Starfield’s First Loot Cave Is a Puddle

Starfield has a quite remarkable glitch that lets you take everything a major vendor has and sell it back to him for infinite money.

The glitch, spotted by redditor Heretic0 and verified by IGN, revolves around the small puddle outside Shepherd's General Store in Akila City. Here’s how it works:

• Shift into third-person
• Crouch
• Move to the small puddle directly outside Shepherd's General Store
• Profit

Incredibly, this puddle grants guilt-free access to what appears to be the Shepherd's General Store vendor chest hidden underneath the map. You can grab all the items within (watch out for encumbrance!), then sell them for credits. Adding insult to injury, you can sell the items to Emerson Shepherd himself. Perhaps that’s why he looks so tired.

This glitch is surely not long for this world (Bethesda recently said it will release Starfield updates regularly, and you’d think a fix for this is on the list), but that hasn’t stopped players from buying a home nearby so they can quickly and easily store the puddle-provided loot. Indeed, players are reporting gift-giving puddles all across Akila City, which suggests there’s something very wrong with the water there.

This isn’t the first infinite money exploit Starfield players have discovered. It wasn’t long after Bethesda’s space role-playing game launched that players worked out how to get under the map in New Atlantis and steal from vendors, some of which carry a huge number of credits.

These sorts of glitches will be familiar to fans of Bethesda games. Getting under the map to steal from vendors is a common Skyrim trick, and the Elder Scrolls RPG has loads of hidden vendor chests that players use to get rich quick.

There’s a lot going on in the world of Starfield. It’s seen over six million players since launch, making Starfield Bethesda’s biggest ever game launch. Players have worked out how to make ships the AI can’t hit, discovered many hidden references to other games like Skyrim, and used thousands of potatoes to show off its “mind-blowing” physics. Bethesda has outlined a raft of improvements coming to Starfield, including DLSS support on PC, and an eat button for food. The developer has also said it would love to add city maps to the game.

If you're interested in modding Starfield, check out IGN's guide on how to install Starfield mods. However, if you’re still just getting started, here are all the things to do first in Starfield.

IGN’s review explains the pull to seek out Starfield’s “immense amount of quality roleplaying quests and interesting NPCs” is strong, despite a rough start and some core aggravations.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.