How to manage your inventory in Starfield – What items to keep, scrap, and sell

Bethesda Game Studios’ mainline open-world RPGs have made hoarders of us all. Not only was much of Skyrim and Fallout‘s loot useful for quests and progression, but it was also absolutely lovely to look at, and Starfield takes this approach to an all-new level. Quite simply, Starfield‘s clutter is lovely to look at, with the admittedly clunky inventory UI giving way to high-definition 3D models of all the stuff and gear you pick up. But… what should you be picking up? What should you be ignoring? Why on earth is it so easy to fill up your inventory? We can help with these problems!

Broadly, though, Starfield boasts a seemingly greater array and variety of useless clutter than any Bethesda game before it did. Moreover, whereas the two previous Fallout games allowed players to turn this useless clutter (i.e., cups, toys, pots, pans, etc.) into base resources to use in crafting, Starfield comes with no such feature. For better or for worse, clutter is clutter in Starfield. That alone should give you an idea of how to keep your inventory at least somewhat streamlined!

How do you properly manage your inventory in Starfield?

It is almost ridiculously easy to become over-encumbered in Starfield. Not only are resources rather heavy – and you’ll need loads for upgrades – but gear, too, appears significantly heavier than it was in, say, Fallout 4. You can, of course, access your ship’s own cargo hold to put some stuff away, but it won’t take long until that, too, is all filled up. Collecting all the different succulents the game throws at you is hard work.

What we’ve discovered over the past couple of hours, however, is that there are ways to make inventory management in Starfield very easy. And scalable, too, because you just know you’ll keep hoarding gear and goodies for as long as you play the game. You can’t allow yourself to get stuck with a limited amount of storage space, after all. That’s where the following couple of sections come into picture.

Decide what’s important

The first order of business will be to decide what type of stuff actually matters to you or your character. If you’re looking to sell items off as soon as possible, then there’s no need to collect random cheap clutter all over the place. Instead, focus on high-paying objects like gear and fancy showpieces. Similarly, if you aim to spec your character into a shotgun-wielding maniac, don’t lug around 20 different marksman rifles. Loot triage is key, we’ve discovered, and it’s the only way to truly understand what items to keep and what to sell off. Note, too, that you cannot scrap stuff in Starfield!

Leverage your followers

Since time immemorial, Bethesda Game Studios has been kind enough to allow players to offload loot onto their followers. Starfield follows this tradition, so it is highly recommended that you let Sarah, Sam, Vasco, Barret, or any other crew member lug your stuff around for you. That is what they’re there for, right?

Upgrade your kit

For those who don’t trust their followers well enough to carry their pocket change, upgrading your character’s abilities and gear will be crucial for loot collection. Not only is it easy to slap some perk points into the basic Weightlifting skill, but you can also upgrade your suit’s carrying capacity via the appropriate workbench. On top of all of that, your ship can also be outfitted with additional cargo modules, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to spec your kit out just right in terms of carrying capacity.

Set up a permanent storage solution

Finally, the ultimate long-term hoarding option: setting up a home base is positively invaluable in Starfield. Not only is hideout/outpost customization quite fun this time around, but it’s also really easy to just plop down a whole warehouse’s worth of storage crates whenever and wherever you want. These are large-capacity crates that will allow you to shove all manner of stuff into them, offloading your inventories once and for all!