Starfield: Crimson Fleet Guide

Starfield quests can be a mixed bag, and whether it’s the slow-to-start main quest or the various fetch quests that you can find yourself performing, sometimes you can find yourself a little underwhelmed. Thankfully, for every basic quest, there are handfuls of amazing ones that have you making game-changing decisions, engaging with charismatic characters, and exploring a lot more of what this mysterious universe has to offer.

The Crimson Fleet quest line is one of those quests, and honestly, it’s so long and in-depth that it feels like it could be its own game. There are multiple choices you can make throughout it, and each one will affect how the quest plays out. It all culminates in an explosive finale that will test your morality to the core.

Quest Details Up Front

• Quest Location: New Atlantis
• Quest Length: 5-6 hours
• Quest Difficulty: 7/10
• Rewards: 250,000 credits

Brief Walkthrough

• Step One: Complete the Deep Cover mission by either getting arrested or speaking to Commander Tuala
• Step Two: Speak with Commander Ikande
• Step Three: Complete Rook Meets King
• Step Four: Complete Echoes of the Past
• Step Five: Complete Breaking the Bank
• Step Six: Complete The Best There Is
• Step Seven: Complete Absolute Power
• Step Eight: Complete Eye of the Storm
• Step Nine: Complete Legacy’s End

Extended Walkthrough

The Crimson Fleet questline is a long and interesting one. It involves you going deep undercover and joining the Crimson Fleet pirates. Throughout the questline, you will periodically check in with Commander Ikande, and you might find yourself getting pulled more towards one side than the other. It all culminates with you having to make the ultimate decision on who to side with, so let’s explore how we get to that point.

Rook Meets King

This is your first introduction to the Crimson Fleet and involves you heading to The Key to see how the whole operation works. Funnily enough, the Crimson Fleet are just regular people looking to make it in a tough universe. They aren’t monsters and, aside from a few, are mostly pretty kind to you.

For your first mission, you’ll have to prove yourself, and in order to do that, you need to kill a former Crimson Fleet member named Austin Rake. He’s hiding out on a ship and finding him is the easy part. The tough part is figuring out what to do with him. Austin Rake is a reformed pirate, so you can turn him in to SysDef instead of the fleet. This decision is up to you, and it will determine how Commander Ikande addresses you. The more you turn bad, the more he’ll become suspicious of your allegiance. Keep that in mind.

Echoes of the Past

This mission is the true test of whether or not you’ll be able to make it as a Crimson Fleet member. You will investigate the surface of a planet called Suvorov to discover a long-lost secret of the Crimson Fleet. You won’t be the only new recruit along for the ride, as a man by the name of Mathis also accompanies you.

This mission is lengthy and involves you exploring the depths of a long abandoned facility. You will fight off aliens along the way, and eventually, you’ll get separated from your leader, Delgado. You and Mathis will have to put your differences aside and work together to make it out alive. Mathis will eventually try to convince you to kill Delgado and take over the fleet with him, and what you answer with will determine how this mission plays out, as well as Mathis’s availability to you as a companion in the future.

Breaking The Bank

Breaking the Bank is definitely a highlight of this questline, and it involves all the fun pirate things like blackmail, robbery, and lying. Here, we need to get an important Galbank executive’s information in order to steal a trophy during a charity auction.

The setup is simple, but you won’t be alone, as you’ll have backup in the form of Evgeny Rokov. If his voice sounds familiar to you, it’s because he played Ulfric Stormcloak in Skyrim. You’ll need to do a good bit of directionless exploration here, gathering intel from the people at the event, and based on your decisions, you can find yourself having a massive shootout or walking away with very little resistance. The key to the mission is gathering intel on the Galbank executive to blackmail him, so let that guide your choices in each conversation.

You need to keep in mind that firing a weapon will cause a lockdown, so keep that gun in its holster until the inevitable mercenary ambush hits. Once you’ve got the trophy and the information, you need to get out of there quickly with what you’ve learned.

The Best There Is

In this mission, we’ll be going double undercover. That’s right; we’re a SysDef member disguised as a Crimson Fleet member who now has to pass for a soldier. It’s a fairly simple quest but still a pretty fun one.

You will be sneaking into a facility, and you’ll have another partner along the way named Jade. The key to this mission is staying undercover as long as possible. The goal is to steal the Comspike, which is something that will supposedly reveal Kyrx’s Legacy, an untold fortune that remains hidden. You will have to pass various checkpoints along the way, and if you get too close to the enemy, you will be discovered, and all hell will break loose.

At the start of the mission, find a uniform as fast as possible. You’ll find it on a bed in the barracks; just be careful to stay out of sight until you have it.

Take your time here, and answer questions throughout this mission in a calm and believable manner. This mission will take a while, and it’s all about keeping in disguise. Your final task after getting the Comspike is to find a pilot’s uniform. This is optional, but you’ll find it in a suitcase after following the markers. This will allow you to escape in the Prototype ship, which will be a nice get for you to add to your fleet.

Absolute Power

Our next mission will involve heading to Neon. This colorful city is known for its dangerous nature, so it fits our needs perfectly. We need to get something called a passkey from yet another high-powered executive.

Head to Neon, and our first order of business is to locate evidence to extort Ayumi Komiko. You should ask Myka about her whereabouts and follow the marker to find out where she is. You’ll be able to get the Generdyne passkey from her with little issue, so head on to the Generdyne Power Core.

Now, you’ll need to confront Breyson Bayu. He’s oddly helpful, but he hates his brother, so he doesn’t mind helping the likes of you. You can convince him to expose his brother if you want, but the important thing is he gives up the code, and that’s all we need from him. Upload the virus

Head to Madam Sauavage’s Place and find Estelle, and you’ll be done with this mission.

Eye of The Storm

It’s time to find out what Kryx’s Legacy is; as it turns out, it’s a ship. Or rather, located on a ship. This ship is seemingly abandoned, but trust me, you’re not alone. There are security bots everywhere, and it’s a particularly tough mission, so make sure you’ve got a good amount of healing items and a lot of ammo before embarking upon it.

You’ll find the ship in the middle of a massive storm, and it’s a bit ominous, to say the least. Navigate the ship carefully, looting as you go, and be careful at every corner you turn; more security bots await. Eventually, you’ll get to a big, open section of the ship, and there are tons of enemies here. You might not be able to survive this if you fight, but you can run through it and still be able to complete the mission.

Once you’re through there, it’s home free as you’ll be able to claim Kryx’s Legacy, a massive amount of credits that he died with. You’ll get Kryx’s weapon here, but celebrating will be cut short as the entire ship goes into self-destruct mode.

You need to escape through the route you came in, and the security bots will be back to make this extra difficult. You need to move fast, as the environment will kill you if you linger too long. Save intermittently, and you’ll eventually get out and escape.

You now have a choice to make. With the legacy in your possession, will you give it to the Crimson Fleet or SysDef? Your choice here will cause the final leg of the quest line to trigger and cement your loyalty one way or the other.

Legacy’s End

The choice has arrived. Are you with the Crimson Fleet? Or against them? The mission that follows your choice is more or less the same, so this has to do with who you want to live and who you want to die.

If You Side With The Crimson Fleet

If you give Kryx’s Legacy to the Crimson Fleet, you will attack Sysdef in a massive space battle that can be very difficult if you haven’t upgraded your ship much during the game. You’ll need to take out some orbital batteries to weaken the defenses, and eventually, you’ll board the ship to finish off SysDef once and for all.

You’ll have your Crimson Fleet comrades alongside you as you kill off SysDef, and you’ll be killing several people you’ve been allied with along the way. If you chose to imprison various Crimson Fleet members along the way, you’ll have the chance to free them here. The finale will involve you confronting Commander Ikande, and you’ll have to talk him down from activating a self-destruct system. You’ll have the choice of whether to kill him or not at the end of the quest, and you’ll get 250,000 credits for your efforts.

From this moment forward, you will be a wanted man, and the Crimson Fleet will be your ally throughout the galaxy. This will make entering planets highly difficult if SysDef is present.

Rewards

• 250,000 credits
• Crimson Fleet across the galaxy are allies
• Access to Crimson Fleet Mission Board
• Companion affinity will lessen

If You Side With SysDef

The quest goes largely the same as above, except instead of invading SysDef, you invade The Key. I found this mission to be brutal, as not only is the fight in space tougher, but you’ll hear characters you’ve been hanging out with and talking to for the past 5 hours during the fight in disbelief that you’d betray them as they’re killed.

It all gets worse when you invade The Key, as you’re on your own here compared to if you joined the Crimson Fleet. You’ll have to roam the halls, gunning down everyone in sight, including shopkeepers, Mathis, and anyone else you’ve encountered along the way besides Naeva. There will be a point right before you confront Delgado where you’ll be able to save Voss from the bomb strapped to his chest. You can also let him die, but, this man has been through enough I think.

Keep fighting your way through The Key, and you’ll eventually get to Delgado. You have two options here.

• If you kill Delgado, you will get an Advanced Pirate Corsair Spacesuit and the Tempest gun, and you’ll see that he’ll activate a self-destruct sequence. Once that happens, you need to fight even more Crimson Fleet members and take down the three reactors, as well as access Delgado’s computer to shut down the sequence.
• If you let him live, everything goes much smoother, and he’ll turn off the self-destruct sequence and allow himself to be arrested. This way, you can visit him later on the SysDef ship, Vigilante, if you’d like.

Whichever you choose, head back to the UC Vigilante to collect your rewards

Rewards

• Access to UC SysDef Mission Board
• SysDef Formal Uniform
• 250,000 credits
• Enemy of the Crimson Fleet
• Companion’s affinity

In Too Deep

This is one of my favorite quest lines Bethesda has ever written, and for fans of the movie The Departed, you will have a great time here. I found the finale of this mission genuinely affecting, as mowing down my fellow Crimson Fleet members was a tragic experience that didn’t offer me the chance to offer mercy. It’s incredibly well done and disturbing at the same time. The choice at the end is one of the tougher choices in the game, adding a cherry on top of this fantastic quest line.

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