Bethesda appointed Emmi "Elianora" Junkkari, the creator of the popular Skyrim clutter mod, to help design Starfield's wonderful chaotic environments.
Elianora confirmed that they pretended to be surprised at each new teaser and press release even though they had been secretly working on the game at Bethesda all along.
"I've been lying to you. I've been deceiving you. I've been lying. "I've kept secrets and pretended," Emilia teased in a recent Facebook post.
"I was just pretending that whatever I said, I had no idea what Starfield was like or what Bethesda was up to." I pretended to be surprised by ladders, space flight, and the amazing level of detail in the environments, and pretended to be in total unexpected awe of all the cool clutter... actually, I placed some of that clutter myself."
proovs pic.twitter.com/hQ7aPH6J4K
— 💀Legendary Space Explorer Elianora ★★★ (@Elianora) September 1, 2023
The post goes on to confirm that Bethesda hired Elianora "as a lighting and clutter artist" to work on Starfield in response to the fan-favorite mods that add detail and life to Skyrim's world by adding in a variety of hyper-realistic lived-in clutter.
"It was absolutely incredible and a once-in-a-lifetime experience," they added. "We hope you enjoy our game. Now let us go out and explore."
With a picture of their arm and a brand-new Starfield tattoo, Elianora's post comes to an end.
A fan who passed away before the game's release is remembered in a moving tribute in Starfield.
Alex Hay posted on the Starfield subreddit six months ago that despite "following this project for years," he probably wouldn't live long enough to play Starfield after being diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 36.
Unfortunately, Hay died shortly after in March 2023, and Bethesda included a note from Alex for all explorers to find in his honor.