Starfield: Five movies, TV shows, and comics to enjoy before/during/after you play the game

Whether it's the epic fantasy of The Elder Scrolls or the nuclear wastes of Fallout, Bethesda Softworks has introduced players to expansive universes beyond their wildest dreams, and this September, they're about to do it again.

The hype around Starfield is perhaps the biggest of this year, with Constellation-wannabes eagerly awaiting every piece of news they can get about the open-world game. But as of this writing, Starfield is still weeks away from release, leaving fans to wonder just what to do in the meantime.

Luckily for those folks, Popverse slapped together this list of other media Starfield fans can explore, each with its own expansive world-building and futuristic space-opera plots. Let's begin with a recent movie...

Prospect

Before Pedro Pascal was playing badass father-figure in The Mandalorian and Sophie Thatcher was surviving the weird wilderness in Yellowjackets, the two were teaming up to do 'em both in Christopher Caldwell's and Zeek Earl's Prospect. The movie follows a father/daughter duo that seek oout a vaulable resource on a strange and dangerous alien moon.

Though Starfield will no doubt be much larger in scale than the low-budget sci-fi thriller, Prospect will scratch the itch of exploration and acquisition that seems to be at the heart of the game.

Prospect is available to stream on Tubi.

Raised by Wolves

The latest TV venture from renowned scifi creator Ridley Scott, Raised by Wolves takes place in a distant future ono an even more distant planet. In the series, Earth has been decimated by a religious war, and two androids must raise a pair of children to restart the human race.

Bethesda game players will be familiar with the politics that go drive theeir favorite stories. Examples include the Stormcloak Rebellion of Skyrim or the rise of the Enclave in Fallout 3. Similarly, Raised by Wolves throws characters in the middle of history-shifting situations they've got to navigate, a theme we'd bet is central to Starfield.

Raised by Wolves is available to stream on Max.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead

Part Star Trek, part The Expanse, and a LARGE part Jack Kirby, We Only Find Them When They're Dead is a comic published by BOOM! Studios. In it, humanity survives off of "meat, minerals, and metals" all found no the bodies of planet-sized gods.

One of the most interesting aspects both the live action and gameplay trailers for Starfield is the alien relics the game promises to present to the players. If weird, cosmic mysteries are what's drawing you to Starfield, We Only Find Them When They're Dead will be a great holdover.

Screamers

Greedy corporations are a frequent villain in scifi and a nearly ubiquitous one in real life, so it's likely that Starfield will deal with that issue. Similarly, Screamers is a story of exploited workers from Alien screenwriter Dan O'Bannon based on a short by scifi legend Philip K. Dick.

The film focuses on Joe Hendricksson, a military man sent to a distant world to negotiatie a peace treaty between miners and the company that employs them. When he finds are a bunch of malfunctioning robots who are getting smarter, stronger, and hungrier for blood by the day.

Screamers is available to scream - er, stream - on Tubi.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series

In DC Comics, Green Lantern Hal Jordan has starred in his share of run-of-the-mill, Earth-based superhero stories. But for the first animated show that starred him, creators decided to go fully galactic, focusing on his role of cosmic peacekeeper rather than masked Earth hero.

Though Starfield's graphics will probably be further along than the plucky, underrated DC space opera, the two share a wealth of visual feats foor the action-minded. With positronic power-ups, ballistic beat-downs, and cosmic contests of courage, Green Lantern: The Animated Series sometimes already feels like a video game, and is great to watch if you're waiting for one.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series is available to stream on Max.

Starfield will be available to play September 6.

Speaking of space, did you hear Batman is going off-world?