How to Get Legendary Weapons and Armor in Starfield

Starfield takes a lot of cues from its predecessors — like 2015’s Fallout 4 — and one of those inspirations is legendary items. Legendary weapons and armor appear in Starfield just like in Bethesda’s Fallout games, but they’re much more deeply integrated into the experience this time around. They aren’t the rarest of the rare, and you can find them as early as the game’s opening hours if you visit the right planets and take out enough pirates. Here’s what you need to know about legendary items in Starfield.

How to Get Legendary Gear in Starfield

Legendary items — denoted by their golden rarity level in the menu — are obtained at random while exploring the galaxy in Starfield. They have a higher chance of appearing on higher difficulty levels, so if you up the difficulty to Hard or Very Hard in the game’s settings menu, you’ll be showered in golden gera as long as you can survive the onslaught of powered-up enemies.

While legendary weapons, spacesuits, helmets, and gear can drop from any enemy that you kill, you’ll have a better chance of finding them in the final chests after clearing out a pirate outpost or fully exploring a cave. Legendary items can be found as early as level 1 in Starfield, but you’ll start to see them much more often as you reach levels 10-15 and continue along your galactic expedition until you reach more dangerous systems.

Related: Starfield Traits Explained: Every Confirmed Trait and What They Do

What Do Legendary Items Do in Starfield?

Legendary items come with unique perks and are usually equipped with some of Starfield’s rarest mods. For example, one of the first legendary weapons I found in my Starfield playthrough was a Coachman shotgun with the Furious perk that makes consecutive hits deal increased damage. On top of that, it had two legendary modifiers called Med Theft and Explosive, which make enemies drop healing items more frequently and randomly cause the gun to fire explosive rounds.

Legendary spacesuits and helmets can drop from enemies too, but they’re not usually so exciting. They typically just have higher stats than their standard counterparts and come with some of the best mods, increasing your damage resistance and carrying capacity among other things.