Starfieldis an incredibly ambitious game, letting players travel to and exploremore than 1,000 planets and moons, but it’s not without faults. That massive scope itself has become a major critique – instead of the densely packed, heavily curated worlds Bethesda is traditionally known to produce,Starfieldrandomly generates plots of land for players to wander in. While the technology itself is admirably applied, the space RPG can often feel lacking in variety outside its main questlines, an issue that theupcomingShattered Spaceexpansionseemingly hopes to solve, hinted at by its achievement list.
Over a year after the game’s initial launch,Shattered Spacearrives to bring theStarfieldfaithful more content, including a follow-up story to one of the base game’s largest mysteries: House Va’ruun. MultipleStarfieldupdates have brought improvementsto the game since launch, butShattered Spaceis expected to be a more typical Bethesda expansion. Its narrative is set to take players to a brand-new world, and will conceivably be a rather robust batch of content, if previous expansions toFallout 4andSkyrimare any indication.
Shattered Space May Address Starfield’s Issues With Repetitive Content
Va’ruun Kai Is The DLC’s Primary Location
A month ahead ofShattered Space’s release, the expansion’s achievements were added to Steam (screenshot courtesy of Reddit userTERABIT). While most appear to be awarded for completing certain quests, one notably revolves around the DLC’s main setting, the planet of Va’ruun Kai.The achievement, titled “The Great Unknown,” is given to players who “Discover 50 Locations on Va’ruun Kai,“the mysterious homeworld of House Va’ruun, the religious sect that worships a deity known as the Great Serpent.
While Va’ruun Kai will likely take advantage ofStarfield’s procedurally generated content – it’s unreasonable to expect an entire hand-crafted planet –The Great Unknown achievement is a promising glimpse into how denseShattered Spacewill be. If named buildings are considered discoverable locations (those in the base game are after the game updated its previously useless surface maps), then even the bustling city of New Atlantis barely surpasses the 50 threshold with all of its named buildings across all five of its districts.
Shattered Space Appears To Be Focusing On Bespoke Content
Dazra Will Be Starfield’s Fifth Major City
It would seem thatShattered Spaceis largely revolving around a single planet, Va’ruun Kai, and the capital city of House Va’ruun’s theocratic government, Dazra. Very little is known about Dazra, and even the star system that Va’ruun Kai is located in is a closely guarded secret by the worshipers of the Great Serpent.This could potentially make the DLC’s gameplay rather refreshing– a reprieve from constantly grav jumping between star systems to complete quests.
Players can take the Serpent’s Embrace perk to become a member of House Va’ruun, though its bonuses do not include any knowledge of Va’ruun Kai’s whereabouts. The player character is seemingly a convert without ever having visited the sect’s capital.
Fast travel will still be required if locations across the planet are visited, but a tighter focus presumably means players will encounter more concentrated hand-crafted areas, and fewer cookie-cutter, procedurally generated points of interest. It will of course be impossible to know beforeShattered Spacereleases and players can see for themselves, but this hint from the achievement list is a promising sign. In many ways,Starfield’s ambition got in the way of its reputation, but its first expansion appears to be something of a course correction.
