Summary
Starfield’s first DLC,Shattered Space, has been revealed with a release window and a full trailer. The existence ofStarfieldDLC has been more or less confirmed since even before launch: DLC has always been a part of Bethesda’s open-world RPGs, and was promised as a bonus for certain pre-orders of the game. News has been sparse since then, with focus instead onStarfield’s updates and gameplay improvements.
But that all changed during the Xbox Games Showcase, one of the events that made up 2024’s Summer Game Fest weekend.Shattered Spacepremiered its first ever trailer, revealing its release window, story premise, and first look at gameplay. Based on that trailer, here’s everything there is to know aboutStarfield’s DLC so far.
Starfield: Shattered Space DLC - Release Window & Platforms
When Does Shattered Space Come Out?
Starfield’sShattered SpaceDLC is due for release sometime in 2024, although it’s not clear exactly when. In an earlier interview,Starfielddirector Todd Howard announced that the DLCwould be released in the fall. It’s hard to say whether that’s still accurate, but it would make sense. If the release date were scheduled for the summer, it probably would’ve been soon enough to be revealed specifically in the first trailer. A fall release date would also mean the DLC arrives almost exactly a year after the game’s initial launch.
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Shattered Spacewill be available on all platformswhere Starfieldcan be played: PC and Xbox Series X/S. However, unlike the base game, it won’t be free with Game Pass; players who accessStarfieldthrough the subscription service will have to pay an additional fee for theShattered SpaceDLC.
Starfield: Shattered Space - Story Details
The Shattered Space DLC Focuses On House Va’ruun
Everything in the trailer seems to point towardStarfield’sShattered SpaceDLC focusing on House Va’ruun. This is one of the optionalreligions players can pick inStarfield. It’s pretty much absent from the main story, except for a couple of intersections with otherwise unrelated quests. It’s also the religion that the companion Andreja belongs to, which does cause some tension in theStarfieldquest “Divided Loyalties.”
House Va’ruun worships a deity called the Great Serpent, which its adherents believe created, and will eventually be responsible for devouring, the Milky Way galaxy. During this apocalyptic event, only those who devoted themselves to the Great Serpent would survive, at which point they would exert its vision on the wider galaxy.
The religion was founded by a colonist named Jinan Va’ruun, who claimed to have received these teachings from the Great Serpent directly. He spread its doctrine to the other inhabitants of his colony ship, which promptly went missing. When it reappeared, Jinan declared war on those who wouldn’t convert to his belief system. However, this Serpent’s Crusade ended with his death, after which his son and heir took a more peaceful approach.
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These events happened a century before the game begins, and are all implied inStarfield’s base game through documents, dialogue, and environmental storytelling. However, House Va’ruun itself is nowhere to be seen. Since then, it’s been taken over by zealots so secretive that few know the coordinates of their home world, Va’ruun’kai. They scarcely interfere in events outside of it unless they have something to gain.TheStarfieldDLC will attempt to solve the mysteries of House Va’ruunby allowing the player access to its abandoned facilities, where they’ll learn more about the religion’s founding and the Great Serpent itself.
Shattered Spaceopens with the player character responding to a distress signal emanating from an area where there shouldn’t even be a space station. There, they discover an abandoned, overgrown facility, wherea voice claiming to belong to the Great Serpent instructs them to restore the fallen citadel and save House Va’ruun’s leader, Anasko. It’s unknown exactly what danger Anasko faces, but the giant, murderous aliens and serpentine forms in the abandoned citadel may provide a hint. They’ll continue to explore worlds inhabited by House Va’ruun, run afoul of secretive zealots, and rediscover lost secrets as they grow closer to the heart of the Va’ruunian conspiracy.
Starfield: Shattered Space - New Gameplay Features
Increased Customization, New Planets, New Enemies
TheShattered SpaceDLC will also bring several new gameplay features toStarfield, including a host of unseen worlds to explore. That should come as no surprise: as expansive asStarfield’s galaxy already is, the unique, House Va’ruun-centric planets seem to be designed specifically to fill certain roles in the story. The DLC will likely also include a few more uninhabited planets for players to explore, scan, and exploit with outposts.
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TheShattered SpaceDLC also includes several new enemy typesfor players to get entangled with. Seen in the trailer are giant, insectoid aliens, who scuttle after the player with sharp pincers aloft. These will likely stalk the ruins of the once-great House Va’ruun, posing an obstacle to the player’s exploration. Ghostly manifestations of other spacers also appear in the trailer. It’s unknown how these are related to the plot: they may be the last vestiges of Jinan Va’ruun’s original colony shipmates, or Va’ruunian zealots using cloaking devices.
The announcement of theShattered SpaceDLC also came alongside the reveal ofStarfield’s Creation Club, an in-game storefront for the purchase of custom content. This includes both player-made mods and official downloads, with things like special weapons, armor skins, ship modules, and other customizations. This increases the overall customizability of the game, but has also caused controversy. Bethesda’s Creation Clubs have come under fire in the past for their introduction of microtransactions to single-player, story-focused RPGs. This has already led to areview bombing campaign forStarfield.
Players don’t have to buyShattered Spaceto access the Creation Club, but they will need virtual currency to download anything from it.
That’s everything to know aboutShattered Spaceat this early stage, but more information - including a concrete release date - should follow before the DLC comes out. For now, it’s enough to know thatStarfield’s first DLC will be released by the end of the year.
Starfield
Bethesda Game Studios presents Starfield - the first original IP from the studio in twenty-five-plus years. Set in the year 2310, the United Colonies and Freestar Collective are observing a shaky truce after a war set 20 years prior. The player will customize their character as a member of a space exploration team called Constellation while navigating The Settled Systems and the conflicts between the warring factions. According to Bethesda, players can explore over 100 systems and 1000 planets to find resources and build their ships, living out their own sci-fi journeys.
