Starfield: Shattered Space’s hand-crafted new world signals a bright future

Bethesda has crafted some legendary worlds. Launching their first new IP in over 25 years and one, at that, that boasted over 1,000 unique planets was always going to leave prospective players salivating at the very thought of diving into Starfield.

Starfield was always pitched by the studio as a monumental release, and perhaps that’s why it proved to be so divisive. It’s a great game, but monumental? That’s going to vary by the individual. You’re going to have people who, perhaps, dove into Starfield as their first Bethesda game and adored it. You’re going to have others who have spent years pouring their hearts and souls into The Elder Scrolls and can’t help but compare. It all resulted in a cacophony of noise that perhaps overlooked the fact that Starfield was, on the whole, a wonderful game.

In fact, I declared it a rather controversial 10 out of 10 - and I wasn’t the only person to do so. Why? Well, this is what I had to say: “Starfield is without a doubt a monumental release - and not just because it's Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years. Every now and then, a new game comes along that changes our perception of what the industry is capable of. Starfield is that game. This is beyond what we’ve come to know an open-world to be. Bethesda has created a universe that, despite its vast scale, maintains interest and an impressive attention to detail throughout.”

Take a look at the trailer for Shattered Space below.

You see, Starfield may have left me with a few minor qualms - and I’ve been thrilled to see customisable ship interiors and land vehicles amongst the additions in recent months - but I found myself simply dazzled by its scale. Starfield offered a seemingly limitless playground even if it is technically finite, and the feeling of freedom that came with inhibiting a space like that truly impressed me. I felt that was backed up by an engaging story, unique factions, and interesting quests.

We all know that Bethesda games excel as they develop overtime because the studio is so good at creating these evolving ecosystems. That was definitely a factor that remained prominent in my head as I wrote that original review and now, having attended a press briefing on the upcoming Shattered Space expansion at this year’s Gamescom, I remain confident that Starfield is continuing to build upon its already impressive foundations.

If you’ve played Starfield, you’ll know that it’s split between developer-crafted hub planets and procedurally generated worlds. Both have their advantages. On the whole, the game’s main planets are more fun to spend time in, simply due to the sheer level of detail but so too can the procedurally generated planets throw up some unexpected and entertaining surprises. But with players having well combed over those key hubs by now, I’ve been hoping and willing that Bethesda might release more. After all, while I enjoy Starfield a lot, I do agree with the sentiment that procedurally generated planets can only sustain our attention for so long.

There’s something more engaging about an environment crafted by a team of real people. Every aspect, NPC, line of dialogue has been made with environmental storytelling in mind. Well, I can tease that Shattered Space is set to, in my opinion, introduce us to our most thrilling locale yet. It’s clear that in crafting Va'ruun'kai, the homeworld of House Va’ruun, Bethesda has built upon all its learnt - its successes and failures - to create something that could be quite special.

I was always somewhat surprised that House Va’ruun played such a small role in Starfield as, for me, they were easily the most intriguing faction, weirdly relegated to such a small segment of the game. Of course, as soon as Shattered Space was unveiled, that logic all became clear. If you don’t recall, House Va’ruun is a serpent-worshipping cult. They claim to have encountered ‘The Great Serpent’ during a grav jump.

Credit / Bethesda

In Shattered Space, we return to their homeworld to find that it's been affected by a catastrophic event that’s left the planet somewhat stranded in time and in a rather sorry array. Piercing rocks dominate the planet’s main city, with gravity anomalies plaguing the purple-hued skies - and of course this catastrophe has sprung forth ‘vortex’ alien-like bug creatures that can appear and attack you at any moment. Clearly, the people of Va’ruun’kai are in need of your help.

Given that it was a brief hands-off presentation, I can’t comment too thoroughly on the expansion, but I do sense that offering a more focused story set within an intricately designed environment is the best way to win naysayers over. It’s perhaps in offering too wide of a playable universe that Starfield lost people the first time around, so this feels like a step into more familiar territory for the studio.

If you haven’t guessed already, it’s up to you to figure out what’s happening to Va’ruun’kai and to assist its remaining survivors. It isn’t simply a new world and a new story that Shattered Space has to offer though. If you’ve played the UC Vanguard side quest ‘Friends Like These’ in the main game, you’ll have traversed through the Va’ruun Embassy which is easily the spookiest segment of Starfield. This area plays around with distorted vision, low lighting, and hallucinatory visions to create something that’s certainly unique and unsettling, unseen anywhere else in the game.

Well, from what I’ve seen, it looks as if Shattered Space is wholeheartedly set to build upon that idea. The glimpses of the game that I saw may have been brief, but the various locations across Va’ruun’kai seem to emulate this kind of oppressive environment we saw at the embassy. The enemies encountered are far more alien than they are human, which I think is the exact direction the combat needs to head in. The unpredictability of an unknown creature adds a sense of urgency that Starfield’s bumbling human enemies don’t always have.

There’s still a lot I don’t know about Starfield’s Shattered Space expansion, but I can’t shake the feeling that what’s on the way is exactly what the game needs. I hope that whatever answer lies at the heart of the mystery, that it’s as interesting as the base game’s take on New Game Plus. I hope those gravity anomalies finally allow us to make more use of our jetpacks, perhaps engaging in more airborne battles. I hope this developer-crafted hub is teeming with secrets to be discovered. These are all boxes that I don’t yet know if Bethesda has ticked. But a more horror-centric story centred on the base game’s most intriguing faction, set on a more intensified, unique, and original world? It’s a promising start.

Starfield: Shattered Space launches on Xbox Series X/S and PC on 30 September.