?

Starfield is an expansive sci-fi RPG and one of its biggest highlights is the universe itself which contains a wide range of explorable planets. Here’s how many planets are there in Starfield and how often you’ll find signs of life on them.

Endless exploration in Starfield allows players to spend hundreds of hours in-game and uncover the secrets of different civilizations, planets, and characters. While fast travel is available, you can also rely on your ships to travel between planets and outside of the main story, this is one of the most important aspects of the game.

It is only natural for players to be curious about the size and scope of Starfield and the best way to evaluate it is by looking at the number of unique planets you can visit. While some of the planets will have life and organisms that you can interact with, others will be barren but loaded with resources to level up vehicles and equipment.

On that note, here’s how many planets are there in Starfield and the approximate number of planets with life.

How many planets does Starfield have?

Starfield has over 1,000 different planets to explore. These are spread across 100 different star systems, all with their own unique weather, species, and characteristics.

Certain planets also have their own moons to discover, along with space stations floating in between worlds, so there’s no shortage of areas for players to get lost in.

Starfield’s many planets are procedurally generated, meaning the game builds the whole world and its terrain on the fly. However, unlike other games that use a similar feature, Starfield’s planets still feature custom-made areas.

In an interview on the Kinda Funny Xcast, Bethesda Game Director, Todd Howard, said: “There’s no way we’re going to go and handcraft an entire planet. What we do is we handcraft individual locations and some of those are placed specifically, [like] the main cities and other quest locations, and then we have a suite of them that are generated or placed when you land depending on that planet.”

However, this does mean that every player has a chance to encounter different areas and objectives despite landing on a planet with the same name.

How many Starfield planets have life?

Of the over 1,000 planets in Starfield, around 10% of them contain life. This means that players are likely to encounter other organisms on around 100 different planets throughout the course of the game.

Todd Howard confirmed this in the same Kinda Funny interview, where he explained that certain planets are in the “Goldilocks zone” of a system where life can thrive. Meanwhile, others are more barren but resource-heavy, so they still serve a purpose when it comes to upgrading your ship or weapons.

That was everything we know about how many planets there are in Starfield.

For more on Starfield, be sure to check our articles below:

Does Starfield have multiplayer or co-op? | Does Starfield have mod support at launch? | Does Starfield have New Game Plus? | Is Starfield on Steam Deck? | Does Starfield have DLC or expansions | Starfield Outposts explained: How to build bases | Every religion in Starfield explained | Starfield plants explained: All types & how to scan | Who is the Adoring Fan in Starfield? | Starfield jail system explained