There are three Starfield religions you can choose to follow by picking a trait, with each one offering its own benefits for pious spacefarers. There's the charitable Enlightened, the God-seeking Sanctum Universum, and the space snake-worshipping House Va'ruun. These religion traits have their pros, although it's worth setting expectations that they aren't incredible, and you can of course opt for the fourth option of choosing no religion at all. You can even ditch your chosen religion in Starfield, but doing so blocks you from joining a new faith later. With all that considered, I'll explain all the religions to chose from in Starfield below, the best one to pick, and what you get from each one.
All religions in Starfield
There are three Starfield religions that players can join when picking through Starfield traits.
- Enlightened: Not really a religion, the Enlightened are really atheists who focus on humanism and charitable work, trying to help their fellow man.
- Sanctum Universum (Universal): A more recent faith that believes God is somewhere out in space and They gave us the Grav Drive to help find Them.
- House Va'ruun (Serpent's Embrace): A fringe cult that worships a deity called the Great Serpent, supposedly seen in a vision by a colonist mid-way through a Grav Jump. The Serpent apparently demands to be worshipped and will one day kill everybody who doesn't do so.
Each of these are represented by different traits you pick during character creation, with specific bonuses and penalties - usually locking you out of any of the other religions, as mentioned above. You can quit a religion later on after joining it, giving up both the positive and negative elements alike, though as far as we know at time of writing there's no way to join up to a new faith after character creation.
Best religion in Starfield
Many might think that the best religion in Starfield to join comes down to a matter of Enlightened versus Universal, but we found that both of these options were pretty underwhelming and hardly worth it.
Instead, if you're determined to be faithful, we suggest that Serpent's Embrace and House Va'ruun is actually the best choice for a religious faith, despite House Va'ruun being considered a little… cultish, in-universe. The perks it provides are substantial and helpful throughout the entire game, and the cons are very easy to avoid - as long as you grav jump every four hours (which you'll almost certainly do with just some Starfield fast travel), you'll get a respectable, useful buff to both your health and O2 for the whole game.
Raised Enlightened perks, chest location and contents
The main draw of the Enlightened faith is the chest of goodies. They have a church in New Atlantis on Jemison, and you can find it by heading to the Terrabrew near the spaceport, and using the elevator on the left of that to go to The Well. Turn to the left when you go out of the elevator to find the House of the Enlightened - then head inside there to find the chest on the left.
The contents of the chest are… not great, but it's fine, because the Enlightened chest is terrible too, so it's fair. Here's what you get for being Raised Universal:
- Charity in a Godless Universe: Part I (book)
- Charity in a Godless Universe: Part II (book)
- Charity in a Godless Universe: Part III (book)
- Charity in a Godless Universe: Part IV (book)
- Drink Pack: Water
- Med Pack x5
- Penicillin X x2
- Settler Poncho Outfit
This is the sort of bounty that can be somewhat helpful at the very beginning of the game, and practically worthless if you get it more than ten hours in. We recommend you get it the moment you learn how to grav jump in Starfield, heading to Jemison and New Atlantis for the first time.
Raised Universal perks, chest location and contents
The Raised Universal faith offers you a very similar chest of freebies as the Enlightened, with a few minor discrepancies and differences. You can find it in New Atlantis - the easiest way is to leave the Lodge, Constellation's headquarters and follow the park on the right hand side towards the Commercial District. There's a big gold symbol above the door that'll mark it out - then head inside and down the steps to find the chest on the left, just next to the door to the Father's office.
In accordance with parity between faiths, the Universal Chest is also pretty unremarkable:
- Addichrone x2
- Boom Pop! Orange
- Festive Neocity Poncho
- Med Pack x5
- Sanctum Universum, Vol 1 (book)
- Sanctum Universum, Vol 2 (book)
- Sanctum Universum, Vol 3 (book)
Again, if you do pick the Raised Universal trait, you'll want to get this early on while it's still at its most helpful to you - otherwise you'll realise that there's not much here for you to make use of.
Serpent's Embrace / House Va'ruun perks and advantages
The main advantage of the Serpent's Embrace and House Va'ruun is that grav jumping in your ship gives you a perk that lasts for four hours, a +25 boost to both Health and O2, and penalises those stats if you don't grav jump every four hours - but considering it's easy, free and common to grav jump, that's rarely and barely a threat.
It also unlocks very specific dialogue with the House Va'ruun zealots - all religions have some unique dialogue - but the Enlightened and Sanctum are far less of a general threat than House Va'ruun, so the Serpent's Embrace means you can often pacify others in dialogue!
How to leave your religion in Starfield
To quit your religion in Starfield and leave either the Universal or Enlightened churches, players simply need to find the head priest at the locations mentioned above and speak to them, where there'll be a dialogue option to remove the trait (make sure you claim your mediocre chest first, as you'll lose access to it).
To leave House Va'ruun and remove the Serpent's Embrace trait, players go to New Atlantis on Jemison and to the cells of the UC Security Office, where there'll be a fanatic of House Va'ruun in custody called Mir'za. Speak to her and say you are having a crisis of faith to remove the trait.
© 12DOVE. Not to be reproduced without permission
