My biggest pick with Starfield was its timid vision for the future. The squeaky-clean hallways of New Atlantis didn’t work for me as much as the crime-ridden backwaters of Riften, and on an average planet, points of interest are so thinly spread that it’s hard to remember anything but It felt like I was wading through miles of desolate space to find what remained.
What you need to know
What is it? The first expansion for Bethesda’s space exploration RPG. Featuring a nasty cult to investigate and a new homeland to explore.
Plan to pay $30
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Reviewed with Windows 11, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, Intel Core i7-12700F, 16 GB RAM
Multiplayer? No
Ends: September 30, 2024
Steam deck: not supported
Link: Official website
However, I didn’t hate this game. The game continues the best of Bethesda’s previous hits, bringing back some of the RPG elements we missed in Fallout 4. That’s why I went into Shattered Space with some expectations. The enigmatic ’70s horror-tinged Great Serpent Cult is a more colorful piece of work than Starfield’s bland “space is out of place” baseline, and perhaps a more focused experience would have you putting down the machete. You will be able to see the potential that Bethesda had before. The spread is too thin.
Unfortunately, I think this DLC backfired on me. The stage is set dazzlingly. It’s a handcrafted zone filled with quests and NPCs with competing interests. There are new weapons to find, unique enemies to use them on, and a fresh story far removed from the shackles of a colloquial main story. I was trapped trying to bring this sandbox to life, but instead Shattered Space delivers its usual bland stew. It mostly follows the rails, has little substance for the price, and commits to a story that’s already forgotten the details.
balloon elephant
The high point of Shattered Space is the new environment and worldbuilding of the protagonist planet Va’ruun’kai. After exploring an abandoned space station crawling with vortex phantoms (Ghosts, as Starfield calls them), you discover a cult worshiping a little-explored serpent god in the world. , thrown into the political quagmire of Huis va Lune. main game. The obligatory temples and fanatic hideouts were atmospheric and we spent more than a few minutes admiring the gorgeous skybox from different angles in photo mode.
This closed theocratic ruling family has no love for outsiders, but since you’re the protagonist of a Bethesda game, there’s no excuse not to join any named faction. But while these types of quests tend to shine in Fallout and Elder Scrolls, once you get used to the rhythm of the story, Va Rune’s mystique wears off.
In one quest, we had to track down the son of a missing man. After finding his camp, I saw footprints and blood, so I followed what I thought was his direction. After a few minutes, I realized that I needed to manually interact with clues about the camp’s environment to trigger the next part of the quest. So I fulfilled the conditions and returned. And my character quipped to his peers that this needs to be done the old-fashioned way. The scanner then marked in my field of vision exactly where I needed to go and drew arrows along the way to help me find it. For a split second, I was there role-playing.
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(Image credit: Bethesda)(Image credit: Bethesda)(Image credit: Bethesda)(Image credit: Bethesda)(Image credit: Bethesda Softworks)
Then I found the door. It was locked. Next to that door was a computer. When I opened it, there was a large button that said “Open door.” I pressed the button and the door opened. That was it. Does it qualify as a puzzle? Obstacle? Capture? Whatever it is, it feels like the game is moving through its own motions, and that feeling weighs heavily on Shattered Space at its best.
This also affects the story. For a fleeting moment, the characters pose to explore the relationship between religion and science at a time when humans have abandoned their home planet and become dependent on their own technology. And they snap me out of the situation like a bad dream, forcing me to move on to the next goal marker before anyone can take a meaningful stance. Like the base game, Shattered Space proves too dangerous to tip the world’s status quo in any direction. At the end of the expansion’s main mission, you can make monumental choices that have great theoretical implications, but they remain theoretical and nothing is ever developed. All the new ideas are few and far between, and what’s left is just a reminder of why I wasn’t interested in Starfield in the first place.
My favorite memories of Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are all of finding them on my own in off-the-beaten-path locations. Starfield’s desolate path is as overwhelming as ever, and if you stray from it, you’re greeted with the same throwaway brawls and stiff, superficial dialogue as before. Even when you do find them, the random encounters are so formulaic that they end up feeling like content for content’s sake.
starry eyes
The one I most enjoyed in my playthrough was added in a free patch a long time ago and is not specific to Shattered Space. A new spacecraft mount allows for faster, more satisfying travel across space rocks, and access to an in-game mod menu gives you even more worlds of effortless customization. These additions solve real problems in the base game and improve the overall package as a result. Shattered Space, on the other hand, doesn’t move the needle an inch. As much as I want to lose myself in this world, I still struggle with the sloppy UI, converse with faceless characters who come and go from table to table, and then return to the ship I rarely have a reason to board when I’m done. Anywhere.
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(Image credit: Bethesda)(Image credit: Bethesda)(Image credit: Bethesda)(Image credit: Bethesda)
Despite their notable flaws, I love the other Bethesda RPGs mentioned above. Skyrim’s light RPG concessions made much of the action disposable, and Fallout 4’s dialogue trees are notoriously rigid, but occupying a meticulously crafted world makes those points It’s worth ignoring. I always look at Starfield the other way. Despite its robust system and impressive technology, it’s a game that just can’t draw me in with its mediocre setting and boring gunfights.
Bethesda’s blurb emphasized the novelty of the game’s “NASApunk” identity, and promised that this expansion would further enhance that, but I’m left unsold. It’s not innovative enough to be confused with NASA, and it’s not innovative enough to be confused with punk. Shattered Space evoked the most emotion in me when its occult houses reminded me of Morrowind. Morrowind is a world that feels more alien and offers players more agency, even though it doesn’t offer a single spaceship.
Shattered Space brings you a few more hours of familiar games. If, like me, you’ve been waiting for Starfield to boldly go where it hasn’t gone before, you’ll still have plenty to do.
