Book Review - Starfield Visual Compendium

The Artbook Collector
2 hours ago
5 min read

September 30th 2025

Bethesda Game Studios took to the cosmos in 2023 with their sci-fi epic Starfield, the first new IP from the studio in 25 years. With a huge number of planets to visit, enemies to take on, and ships to construct, another artbook from the studio was inevitable. That book, Starfield Visual Compendium, has now arrived to treat fans to a look at the art that helped bring the game to life.

Bethesda partnered again with publisher Dark Horse to release the book on September 16^th 2025, arriving the month of Starfield’s second anniversary. A copy has now joined the collection, allowing me to take you on a voyage of my thoughts for this new release, letting you know what to expect and if I think you should consider adding this to your own shelf!

Build Quality

Dark Horse have been very consistent in their quality and format, which is not a bad thing at all and showcases why game companies use them so frequently. The book comes in their 9” x 12” hardcover format that they use for almost all of their artbooks. The notable difference this time is the 368 pages it boasts, which is a lot more than the usual 180-240 seen typically. Fortunately, the binding is again very good and able to handle the heavy weight of all the high-quality thick pages. I’m never concerned about receiving a poorly made book from Dark Horse, with being another example as to why.

Content

I was excited to see how the content would be handled, as the last book released for the studio was The Art of Fallout 4, which was also a huge book and came absolutely packed with art. I’m happy to say this release was also designed by people who clearly take issue with wasted space.

When asked about how much art to include, I can only assume the answer was “How much do you have?”, because the pages are flooded with concepts and designs. It gives you an idea of how much imagery is created at the studio, especially given the how much they fit in despite the bigger size of the book. Each chapter is like this, with the worlds, characters, creatures, weapons, spaceships, set dressing, and illustrations covered inside. It’s an impressive volume of art and all of them are well showcased with the book’s fantastic print quality too.

What I like most about this book is that they clearly wanted to highlight as much of the art that helped shape the game as possible, because it’s not just the highly detailed concepts, or developed designs included, but the loose art, early sketches, and even pencil and chalk work too. You get a full picture of the stages used to create a new universe and after all, art should be seen, not hidden away on a hard drive or in a draw!

If you’re a sci-fi fan then you’ll find something for you, as no single chapter is neglected. If you like environment art, you’ll enjoy the biomes, planet scenery, a wide range of colours, interior design, architecture, and more. The game’s range of places to visit is reflected here too, perfectly suited for an interesting artbook. There is also a chapter on set dressing, which are the items, furniture and technology found in the game. This is often a smaller part of an artbook, but Starfield Visual Compendium gives it a fleshed-out chapter, again giving readers an idea of the work going on behind the scenes.

Characters get a good showcase too, which includes the factions, civilians, mechs, and industry workers, delving into their suits, clothing and gear. There is no doubt a lot of reference material here for artists of all levels as well, making it a valuable resource.

Of course, the player needs to get around and defend themselves, so there is also a lot of art for the spaceships and weapons for Starfield. Those that love ship design will revel in all of the different styles explored, the look at individual parts and nerdy interior details. Variations of the guns also fill the pages too, separated by the manufacturers found in the game.

My personal favourite chapter was ‘Creatures’, 60 pages of concept art for beasts and critters of all sizes and types, from the earliest unused iterations, to the final designs. It’s an onslaught of creativity that has some fantastic and familiar looking animals, as well as strange and otherworldly ideas you love to see in a sci-fi game. They really took advantage of large page count and it makes you feel like you’re getting multiple books in one, as there is as much to see in just a couple of chapters than many entire artbooks.

The text featured gives descriptions and some insights into the design ideas and approach. It’s not a deep dive about the making of the game, you can see in the previews the goal was to share the artwork above all else, but what is used is the perfect amount to keep it interesting. I think a total lack of text would have made it feel directionless, so it was the right call to include some.

Credits

The artists are credited in the back of the book on the last page, which does mean you don’t get a picture of who did what. Perhaps they were considering the amount of space needed for credits, as with so much on each page, it would have pushed the book towards 400 pages. I’m happy they are included though, so the artists can be looked up.

Use of Space

It can be a disaster trying to fit so much on to a page, you can end up with terrible overlapping or an incoherent mess that looks like a child’s sticker book, but I'm thrilled that didn't happen here. Starfield Visual Compendium has balanced volume expertly well with readability, an organised chaos that still gives the art the space it needs to breathe and be enjoyed. A lot of the concepts have no background and so could be placed more freely on the page which helps, but even full pieces are placed with care.

The text was also well thought out, either finding its place on the page or in the corner of a piece of artwork without obscuring any details. It’s great work from the team that helped create the book who designed the pages like a Bethesda themed game of Tetris.

Value

The book comes with an RRP of $60/ £54, which is a little more than most Dark Horse artbooks, no doubt to account for high page count. It’s only a $5 increase though, which considering it’s almost twice the size of previous releases, is certainly nothing to complain about.

Using Amazon in my reviews to stay consistent, the book at the time of writing this is 8% off in the US and 25% off in the UK, which highlights that despite already being well priced, there are deals to be found too. For a book of this quality, with such a wealth of content, the price point will not leave fans disappointed.

Verdict

Starfield Visual Compendium is a superb book that deserves a place on the shelf of every fan. The book is overflowing with incredible artwork for the game, it boasts a lot of early and unused designs, and the print and build quality of the book is solid as always from the publisher. The partnership between Dark Horse and Bethesda delivers again with a book that comes highly recommended to both players and artists. If you find yourself headed into the cosmic unknown and want to take some books along, this is one that would be worth bringing on the ship!

If you like what you see and want to add Starfield Visual Compendium to your own collection, you can do so here;