LogInIt came to light that Emmi "Elianora" Junkkari worked on Starfield in the role of Lighting and Clutter Artist.
A couple of days ago, Emmi Junkkari, a renowned Skyrim and Fallout 4 Modder known online as Elianora, disclosed that they were hired by Bethesda itself to work on Starfield, the developer's highly-anticipated sci-fi RPG recently released in early access.
Elianora took to Twitter to share this exciting news, mentioning that they had to maintain absolute secrecy about their involvement. They even had to feign surprise at each new teaser and press release about Starfield from Bethesda, likely due to the confidentiality agreements they had signed.
The post goes on to confirm that Elianora worked on Starfield in the role of Lighting and Clutter Artist, which is quite fitting, considering their track record of creating mods that revamp in-game locations and add intricate details to various levels in Bethesda's games.
"I have been deceiving you. I have been lying. I have been faking. I've kept secrets and pretended. Today is the day to come clean," reads Elianora's Twitter post. "I was merely pretending whenever I said I hadn't a clue what Starfield would be like and what Bethesda could be up to. I faked my surprise at ladders, and the space flight, and the awesome level of detail of the environments and I acted like I was in total unexpected awe of the clutter. Actually, I placed some of that clutter myself. I am part of this game."
To prove it, the artist also shared a screenshot of their name in the credits:
The artist also noted that they were only "a Lighting and Clutter Artist, one of many", humbly acknowledging that they could only attribute a small portion of Starfield's environmental elements to their own contributions.
"Listen guys I was a Lighting and Clutter Artist, one of many, I wasn't the only one, and am not trying to diminish their work and can only take credit for a fraction of this game's environmental stuff," commented Elianora on LinkedIn. "The Level Artists and Designers and the lighting team especially are PHENOMENAL ARTISTS."
Image Credit: Bethesda, Starfield
It appears that in recent years, Bethesda has been making it a common practice to hire renowned Modders. Earlier, it was reported that Stephanie Zachariadis and Ryan Johnson, Head Writer and Lead Technical Adviser on Fallout: London, a DLC-sized mod for Bethesda's Fallout 4, both joined Bethesda to work as Associate Quest Designer and Associate Level Designer, respectively.
And back in 2021, CD Projekt Red hired several members of the Cyberpunk 2077 Modding Community to work on "various projects related to the Cyberpunk 2077 backend and the game's modding support", proving that Bethesda is not the only developer to have embraced the practice.
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