Starfield: Should You Side With The Hunter Or The Emissary

Sometimes you'll have to make tough choices in Starfield if you want to proceed with the story, and some of them can have long-term key effects. One of these tougher situations appears in the "Unearthed" mission, where you have to decide who you can trust: should you side with The Hunter or The Emissary? Find out what happens, depending on your choice, here!

Starfield Side With Hunter Or Emissary
Starfield: Should you side with the Hunter or rather the Emissary? | © Bethesda/EarlyGame

Some choices that you make while traversing the galaxy in Starfield won't have long-lasting consequences, which can make your choices almost seem trivial. That isn't the case for all of your decisions, though, because some important choices will follow you all through your Starfield playthrough.

One important story mission is "Unearthed", which will force you to make a decision that might even change your entire gameplay ending. Find out who you can trust, here, and who you should side with: The Hunter or The Emissary?

Please be reminded, this article contains spoilers for Starfield. Especially for the content later on in the campaign!

Starfield: Time To Decide Between The Hunter Or The Emissary

Starfield 06 09 2023 10 54 35
Starfield: In order to be able to decide you need to do some other mission beforehand. | © Bethesda/EarlyGame

There are three possible ways of dealing with the ordeal at the end of the mission. You can either side with the Hunter, the Emissary or even with no one and do your own thing. But let's start at the beginning.

These are the conditions you have to meet to get the Unearthed mission to begin with:

  • Meet the Emissary at the end of the mission "All That Money Can Buy"
  • Complete the mission "A High Price To Pay" and meet the Hunter
  • Receive a Moon Base Key after solving the "Unity Ancient Ruins puzzle" and discuss the matter with the Emissary and the Hunter
  • Leading to the Unearthed mission that takes place on Luna and the NASA landmark on Earth
  • Lastly, after exciting the NASA facility, you'll be asked if you want to join either of them

And here is where things become interesting, as siding with any of them will alter your final boss fight for the whole run. Be mindful!

Side With The Hunter

Starfield Hunter And Emissary Decision
Starfield: The Hunter is a mysterious person. | © Bethesda

In order to side with the Hunter, you need to answer as follows:

  • The Hunter is right. The only real rule is who gets the Artifact first
  • I'm siding with the Hunter

In doing so, you'll agree to the beliefs that only the strong ones will succeed, and the weak will perish. Leading to the inevitable that anyone has the right to claim the Artifacts and reach the Unity, as long as they're strong enough to do so. And therefore he prefers violence to anything else.

In order to get the help from the Hunter during the final mission "Relevation", you need to take care of another mission: You have to kill Keeper Aquilus.

It's up to you how you want to proceed with this one...

Side With The Emissary

In order to side with the Emissary, you need to answer as follows:

  • The Emissary is right. The Artifacts need to be in the right hands
  • I'm siding with the Emissary

In doing so, you'll agree that the Emissary should control the Unity and act as the caretaker or rather the guardian. It sounds tempting, but keep in mind that the Emissary also judges humans and decide who's worthy of becoming Starborn.

During the "Revelation" mission, the Emissary will fight other Starborn ships in space and also battle the Starborn and the mercenaries in the facility.

Choose the lesser evil...

Starfield Hunter And Emissary
Starfield: It's time to choose who's friend and who is foe! | © Bethesda

Side With No One

If you don't trust either judgement and come to the conclusion it's best not to side with any of them, then you need to select the following responses:

  • You're both wrong. It's time someone other than a Starborn made a decision
  • I'm tired of both of you. I'll get to the Unity on my own

This will mean that both Starborn will attack you when you reach the planet during the Revelation mission. You also won't have any backup. However, this also means that humanity won't be controlled by a powerful force anymore!

That's all you need to know about The Hunter and The Emissary in Starfield! Good luck with whichever choice you're taking.

Ewelyn Derc

Ewelyn is a Content Creator at EarlyGame. She's mainly interested in everything that comes from Japan and has to do with JRPGs. But also Souls-like, Indies, Shooter, Rogue-likes, Otome, Visual Novel and more are in her field of expertise....