The Starfield Emissary or Hunter choice explained

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Should you choose the Hunter or the Emissary?
Choose the Emissary
Choose the Hunter
Choose Neither

The Starfield Emissary or Hunter choice is one of the most crucial decisions you'll make near the main questline's end. For this choice, you need to align yourself with one of the two major Starborn factions to decide what happens to the Unity, or even reject them both and control the Unity yourself. Obviously this Starfield choice has some pretty serious consequences that determine the ending you get, so I've laid out all the outcomes below, as well as what the best approach is when it comes to siding with the Emissary or the Hunter in Starfield - or neither!

Warning: the following contains spoilers for the Starfield Constellation questline and main story as we discuss the outcomes of all choices.

Should you choose the Hunter or the Emissary in Starfield?

The Starfield Emissary and Hunter choice has three options, listed below:

Side with the Emissary: Fight the Hunter alongside the Emissary to keep the Unity safe from the unworthy. Can reward you with the Unmitigated Violence laser rifle.
Side with the Hunter: Fight the Emissary alongside the Hunter (after killing Keeper Aquilus) to keep the Unity fair game for all. Can reward you with the Eternity's Gate particle beam rifle.
Side with neither (best choice): Fight both enemies with no allies, to claim the Unity for yourself and whoever you believe deserves it. Can potentially reward you with both the Unmitigated Violence and the Eternity's Gate.

All choices are valid and have their rewards, but we consider the last one where you strike out for yourself to be the best one. Aside from many fans interpreting it as the true, "canon" ending, it's also the one with potentially the highest rewards, getting both unique weapons, but it is also the hardest choice to take, as you'll have to fight both Hunter and Emissary without anybody to help you. Still, it's not impossible, and a bit of talent combined with liberal quicksaving should see you through to the Starfield ending easily enough.

Keep in mind though that not only do your rewards not carry over into Starfield new game plus, it's possible to get no rewards at all: if you use persuasion to calm down the Hunter, the Emissary, or both, you don't get their unique weapons.

Choose the Emissary

If you side with the Emissary, you'll have to fight the Hunter and their forces in the later campaign mission "Revelation", along with their allied Starborn and Ecliptic mercenaries - however, the Emissary will be an allied NPC who will help you in these fights. You'll also get a slightly divergent ending, where it's established that the Emissary remains in this universe and seeks out specific individuals who they believe are worthy to find the Unity and become Starborn.

Hunter rewards: At the end of the Emissary's path, you can talk down the Hunter with dialogue or fight them. If you kill the Hunter, you get a powerful unique laser rifle called Unmitigated Violence, which frenzies and irradiates opponents while also doing double damage to those with full health.

Choose the Hunter

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If you side with the Hunter, you'll have to fight the Emissary and their forces in the mission "Revelation" later on, this time with the Hunter as an NPC ally. However, the Hunter asks you to do something first - kill Keeper Aquilus of the Universal faith, this universe's version of the Hunter. You have the choice to do so or persuade Aquilus to go into hiding, the result is the same either way. Later on, the ending establishes that the Hunter is reborn in another Universe through the Unity, and their legacy left behind is that many try to rise up against power structures, for good and ill.

Emissary rewards: At the end of the Hunter's path, you can talk down the Emissary with dialogue or fight them. If you kill the Emissary, they drop their weapon, a Particle Beam Rifle called Eternity's Gate, which does increased damage to humans, fires two projectiles on every fourth shot, and has "volatile" rounds that do increased damage but occasionally fail.

Choose Neither

My favourite option, if you choose to turn against both the Emissary and Hunter, you'll have to fight their combined forces on your own during the mission "Revelation". It's the most challenging choice of the three, in which you take on both their combined efforts to secure victory for yourself. At the end it's established that your influence means that humanity can pursue the Unity and Artifacts for themselves without the Starborn influencing them in any way.

Hunter and Emissary rewards: At the end of Revelation, you can either talk both characters down, or have a boss fight with both the Hunter and Emissary at once, where you fight numerous duplicates of both characters while dimension-hopping through key locations from the campaign. At the end, you get both the Unmitigated Violence and Eternity's Gate weapons as listed above.

Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.