Should You Defend The Lodge Or The Eye In Starfield? (2024)

At one crucial moment in Starfield, players can choose to defend one of two locations from simultaneous attacks: The Lodge or The Eye. The Lodge is Constellation's headquarters, a shuttered, overgrown house located in the city of New Atlantis on Jemison. It's where the player character first met the members of Constellation, joined their first faction in Starfield, and watched much of the plot unfold. The Eye is Constellation's primary space station, where many of its most important research and surveying operations take place. The player character has powerful memories linking them to both, but what's more important is which characters are in each location.

[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Starfield.]

After finishing the story quest "No Sudden Moves," which involves stealing one of the Artifacts in Starfield from an exacting collector, the player character returns to The Lodge triumphant and starts "A High Price to Pay." However, there's a sudden distress call from The Eye - it's under attack. Just then, banging can be heard outside The Lodge, and it becomes clear that someone's out to get Constellation. The quest's name and setup should provide a pretty clear idea of what's to come, but a number of different factors can affect how it all plays out.

What Happens If You Defend The Lodge In Starfield

A Gut-Wrenching Twist

If they decide to stay at The Lodge, the player character is first asked to make sure Walter's alright in his office upstairs. When they arrive, The Hunter appears. He's one of the most formidable characters in the game, and also one of the most mysterious. Like Constellation, he wants access to the Artifacts, but unlike the explorer's consortium, he only wants to collect them for his own devious purposes. The Hunter knocks out Walter, then turns his attention to the player character, who will have to draw The Hunter's fire while the rest of Constellation escapes through a secret sewer passage in the basem*nt.

It's a tough fight. The Hunter uses a unique rifle called Unmitigated Violence, as well as heavy armor. Although it's not possible to get this weapon off of him at this point in the game, players can look forward to acquiring another option called Unrestrained Vengeance during the mission instead. The Hunter has access to many of the same abilities the player character gains from collecting Artifacts, and can create duplicates of himself to deal extra damage and confuse the player's aim. Regardless of any choices made during the mission, the Hunter's story doesn't end here, as he has a leading role to play in Starfield's ending.

The player character doesn't have to kill The Hunter, just wear down his HP and survive long enough to get the all-clear from the rest of Constellation's members. Then, they can run through the sewers, into The Well, and finally out onto the landing pads of New Atlantis' Spaceport. The Hunter will give chase the whole way, but the player character will ultimately board their ship to find everyone from The Lodge waiting safely aboard. However, they still have to check on The Eye.

Flying to The Eye and boarding it reveals that a character has died in the attack, but who that character is depends on choices made throughout the game. From player experiences, it seems that whichever companion the player character has the highest affinity with will end up on The Eye. If the player chooses to defend The Lodge, the character with the highest affinity won't survive the onslaught. It's a tragic story moment, and one that can really hit hard if the player character is attached to a particular companion. However, things don't turn out much better if they decide to go to The Eye.

What Happens If You Defend The Eye In Starfield

Another Horrible Tragedy

If they decide to defend The Eye instead, the player character will have to move quickly. If The Hunter gets in before the protagonist can get out, they'll be locked into defending The Lodge regardless of what path they actually want to take. Therefore, it's always a good idea to save right before completing the previous mission, "No Sudden Moves."

The player character flies to The Eye to find everyone alive but one companion severely injured. This tends to be whichever character they had the deepest relationship with, the same person who would've died if they had decided to stay at The Lodge. Everyone else reassures them that the injured will recover (and they will), so they head back to The Lodge to see how it fared.

Back at The Lodge, the player finds another character dead, usually whoever they had the second-highest approval rating from. There's little time for grieving, though, as The Hunter awaits. The rest of the quest proceeds in much the same way, just in reverse order. They'll run through the sewers and board their ship to complete the quest.

In either scenario, the death that occurs will be chosen from among Andreja, Barrett, Sam, and Sarah, the characters who have relationship options with the protagonist in Starfield. Any favorite characters who can't be romanced are safe, so there's no need to worry about figures like Omari and Andromeda. For players who place priority on the romance aspect of the game, this can be an especially frustrating mission, although it does help make the stakes of the main story feel immediate.

You Should Go To The Eye In Starfield

Probably The Best Choice

While there's no universally correct option, defending The Eye is probably the best choice in the Starfield quest "A High Price to Pay." Someone will die either way, but the player character's highest-ranked companion will always be sent to The Eye at the beginning of the previous mission. It may be a favorite partner in crime, or one of the romance options in Starfield. Whoever it is, they'll almost certainly die if the player character chooses to stay behind at The Lodge instead. Therefore, going to The Eye gives them the greatest likelihood of saving their favorite companion, or at least whomever they've spent the most time with.

It really comes down to preference in the end. A lover or close friend dying suddenly can be a great character moment for those who prefer roleplaying, but then again, a happy ending for the two of them can be satisfying, too. But if there's another crew member who's caught the player character's eye, or they feel their relationship with their primary companion has run its course, then they can remain back at The Lodge. It's a bit callous, but it's only practical, and it's still justifiable as part of a choice that has no good answers.

Either way, it's easy to know who's at the most risk: whoever isn't at the location the player decides to defend. If they see their favorite companion at The Lodge before the quest begins, then it's safe to stay. If not, they should head to The Eye immediately to ensure that a major tragedy doesn't play out simply due to negligence. Although Starfield has evolved from past Bethesda games in a number of controversial ways, the legitimacy of character death is one staple feature that largely remains, and a sacrifice will have to be made one way or the other.

A Lose-Lose Situation All Around

There Is A Way To Decide Who Dies

Depending on which character dies during "A High Price to Pay," different scenes can play out, some of which may be more heart-wrenching than others. For example, if players sacrifice Sam Coe and defend The Lodge in the game, the death sequence on The Eye features a distraught Cora Coe mourning over Sam's dead body, with her exclaiming, "Dad! Dad, get up! Get up... please..." as her father lies in a pool of blood. This could be more emotionally disturbing to some, especially if Sam were a romantic interest or the most-liked companion character.

However, there is one way to mitigate the unbridled nightmare of losing a close companion in Starfield, and it includes gaming the system a bit. It is possible to intentionally level up a relationship by questing with a player's least-liked companionwith the intent of sacrificing them at the culmination of "A High Price to Pay," thereby consciously choosing which member of Constellation meets an unceremonious fate. This would theoretically leave a player's most-liked companions around until the end of the game but would break immersion by intentionally manipulating this aspect of the narrative.

Ultimately, because affinity between characters in Starfield is based on a series of numbers behind the scenes, it's possible to manipulate what the game's developers wanted to be a heavily impactful moment. That said, upon subsequent playthroughs or New Game Plus runs, those who decide to replay the main story narrative may want to keep this fact in mind.

The variable nature of this quest makes it hard to give a definitive answer as to which option is best. In most cases, however, it's preferable to leave the occupants of The Lodge to fend for themselves and head for The Eye. That's where the companion a player is most likely to care for is located, and so defending them usually leads to a better (if not ideal) outcome. It's important to weigh this decision carefully, as with all decisions in Starfield, and decide whose loss would sting the least.

Starfield

Platform(s)

PC , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

September 6, 2023

Developer(s)

Bethesda

Publisher(s)

Bethesda

Genre(s)

Action , RPG

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs, Strong Language, Violence