Summary
- Starfield players are finding creative ways to recreate memes in the game's photo mode, adding to the growing collection of humorous Starfield media.
- Recreating the "always has been" meme in Starfield required careful composition due to the behavior of the game's companions and NPCs, but one player stumbled upon the idea spontaneously.
- Starfield's photo mode not only allows players to capture their favorite moments, but the screenshots also serve as custom loading screens, reminding players of their adventuring highlights.
One Starfield player managed to come up with a great recreation of the "always has been" meme in Bethesda's latest title. Their humorous image later made the rounds online, adding to the pile of hilarious Starfield media that's been growing since the game's early September launch.
Bethesda has been keenly aware of the rising popularity of video game photo modes in recent history, with Fallout 76 being its first in-house title to include such a feature. Starfield has now followed suit with a photo mode of its own, giving rise to a massive influx of creative imagery captured by the fandom.
The newest example of that trend comes from Reddit user xaiel420, who managed to recreate the "always has been" meme in Starfield. Their setup for the photo consisted of equipping one of their companions with the Constellation Spacesuit—the game's closest equivalent to a typical astronaut suit from the classic meme—and pointing the Novalight pistol at them. The resulting still amused thousands of fans who recently voted to send it to the front page of the r/Starfield subreddit. The photo also prompted a cheeky debate about the spelling of "aluminum" among the player base.
While the author of the image did not share many specifics about their creative process, it's possible that capturing this photo required quite a bit of luck. Namely, Starfield companions have a tendency to always look at the protagonist when they are near them, with that behavior persisting even if the player tells them to stay put. This conduct also extends to other characters, to the point that many Starfield NPCs have a serious staring problem. Given that state of affairs, anyone looking to recreate the "always has been" meme in the game might find that getting the composition just right is a fairly tricky business.
But that's not how this particular image came to be, with its author revealing that they weren't actually planning on doing a rendition of the classic meme in advance. On the contrary, they were merely tinkering with the photo mode until the idea dawned on them, making the resulting picture as spontaneous as they come.
Even players who typically ignore photo modes might want to consider making an exception for Bethesda's latest title. That's primarily because Starfield screenshots have a secret purpose in that they double as custom loading screens which remind fans of their adventuring highlights every so often. The functionality itself is not unprecedented among the Bethesda Game Studios family, having originally been developed by the company's Austin branch for Fallout 76.
Starfield is available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.