In it for the long haul.
As we near the release of Starfield‘s upcoming story expansion, Shattered Space, players are beginning to wonder what, if anything, comes next. But instead of just opting for regular updates, Todd Howard confirms that not only is another DLC planned for after Shattered Space, but that expansions could become a yearly occurrence.
In response to a question during an interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays about whether players can expect to see new story expansions every year, Howard just says, “I would say more or less, how long that continues? Hopefully, a very long time. But we’re already planning for one after this [Shattered Space], so there will be another one.”
This is excellent news for those who felt like Starfield still hadn’t answered their burning questions. While Shattered Space looks like it’ll shed some light on one of the more mysterious factions, the House Va’ruun cult, there’s still more to be discovered. It seems like everyone has their own niche questions that they’ve fixated on since playing. “Finding the center of the multiverse and never seeing an intelligent alien is kind of weird, maybe for DLC, or are future humans blocking that too,” one player says on Reddit. “And if so, why do they allow the whole unity thing to be run like Lord of the Flies or at least very Darwinian?”
There’s definitely plenty of canon fodder for future story expansions when it comes to all the mysteries and questions present in Starfield, but answering all of them isn’t a massive priority. “I don’t know that our goal is to answer every question,” Howard says. “We sort of look at it and say, ‘Hey, what’s a good angle? What do we want to add to the game as far as an experience or tone?”
Howard also revealed that development on Shattered Space has been ongoing for almost 10 months now, as it began almost immediately after Bethesda ended work on Starfield’s base game. “We are doing a lot,” Howard says. “But Shattered Space is something we had planned for. And one of the things that we always liked about it from the get-go, is that Shattered Space, the bulk of that expansion pack, pretty much once you get to the city and the planet, it takes place there. It allows us to build a landscape that we would traditionally do.”
Comparably, Howard says that this expansion is similar to Fallout 4’s Far Harbor DLC content-wise. “This is a scope that works for our development and doing this kind of annual story expansion. So we’re really excited about that, and it really lets us do something the way we would in previous games.”
Toward the end of the interview, Howard also addresses the community backlash over Starfield’s $7 mission, saying that he “hears the feedback” and will “take a look at that and how we deliver content like that” in the future. It’s a pretty vapid response, considering just how many players were upset about it, but a change of course for the future is still better than nothing.
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