The Pathfinder universe is about to get a lot bigger when Starfinder Second Edition releases in August 2025. Starfinder, Paizo Publishing’s sci-fantasy game, will be updated to the award-winning 2e ruleset, making both Pathfinder and Starfinder fully compatible with one another. Starfinder‘s high-tech high-magic campaign setting is both an expansion upon cosmic lore from the Pathfinder series and its own distinct universe, separated from the lore of the parent series through multiversal plot devices.
Starfinder‘s setting is jam-packed full of creative world-building to satisfy a broad range of science-fantasy tropes, from Star Trek‘s galactic exploration to the gritty street-level drama of Cyberpunk. That narrative flexibility, the added depth of the six-year-old Pathfinder Second Edition ruleset, and the intensive playtesting during game development all promise to deliver a game that science-fiction roleplaying gamers can get excited about.
The Pathfinder & Starfinder Crossover, Explained
While Their Histories may Connect, Their Mysteries Keep Them Separate
Pathfinder and Starfinder have always shared more than just a ruleset. While Pathfinder is set in a medieval fantasy world with some splashes of steampunk technology, Starfinder is set in a possible version of the former’s science-fiction future. Gods, factions, and even characters from Pathfinder have made appearances in Starfinder, but there are some huge unanswered mysteries that presently divide the two game settings.
First, Starfinder eliminated the interconnected history with a universal event known as the Gap. This magical catastrophe erased memories and historical records for unknown eons, even affecting the gods of the setting, with their powers diminished when divining events that occurred during the Gap. Since Starfinder is only one of Pathfinder‘s possible futures, the Gap saves Pathfinder from needing to conform to Starfinder canon while both games are simultaneously ongoing.
Second, Starfinder disposed of the Pathfinder home planet altogether. The missing planet of Golarion does not make an appearance in Starfinder, its place in the cosmos being taken by a space station where the native species of the missing planet now reside. Because of the memory-erasing catastrophe of the Gap, questions about the space station’s existence and the missing planet are both campaign mysteries that add intrigue to the setting. Though players are able to visit Golarion World, a theme park planet dedicated to the vanished planet, the mystery of what happened to the original planet remains up to game masters to answer or ignore around their own tables.
When Will Starfinder 2e Be Available to Play?
Playtest Rules and Adventures are out now; Official Rules to be Released at GenCon 2025
Paizo Publishing liberally employs playtesting to get fan input on design ideas. Paizo released playtest rules in August 2024 to allow their fanbase to stress-test the conversion of Starfinder to its second edtion, both as a free pdf, a print paperback rulebook, and in partnership with third-party platforms like Foundry. The playtest rules require the Pathfinder Core rules, found for free on Paizo’s official SRD, Archives Of Nethys, but the official player rulebook is due to be released at GenCon 2025 and will provide players with everything they need for their next science-fantasy campaign in one book.
Related
Every Pathfinder 2nd Edition Class, Ranked
Pathfinder 2e has classes that are fantastic, classes that are ok, and classes that just don’t quite make the grade.
Game Masters (GMs) who want to play sooner can either make their own science-fiction tabletop adventures combining the Pathfinder and Starfinder Playtest rules, or they can purchase multiple playtest adventures designed to stress-test the new ruleset and let players explore the setting. Interestingly, the first official book of the Starfinder universe will be released before the official ruleset launches. Scheduled for May 2025, the Starfinder Galaxy Guide will give a galactic primer of some of the planets, factions, and species of the Starfinder universe, providing Second Edition-playable versions of six classic Starfinder alien species. This book will update fans as to events and changes to the setting and set the stage for the next edition’s adventures.
Why is Starfinder Getting a Second Edition?
Starfinder 2E Will Sever the Last Licensing Ties Paizo had to D&D
Games benefit from occasional reboots to keep design and gameplay fresh, but Starfinder‘s newest edition came about in part due to industry shake-ups. A December 2023 leak purporting to be changes to the Wizards of the Coast Open Game License caused fan backlash and ripples throughout the community of games and creators that used the OGL to make Dungeons and Dragons-related gaming content – including both Pathfinder and Starfinder. Paizo and other gaming companies created a new license, the Open Roleplaying Creative License, or the ORC License, in order to provide a similar open framework to the OGL license outside the control of Hasbro corporate leadership. While Wizards of the Coast have walked back the unpopular changes proposed in the leaked draft, for many fans and creators the damage to trust had already been done.
As of its second edition, Starfinder will also no longer be produced under the Open Game License owned by Wizards of the Coast, which required terminology and lore changes to remove any intellectual property that was reliant on Dungeons & Dragons material. While Pathfinder is rereleasing its catalog in order to move over to the ORC License, Starfinder is taking the opportunity to give its older edition a full update.
What’s Changing In Starfinder 2e?
Starfinder 2e Will Use the Same Rules as Pathfinder 2e, but Continue its own Lore
Starfinder 2E will represent a large change in the game’s rule system. Starfinder‘s first edition was a moderately adjusted version of Pathfinder‘s first edition, which in turn was a moderately tweaked version of Dungeons and Dragons‘ popular 3.5 edition. Starfinder‘s newest iteration will use the same rules system as Pathfinder, making the two games completely cross-compatible. Players will be able to play fantasy classes in Starfinder or bring the science-fiction tropes to Pathfinder without any conversion of rules content, greatly expanding each game’s potential for exploration.
Pathfinder and Starfinder both maintain ongoing stories that add drama and adventure into their game settings, and Starfinder is taking the opportunity of its new edition to advance the story of its galaxy. In two playtest adventures designed to showcase and test the developing ruleset, Starfinder had one planet hatch into a baby eldritch god called the Newborn, and had one of their anti-heroic galactic empires dissolve into civil war and a struggle of conquest against another evil imperial power. While no announcements have been made as to the first official adventures to be released with the new edition, fans expect to learn more at PaizoCon 2025 over Memorial Day Weekend.
Related
The 15 Biggest Differences Between Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e
As a modified version of the iconic tabletop game, Pathfinder 2e is similar in some ways to D&D 5e, but it also has its fair share of differences.
Meanwhile, in the playtest rulebook, new gods have risen to greater prominence, such as Lambatuin, the ominpresent god of Starfinder’s internet, memes, and pop culture. Additionally, changes to the setting that occurred during Starfinder 1E are being canonized, like the updates to Starfinder‘s technological hyperspace plane that occurred during the Drift Crisis sourcebook event. When Pathfinder released its updated edition, it resolved some major world events detailed in their Adventure Path series.
For example, 2e assumes that unknown heroes won the epic war that closed the demonic Worldwound in the Wrath Of The Righteous computer game adventure, but failed to stop the necromantic Whispering Tyrant from returning to life in the Tyrant’s Grasp campaign. It’s expected that Starfinder will include similar updates on how to canonize events from First Edition adventures with the new campaign setting.
While much of the Starfinder lore is fully original and unaffected by the licensing and intellectual property changes, the notable loss of drow to the setting has larger implications for the planetary lore of Apostae, a barren planet with dark cyberpunk cities on the surface and mysterious artificially-made corridors and chambers beneath the surface. While fans need to wait until May’s Galaxy Guide to discover the full fate of the planet and its former inhabitants, Paizo has stated that they will not rewrite old OGL content, adding a layer of mystery to how they will handle the transfer of power from the old bosses of the planet to its unknown new overseers.
How Many Species and Classes Will Be in Starfinder’s Player Core Rulebook?
Starfinder Will Have 16 Species and 6 Classes, Plus all of Pathfinder’s Options
Starfinder‘s original core races are all represented in the new edition’s playtest rulebook, letting players choose from humans, androids, the graceful four-armed kasathas, the dimorphic psychic lashunta, the insectile shirren, the warmongering reptilain vesk, and the scrappy rat-like ysoki. In addition, the playtest added the shapeshifting amorphous barathu, the musical feline pahtra, and the hyper helpful six-armed skittermanders, plus options to play undead borai or the hyperspace-altered prismeni. With six more species releasing in May and the full selection of Pathfinder species to additionally draw from, Starfinder promises to offer a huge array of available ancestries for players at launch.
Related
Pathfinder 2e: Every Class, Explained
With 16 distinct classes, Pathfinder’s second edition truly lets players create the character of their dreams with a huge range of options.
Starfinder will add six new science-fiction and planetary fantasy classes to the Pathfinder universe. Envoys will serve as social warrior, using their skills to debuff foes and support allies depending on their leadership style. Mystics fill a similar niche to clerics, offering divine magic and healing abilities to aid their party. Operatives represent highly-trained field agents, an update of D&D‘s traditional rogue archetypes into a modern form. Solarions represent warriors with a mystical connection to the stellar forces of light and gravity. Soldiers exemplify area weapons, heavy armor, and implacable offense.
Finally, witchwarpers serve as paradoxical magic-users, representing those with control over time and the multiverse. Two additional classes, the technomancer and the mechanic, will provide technology-based options in a yet-to-be-announced book released after the core rulebook. Players can expect an opportunity to playtest these classes at some point in the spring of 2025.
