Should You Kill Shaw in Starfield

During The Empty Nest, you’ll be confronted with a choice that will make you question whether you should kill Shaw in Starfield. This questline asks you to recover an Artifact in Akila City and culminates in forcing you to decide if you should kill the Shaw Gang’s leader, who operates under the Freestar Collective System. They are the ones that have the Artifact, after all. However, it’s unsurprising that Shaw isn’t happy with your deeds after infiltrating their turf, wrecking their hideout, and killing their people. You can choose to eliminate, persuade, or simply pay her off in the face of anger.

Starfield: Should You Kill Shaw in The Empty Nest

Kill Shaw in The Empty Nest Starfield — Image Source: Bethesda via The Nerd Stash

Our personal choice is to persuade Shaw since it’s the most rewarding and cost-effective option to close off this quest. Still, here’s a quick exploration of every outcome possible:

If it’s within your possibilities to persuade instead of killing Shaw in Starfield, this should be the quickest way out of the hassle. Persuading Shaw in Starfield requires maxing out six persuasion bars. It shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish with one or two persuasion ranks in the skill tree. This choice also proves to be the most fruitful. Not only will aiding Shaw against the Ashtas make taking down the beast easier, but she’ll sweeten the deal with a Modified Calibrated Razorback as a reward. This is a 70-damage pistol with a reflex sight and binary trigger. Sure, it’s not legendary, but you can’t deny it’s a solid modded weapon.

Best Weapon Mod Combinations in Starfield

But it could be that persuasion is off of the table. Plus, weighing the Ashtas as a reason to choose not to kill Shaw in Starfield may not be a heavy point if you don’t plan to do that. After all, dealing with the Ashtas is optional. In this case, maybe killing Shaw would be the better option. With Shaw dead, you can loot her and every other corpse after the fight. This does mean free ammo and resources.

There is a third option there, too — to pay Shaw off. Basically, you should only rely on this option if you must stay amicable with Shaw to deal with the Ashtas and can’t pass a persuasion check due to a lack of skill or… well, terrible luck. Trust us; it happens to the best of us. If you don’t want to kill Shaw in Starfield, the only option left here will be to pay 4,000 credits, and you won’t earn anything in return.

Starfield is available on PC and Xbox.