Starfield player uses laundry basket to pull off the casino heist of the century

Starfield character stands with his hands on his hips in front of a futuristic cityscape — (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks)

Of all the Starfield stories so far, one hit me right in the feels: the bucket trick no longer works. This classic scam was discovered one day after Skyrim launched and, amazingly enough, survived all the patches and re-release: you simply put a bucket on an NPC's head, blocking their line of sight, and then start stealing stuff.

However there are ways and means to use bins and buckets. Starfield allows you to pick up and hold items in front of your character, which retain their physics properties, and this can be used to knock objects off shelves and other surfaces.

Once they're on the ground, it's simply a matter of slowly shuffling your pile of illicit goods out of the sight of any nearby NPCs who might object, though most prove surprisingly accommodating while you're doing it. It's not just bins either. PC Gamer magazine editor Robert Jones piped up when I noticed this, revealing himself to be a scurvy space dog with a taste for cosmic heists. "I did this to get that expensive bottle of alcohol in that guy's office," says Jones. "Just drop an object on the floor, then pick it up and use it to paddle any item out of view of the owner. Then take. Flat objects work best, as they're easier to use as the aforementioned paddles."

Well well well. And now a Starfield player has managed to use a similar trick to pull off one of the biggest heists in the galaxy (thanks, GamesRadar+), using those classic criminal tools of… a washing basket and a tin?

今作はSkyrim等と違い、盗っちゃダメなものは持ち上げた時点でアウトになった。でもこっちだって考えがある持ち上げていいカゴで見えないとこまで運べばいい pic.twitter.com/BNy3vLMC3QSeptember 5, 2023

In the footage you can see player Wolfymofu at a table with a card game ongoing, and piles and piles of credstiks on the table. These credstiks belong to the card players and, should you lift them, those players will get annoyed.

But thanks to the magic of Bethesda NPC AI, the player uses the tin to sweep the credstiks off the table and into their waiting basket. After piling up the credstiks into the basket, the player goes off to an area where the NPCs can no longer 'see' them, and pockets all the lovely loot. I especially like how they look around, all guilty, to check there's no NPCs watching before shovelling everything into their pockets.

This is, as some Starfield players have pointed out, the classic Bethesda experience. The suits may get annoyed when people call Starfield buggy but, y'know, it is: and that's been the best thing about it so far for me. The Fallout 4 bug that saw NPCs appearing on top of settlements is back, and sees your crew members riding on the outside of ships in deep space. There are endless clips of conversations being interrupted by combat. And while it's sad the bucket trick no longer works, at least we have space laundry baskets to do our dirty work.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."