Bizarre Starfield bug lets player take all of New Atlantis into space, and they can't put it back

Why don't we take New Atlantis and fly it somewhere else?

What you need to know

• A Starfield player has encountered a bug that allowed them to fly the entirety of New Atlantis, the first city visited after the game's tutorial, into space.
• Despite attempts to "return it" by grav jumping or landing on planets, the city stubbornly followed the player everywhere. 
• Reloading a save appears to be the only fix, though starting a fresh NG+ cycle will resolve the issue as well.
• The exact cause of this glitch is unclear, though everyone who's reported it says it happened after they tried to register a new ship as their Home Ship while aboard a space station.

Though Starfield is, on the whole, much less buggy at launch than past Bethesda games were, players have still reported experiencing plenty of strange glitches since the RPG's release earlier this month. I didn't think anything could top the (now patched) exploit that allowed someone to steal a pirate space station and land it on a planet, but I've since discovered the existence of what is easily one of the most bizarre bugs I've ever seen in a video game.

Recently, u/Punidue on Reddit took to the r/Starfield community to share an absolutely wild development. After boarding their ship while it was docked at the Crimson Fleet faction's The Key space station, they somehow found themselves in the middle of New Atlantis — the metropolis players first arrive at after Starfield's tutorial, and one that's located many systems away from The Key. Then, when they took off, the entirety of New Atlantis followed them to space, and continued to do so even after grav jumps or landings.

"I'm not sure why it happened, but: I boarded a spacer ship, and jumped to The Key to register and modify it. I do so, exit dialogue with the vendor, and talk to her again because I wanted to change my home ship back to what I was using before. After that, the station got incredibly bright and I could not fast travel anywhere," explained u/Punidue. "So I got back to the docks, boarded my ship and bam, I was in a glitchy New Atlantis ready for take off. I do so, and bring the whole city in orbit with me. It follows me if I grav jump away or land making the game an unplayable mess."

Next time you fly, keep an eye out for an entire city on your six. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Thankfully, u/Punidue was finally able to fix the issue by loading an earlier save, though they lost three hours of progress as a result. If nothing else, let this be a reminder that saving often is always a good idea, especially in massive and complicated RPGs like Starfield.

Interestingly, u/Punidue isn't the only person who's run into this particular bug, as several others have mentioned their own experiences in the comments of their post. For some, performing multiple grav jumps in a row eventually made the city disappear from orbit, though multiple chunks of New Atlantis will be missing if you land at it whether this happens or not. At the moment, it seems that reloading a save or starting NG+ are your only options for a true fix.

The exact cause of this glitch is unclear, though everyone who's reported encountering it says that it happened after they tried to register a new Home Ship while aboard a space station. Therefore, we recommend taking care of business like that while you're at a planetary spaceport, lest all of New Atlantis hitches a ride with you across the Settled Systems.

Starfield is finally here, and it's undoubtedly one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for lovers of space exploration, deep RPG gameplay, and the sci-fi genre as a whole. 

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