Bethesda hired a noted modder to help with Starfield's clutter and lighting
Want to work for Bethesda? Making mods for the studio's games might help you get you noticed. A couple of years ago, Ryan Johnson from the Fallout: London mod team was hired to be a level designer on Fallout 76, and modder Elianora, aka Emmi Junkkari, just revealed that she worked as additional lighting artist on Starfield.
Elianora's known for modding player homes and outfits in Bethesda's games, with her Breezehome replacement for Skyrim Special Edition having been downloaded 1.5 million times, while Eli's Armour Compendium for Fallout 4, which includes 50 suits of armor and 20 accessories, has racked up three million downloads on Nexus Mods. Personally, I've found a smaller Elianora mod to be essential: the Bloodchill Manor Patch that prevents the entrance to Bloodchill Cavern (an area added to Skyrim in the Anniversary Edition/Creation Club) from being made inaccessible if you also use Inigo, one of my favorite modded followers.
In a post announcing her involvement, Elianora admitted that she'd been pretending to not know about some of the Starfield reveals in the run-up to launch, saying, "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."
If you've been impressed by all the coffee cups and other objects scattered around Starfield to give places that lived-in feeling, one of the people you should thank for that is a modder. Though Elianora was quick to add that she worked as a contractor and was part of a team who also deserve credit for Starfield's clutter and lighting.
Elianora streams on Twitch, where you can watch her play Starfield. Also of note: she has a "khajiit cam" trained on her cat's bed in the corner of the screen, which is adorable.