Starfield: Shattered Space review

My biggest problem with Starfield was its tentative vision of the future. The squeaky spotless corridors of New Atlantis impressed me less than the crime-ridden backwater of Riften, and on an average planet, points of interest were so scattered that I felt like I was traversing miles of desolate space to find something memorable.

However, I didn’t hate the game – it inherits the strengths of Bethesda’s previous hits and brings back some of the RPG meat that I missed in Fallout 4 – so I went into Shattered Space with some expectations. The mysterious, horror-tinged cult of the Great Serpent from the 1970s is more colorful than Starfield’s subdued “it’s not cosmically neat” baseline, and maybe a more focused experience would allow me to put down the machete and see the potential that Bethesda previously had to spread too thinly.

Unfortunately, I think this DLC had the opposite effect on me. The stage will be dazzling: it is a hand-crafted zone, densely filled with missions and NPCs with conflicting interests. There are novel weapons to find, unique enemies to apply them on, and a fresh narrative away from the shackles of the seamless main story. I was locked in for this sandbox to come to life, but instead Shattered Space delivers its usual dull stew. It’s largely on the rails, featherlight for the price, and dedicated to a narrative that I’m already forgetting the details of.

Elephant in Va’ruun

The highlights of Shattered Space are the novel environments and world-building on the main planet of Va’ruun’kai. After exploring an abandoned space station full of vortex phantoms – or what Starfield calls ghosts as they arise from science – you’re thrown into the political quagmire of House Va’ruun, a cult that worships a serpent god largely unexplored in the world of the main game. The requisite temples and zealot hideouts are suitably atmospheric, and I spent more than a few minutes staring at the gorgeous skybox from various angles in photo mode.

The families that rule this island theocracy do not love outsiders, but you are the main character in the Bethesda game, so no named faction can secede. But while these kinds of quests tend to shine in Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, Va’ruun’s mystique fades once you get into the groove of its plot.

For one assignment, I had to track down a man’s missing son. After finding his camp, I saw footprints and blood, so I followed the direction he seemed to be running. A few minutes later, I realized that I had to manually interact with the environmental cues in the camp to start the next part of the quest. So I went back, fulfilled the conditions, and my character joked to my companion that we’d have to do it the old-fashioned way. My scanner then marked in my field of vision exactly where I needed to go and drew arrows along the road to make sure I found it. I almost played a part there for a while.

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Later I found the door. It was closed. There was a computer next to that door. I opened it and saw a immense button that said “door open.” I pressed the button and he opened the door. And that’s it. Does this qualify as a puzzle? Obstacle? Captcha? Whatever it was, it felt like the game itself was in full swing, and that feeling weighs down Shattered Space at its best moments.

This also reflects on the narrative. For a brief moment, several characters talk about the relationship between religion and science in an era where humanity has abandoned its home planet and become dependent on its own technology; and then they snap out of it like a bad dream, pointing me to the next target before anyone can take a meaningful stand. Like the base game, Shattered Space proves too timid to tilt its world’s status quo in any direction. At the end of the expansion’s main mission, you can make a monumental choice that has huge theoretical implications, but they remain theoretical and you don’t see anything happening. Each novel idea isn’t much, and what’s left reminds me why I didn’t care about Starfield in the first place.

All of my favorite memories from Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are things I found on my own off the beaten track. Starfield’s beaten path remains as underwhelming as ever, and if you stray from it, you’re treated to the same elderly throwaway fights and stiff, superficial dialogue. Once you find them, random encounters are so formulaic that they feel like content for content’s sake.

Starry eyes

The things that gave me the most fun while playing were added long ago in free updates, not just in Shattered Space. A novel rover handle makes navigating space rocks faster and more rewarding, and access to the in-game mod menu gives you a whole world of customization options without a hitch. These additions address real issues in the base game and ultimately improve the overall package. Shattered Space, on the other hand, doesn’t move the needle an inch. I want to be absorbed into this world, but I still struggle with the sloppy user interface, talk to expressionless characters as they browse tables, and once I’m done with all that, I return to my ship where I rarely have a reason to take it anywhere.

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I love the other Bethesda RPGs I’ve mentioned, despite their significant shortcomings. Skyrim’s RPG-lite concessions leave most of the action up to grabs, and Fallout 4’s dialogue trees are infamously crude, but being in these carefully crafted worlds is worth overlooking these things. I keep looking at Starfield the other way around: it’s a game that, despite its solid systems and impressive technology, simply can’t draw me into the banal setting and monotonous shooting.

Bethesda’s marketing hype emphasizes the game’s novel “NASApunk” identity and claims that this expansion will reinforce that, but I’m still not sold. He’s not inventive enough to be mistaken for NASA, and he doesn’t talk enough to be mistaken for punk. Shattered Space got me most excited when its occult houses reminded me of Morrowind, a world that feels much more alien and allows the player more freedom without a single spaceship on offer.

Shattered Space gives you a few more hours of the game you know. If, like me, you’ve been waiting for Starfield to boldly go where he hasn’t gone before, you still have some work to do.