Starfield players can join the Crimson Fleet for real, but no one really wants to

One of Starfield’s lengthy side questlines is a story of espionage and working under deep cover, culminating in a decision to double-cross a group of people or triple-cross another group. There is a path for players to pursue piracy straight up, but a lot of players don’t find it particularly rewarding or interesting.

A PSA post on the Starfield subreddit today alerted many players to the notion that you can join the Crimson Fleet legitimately as a prospective pirate, without doing so undercover as part of UC SysDef. This questline emerges either as part of the UC Vanguard questline or comes up after the first time you’re arrested, but you have the option of saying no to Commander Ikande. The Deep Cover mission then tasks you with seeking out the Crimson Fleet on your own, and someone will eventually reach out to you about joining for real.

According to the player who posted on Reddit, the questline progresses “as normal,” except without having to head back to UC SysDef after every major quest point to report your findings. “If your goal is to be a true pirate, this is probably the better option,” the Reddit user wrote.

Many other players aren’t as impressed by the standard route to becoming a pirate. Most interestingly, though, it’s due to a variety of unique reasons. Some folks genuinely enjoy the act of being undercover, with a few relishing the opportunity to triple-cross SysDef at the end. One person wrote, “Watching Ikande and [company] squirm was worth putting up with the spy BS.”

Others just don’t seem to enjoy the pirate life. Several players took issue with the other missions from the bounty board or the Freestar Rangers board taking them to areas populated with friendly Crimson Fleet pirates they’re supposed to kill, while also complaining about the Fleet missions being kind of boring. “Stealing stuff from merchants just isn’t as fun,” one player wrote. “Just hit new game plus. Going to avoid becoming a pirate on the next go around.”

Some other players say they just plain don’t like the pirates, with several saying the only reason they side with them is because of how valuable The Key is for their merchants.