Starfield: Shattered Space

Shattered Space offers a lot of what fans missed in the base game. Nevertheless, the story is a huge disappointment.

Starfield: Shattered Space has some excellent side quests and interesting new places to explore. Unfortunately, it’s all tied together by a largely boring main quest, and leaves what could have been its standout character as completely optional and in the background.

Starfield: Shattered Space fills the conspicuous Va’ruun-shaped hole in the main campaign with a generous helping of quest content that’s thick with snake-worshiping lore and tough, teleporting enemies. Elder Scrolls and Fallout fans will recognize a lot of these story outlines, but the Starfield twist makes them more than simple reheats. Refreshingly, the new planet is more of a traditional Bethesda-style open world that feels more like a real place where there’s a lot to do, which is a welcome improvement over hopping between mostly barren worlds. However, there’s not much to take with you once you leave, since outside of new quests and a handful of new weapons and building options there are no new gameplay systems – or even new powers or skills – you’ll want to try out after a new run through the Unity. It’s more Starfield for those who want it, but Shattered Space doesn’t shatter a lot of conventions.

Ultimately, Starfield: Shattered Space is an expansion that delivers.

Which way is Starfield heading? So far, it’s stayed put, and for the hardcore fans maybe that’s good enough, at least this time around…

Yes, this is “more Starfield,” a game I liked, but I am very disappointed in the way it has barely evolved a year later, and the best thing about is Bethesda going back to a Bethesda-like zone structure. That’s good, but also feels very inauthentic to what the game was supposed to be. This is not going to convert anyone, nor may it satisfy many veterans. I did get some pretty screenshots, though.

Intriguing lore and a new hand-crafted planet to explore can't quite override recurring bugs and tired quest design.

More Starfield is a good thing. But Shattered Space doesn't do enough to justify the long wait.

Despite starting from truly intriguing premises, Shattered Space is a content that moves - with the brakes on - between light and shadow, failing to add a piece of great value to the Starfield content mosaic. Net of its qualitative fluctuations, Bethesda's DLC is not unpleasant in any way, but it is difficult not to attribute to the package the characteristics of an operation carried out, at least in part, on autopilot. A direction that makes one turn up one's nose also in relation to the list price, too high in relation to the scope and quality of the offer.

The Starfield Shattered Space expansion leaves a lot to be desired. While it introduces a more focused and engaging story compared to the base game, the average map and quest design, along with the lack of new features, turn the adventure in Va'Ruun'kai into a bit of a slog rather quickly. Although the tighter focus is welcome, the Starfield experience as a whole needs something more substantial to reach its full potential.

Shattered Space was a chance for Bethesda to do some stuff that’d make quibbling about where you can spend five hours building a little house surrounded by mineral extractors a lot less important than it was in the base game. It was a golden opportunity to take the great ideas Bethesda’d had when devising a faction that’d grabbed players’ attention, and bring them to life with a bunch of either the classic Bethesda magic, or a new mojo that the studio could carry on into the great games it may well add to an already storied legacy in the future. Instead, anyone returning to Starfield after all the time they’ve spent with what remains a very marmite base game will likely be left feeling much the same way they did about all those hours when they get done playing what could have been a home run return to star form.

Overall, Shattered Space is a decent expansion that introduces a deep story along with a dark planet featuring larger quests and new enemies. While it's enjoyable, it doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking and feels more like an additional dose of the familiar rather than offering something truly new to the game.

An expansion that will not attract new players. Those who loved the main game could gain some entertainment from Shattered Space, but it's hard to give high praise for minimum effort.

While its new environments are a decent aside, Shattered Space seems largely content to tread water, leaving Starfield the same mixed bag it always was.

While Shattered Space is quite possibly one of Starfield's most enjoyable storylines to date, it once again struggles to offer any real consequences. And its new setting feels woefully underutilised.

Shattered Space will certainly revive Starfield for those who fell for the Premium Edition, but it won't convince others to spend 30 euros to give it another chance. Building on various strengths of the base title, such as the developed lore and captivating missions, the expansion of Bethesda's software turns its back on other of its pillars. This would not have been a problem if Va'ruun'kai, the only new planet in this DLC, had offered something truly different/innovative/surprising... which is not the case. Short on new content, Shattered Space is content with fast-paced faction quests with multiple choices, which unfortunately do not breathe the wind of renewal that we would have liked after a year of waiting. As such, not everything that is handmade is necessarily in exquisite taste.

Games like The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 or even Skyrim introduced lots of new, high quality content with their respective expansions. Shattered Space was supposed to be one of such add-ons - after a bumpy debut of Starfield, Bethesda surely would deliver something really good. Sadly, this is not the case.

Maybe one day, Starfield will finally become what everyone had hoped, with more emphasis on the mechanics people enjoy. Starfield: Shattered Space isn't the worst DLC in the world, and fans of the base game may enjoy it, but it fails to live up to the reputation that Bethesda has established as a company that makes great expansions.

Starfield: Shattered Space takes you to a "shattered space", and I mean it literally. This is probably the most unstable, unpolished DLC that Bethesda has ever released. It doesn't improve the original game's experience by any means but rather drags it further down. If you want to play Starfield, just play Starfield and forget about Shattered Space. You won't miss anything.

The kindest thing I can say about Shattered Space is that it’s “just more Starfield”, and if you wanted more missions and story content, then this expansion delivers. However, if you didn’t enjoy the base game very much, Shattered Space doesn’t provide much reason to return. If you wanted a colourful new planet to roam around and a couple of new scripted story missions to expand your experience with Starfield, Shattered Space certainly provides that. However, with few particularly unique missions that stand out from the main game, and an overall lack of new mechanics, interesting new narrative content, or polish, only the most diehard of Starfield fans are likely to get much out of it.

The Va'ruun are beyond boring when you get to know them, Dazra is small in the scope of the grand cosmos, and your ship just sits there beckoning you despite there being no new way to customise it, nor anywhere interesting to go. Combine that with annoying enemies and scant new loot to discover and there’s not really much reason to blast off again.