Starfield: Shattered Space

I'm one of those people who likes Starfield. No, I certainly don't think it's a masterpiece, nor is it a gigantic technological or artistic achievement. But usually, especially online, there's a gap between fulfilled expectations and analytical, measured criticism, and just because Starfield can't give a given player the same feeling as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Fallout 3 doesn't mean it's a bad game.

At the same time, it's impossible to deny an obvious need from even the most loyal Todd Howard fans. Everyone wants Bethesda to take a closer look at their core systems and update, innovate and find a different way to serve their formula. Whether that happens with the upcoming The Elder Scrolls VI is hard to say, but one thing we can say with space-grade certainty; Shattered Space is "just" more Starfield.

This means that if the base game didn't do anything for you, this expansion will do absolutely nothing to convince you either. Bethesda recommends tackling the content after level 35, so it's ideal for players who have either almost or completely defeated the Settled Systems' hundreds of hours of content, and everything about Shattered Space reeks of Bethesda wanting to speak more directly to those who already love their very specific way of structuring a single-player RPG experience - for better or worse.

The actual journey from discovering a seemingly abandoned space station belonging to a House Va'ruun research team, where an enigmatic event has put an end to a series of mysterious experiments, to landing on the faction's home planet Va''ruun'kai is not bad at all. With internal strife, unexplained events and plenty of crucial choices to make, House Va'ruun is undoubtedly one of the more interesting characters in this universe. Starfield: Shattered Space fires on the cylinders that got the game off the launch pad in the first place, and if you agree that this is a familiar reunion of mechanics, progression and dialogue, then it's an enjoyable one.

Va'ruun'kai is also far more cohesive than other locations in the Starfield universe, as this one planet makes up all of Shattered Space. This doesn't mean that the planet's surface is saturated with in-depth content like in Skyrim, where every inch feels handcrafted. Va'ruun'kai has no auto-generated elements and was designed by Bethesda Game Studios, of course, but Starfield has always favoured breadth and depth, and it still shows here, especially in certain side missions where you still act as a postman, or a simple executioner, or a mix of the two, where it feels like you're playing an MMORPG from 15 years ago - or even World of Warcraft to this day.

But it's all passable, from the pretty solid standalone main missions that flesh out House Va'runn, touch on a mysterious explosion that has rendered parts of Va'ruun'kai's surface uninhabitable and what the Great Serpent really is, to the gameplay you either hate to love or love to hate.

If you ask me, Shattered Space's biggest problem is how limited it all is. There are no structures, mechanics or systems you can take with you from Shattered Space into this infinite universe where countless other adventures await. It could have been habitable and customisable space stations, it could have been new companions with their own in-depth quest lines, it could have been new handcrafted dungeons on planets other than Va'ruun'kai - the possibilities are so many, almost endless because Starfield is so huge. Instead, I just ended up wanting more than what I got, precisely because Starfield doesn't lack content per se, but it lacks extra systems that make the exploration of that content more immersive, seamless and dynamic. Shattered Space basically just gives you this standalone story in a small corner of the universe. It can be seen as a breath of fresh air for some, but for Starfield it seems too limited and not in the spirit of the game. Many feel that space combat is an aspect where the game really needs an overhaul - Bethesda responds by not adding anything at all to spaceships or the combat in them. You're benched for the entire expansion. And that kind of says it all.

Starfield has received meaningful updates since launch last year, although the 60fps setting on Xbox Series X runs at that frame-rate about 25% of the time. And it's reassuring that Bethesda has big plans for the long-term support of the game. But this seems more like a footnote than a transformative addition, and it just gets stuck in your head pretty quickly when you play. That's not to say the expansion is underwhelming, and if you just want more Starfield, that's exactly what you get.