Starfield Emissary or Hunter: Who should you pick during Unearthed?

Should you side with The Emissary or The Hunter in Starfield? At the end of the Unearthed mission in Starfield, when you're done exploring NASA headquarters on Earth, both The Emissary and The Hunter are waiting for you on the surface with a dilemma. You must pick which of them to side with and by association, which of them to make an enemy of.

This is the most pivotal decision leading up to the ending of the game, so you'll want to pick wisely, as both options come with some big consequences, but also valuable rewards. It goes without saying this guide has story spoilers in, some proceed with caution if you're reading this before reaching this point in-game yourself.

Should you side with The Emissary or The Hunter?

Whoever you choose to side with during the Unearthed quest, the other will become the final boss in Starfield. The Emissary seems like the morally "good" choice, whereas The Hunter has been the source of all your problems for some time now and loves to kill people, so on the face of it, siding with The Hunter is the "evil" option. We're not here to tell you what to do specifically though - I picked The Hunter on my first playthrough, after all - just the outcome of each option.

There is a third option here, which is to go against both of them. The hurdle this throws up is that they are both there to stop you at the end of the game, so while riding solo may be appealing, it's a much trickier fight to reach The Unity.

You can navigate your way through the end of the game without fighting, thanks to a difficult persuasion check, but doing this does mean you don't earn one (or two, if you do go solo) of the best weapons in the game. It's also worth stressing that the run-up to the ending is very similar no matter who you pick, with only some slight differences, which we'll explain below.

What happens if you side with The Emissary?

If you choose The Emissary then as we've explained, you must fight - or sweet talk - The Hunter at the very end of Starfield. Siding with them means you think The Emissary should be able to choose which humans can become Starborn, rather than humans being able to choose themselves. Sure, they're not killing loads of people like The Hunter is, but at least The Hunter wants humans to be able to decide for themselves.

The penultimate mission, Revelation, involves fighting through loads of Starborn as you make your way to the final artifact. This part doesn't change, no matter who you choose. When you reach the final artifact and The Hunter is there to face off against you, killing him will net you the Unmitigated Violence weapon, which is a unique laser rifle that randomly deals radioactive damage, deals double damage to targets with full health, and has a chance to frenzy a target. If you decide to talk him down though, you will not receive this weapon. No matter how you resolve the situation, acquiring the artifact will let you build the Armillary and proceed to The Unity. The Emissary will also stick around in the current universe to find others worthy of becoming Starborn.

What happens if you side with The Hunter?

Siding with The Hunter sees Revelation play out in the same way but first, he has a task for you. The quest Infinity's End will become available immediately after finishing Unearthed, during which The Hunter wants you to kill Keeper Aquilus. You can either do exactly that or persuade Keeper Aquilus to flee and hide somewhere The Hunter will never find him. If you opt for the latter, you must then persuade The Hunter that you did kill him, and you'll earn the unique melee weapon The Last Priest as a reward, alongside some XP. If you fail to persuade The Hunter, you'll only earn the XP.

Once you make it through to the final artifact, you can once again either talk down The Emissary or kill them. Opting for the latter nets you Eternity's Gate, a unique particle beam rifle that does +10% damage against humans, every fourth shot fires two projectiles at once, and it has volatile rounds that can "pack a bigger punch, but aren't as stable and can fail on occasion". Either way, The Hunter will also enter The Unity once again, to venture forth into another new universe.

What happens if you side with neither?

If you decide to side with neither of them and go solo, the main thing to consider is just that the final mission is a lot more difficult. You have to fight both sides of the Starborn army and at the end, you must either fight - or talk down - both of them. You can earn both the unique weapons as a reward this way, but it takes considerably more time.

Now you know the impact of siding with The Emissary or The Hunter in Starfield, make sure you know what the max level is, because you'll be well on your way once you've played through new game plus a few times.