After Shattered Space, Starfield’s Next DLC Can Go Back to Basics

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 18, 2024 15 Views 6 Min Read
After Shattered Space, Starfield's Next DLC Can Go Back to Basics



Key Takeaways

  • Starfield’s first major expansion, Shattered Space, took a unique direction with cosmic horror, diverging from the base game’s atmosphere.
  • The next DLC for Starfield may see a return to core elements, focusing on the established factions and strengths of the game.
  • Despite criticisms of Shattered Space, Bethesda can use the revelations from the main campaign to explore new multiverse possibilities in future DLC.



Starfield marked Bethesda Game Studio’s first fresh IP in decades, and had many fans excited about its direction. The studio’s massive open world sci-fi RPG promised an entire galaxy’s worth of worlds to explore, and was a noticeable departure from its other flagship series, The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Starfield experienced a bit of a rockier launch, though, with a number of Bethesda’s trademark designs dividing players and critics on the quality of its gameplay and storytelling. Still, Starfield was considered a success, becoming the #11 bestselling title of 2023.

As the developer had stated, Bethesda is strongly committed to supporting and updating Starfield well into the future, with plans to keep it evolving and relevant in a manner like it has for Skyrim. Back in September, Starfield‘s first major expansion, Shattered Space, was released. Starring the enigmatic House Va’ruun, the DLC was a big change compared to much of what the base game contained. Shattered Space leaned firmly into cosmic horror versus the more realistic aspects of its vision of humanity’s conquering of the stars. And though Shattered Space was a unique take on established elements, Starfield can now pivot back to its more grounded sci-fi atmosphere in the next expansion.


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Starfield Player Character Posing in Ship

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In the Wake of Shattered Space, Starfield’s Next DLC Can Mark a Return to Its Core Elements

Starfield’s Shattered Space Was an Interesting Change That Might be Best As a One-Off

In the lead up to its release, there were various indications and assumptions that Shattered Space would center on the shadowy House Va’ruun faction and its strange and unsettling trappings. It was one underexplored and vaguely explained part of the main experience, and seemed a natural choice to flesh out in a DLC. While it was an intriguing experiment, introducing an unabashed horror angle into Starfield’s generally more realistic NASA-punk world, it almost seemed like it could’ve been another game at times.

Starfield presented a setting that initially didn’t contain many hints of horror in the vein of Shattered Space. As such, it may be best for upcoming DLCs to hone back in on the strengths of Starfield’s fundamentals rather than attempt to invoke a completely different genre within them.


How Starfield Can Go Back to Its Primary Premises in Future DLC

With the revelation at the end of the main campaign about the existence of Starborn and the multiverse, this would provide one potential path for future Starfield content to go back to its roots. Bethesda could perhaps focus more on those implications in DLC that explores some of the stranger or more humorous versions of them. This would allow it to touch on other genres without veering too far away from its sci-fi core, but still offering new takes and visions of the possibilities that Starfield‘s multiverse can encompass.


Shattered Space gave players an entirely new, hand-crafted planet to explore, and this might be another good starting point for Bethesda to consider. Some of the previous criticisms about it were that, while there is an impressive number of locations in Starfield, their randomly generated nature could eventually make them seem repetitive and uninspiring. Introducing a bespoke star system but with new characters and questlines could be a way to move forward while keeping its themes of exploration and discovery front and center.

Bethesda might also circle back to some of Starfield‘s main factions, and expand on what they’ve been up to. Ryujin Industries, for example, is a major player in the setting, and could likely carry its own DLC; one centering on the corporate espionage and power games that were present throughout. In any case, now that it has delved into horror, Starfield‘s next DLC can stick more closely to its established and well-realized atmosphere. Attempting such a change as Shattered Space did might risk muddying the franchise’s identity. But by returning to content that’s more aligned with the base elements, it could help Starfield retain its defining aesthetic and sensibilities, while expanding on the aspects that work best within them.


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