Starfieldlaunched to mixed reception, garnering some critical acclaim while simultaneously receiving a thorough beating online from critics and players alike. The criticisms were manyfold, although largely centered around the lack of traditional Bethesda design that fans had come to know and love from their plethora of award-winning titles. Thankfully, a series of updates have fixed some of the numerous issues plaguing the game at launch, and theShattered SpaceDLC promises to further rectify even more of them.
However,it’s hard not to feel thatStarfieldwas somewhat doomed from the start and thatShattered Spaceis too late, despite the many promises it makes. There is one fundamental problem withStarfield, one that was controversial even before the game launched, with developers jumping to its defense despite its overall absurdity.Shattered Space, with all of its good intentions, cannot fix this issue so inherently baked intoStarfield’sgame design, and only aNo Man’s Sky-style series of updates could truly repair it.
Shattered Space’s Location Can’t Fix Starfield’s Randomly Generated Planets
Starfield’s Exploration Still Remains Unrewarding
Shattered Spaceis bringingStarfield’sgame design back to the classic Bethesda formulaby offering players a single large open-world location to explore. Unlike the one thousand randomly generated planets located in the base game, Va’ruun is a handcrafted world with unique points of interest and optional content designed specifically for it, much like how Bethesda handled its DLC for theFalloutandElder Scrollsseries.
It is a positive change, and fortunately, not the onlyfeatureShattered Spaceis fixing, as it does away with the worst part ofStarfieldand gives fans what they’ve wanted all along. However, this doesn’t fix the fundamental issues with the base game’s exploration, namely that it isn’t very fun.
Dashing around randomly generated planets can be exciting, especially when there are things to do and alien civilizations to encounter, butStarfielddoesn’t offer any of that.Its planets are also not particularly spectacular, proving to be small, cut-off locations with little more than empty space peppered with the occasional Crimson Fleet baseto fight through, unlikeNo Man’s Sky, which generates entire planets and allows players to land wherever they want, just one of manythingsNMSdoes better thanStarfield.
However, the greatest failing ofStarfield’srandomly generated planets, whichShattered Spacefixes, is its lack of lifeand its desolate spaces filled with copy-and-pasted encounters that kill any and all immersion after the third time encountering it. Ironically, the more handcrafted locations Bethesda is best known for accommodating a greater sense of life and immersion, as developers are not only able to handcraft interactions and events for players to stumble upon but also set strict rules through which emergent gameplay can arise.Shattered Spacecannot fix this, it’ll only serve to make it so much worse.
It’ll Only Highlight The Issues With The Base Game
There is a good chance thatShattered Spacewill become more fondly remembered than the base game, if only because it better fits into the Bethesda formula that fans love and that people will soonbegin to turn againstStarfield. Its single explorable location will have more memorable handcrafted content that players will reminisce about the same way they do about first encountering the College of Winterhold inSkyrimor stumbling across Megaton inFallout 3. While that is undeniably amazing for fans ofStarfieldand those who’ve wanted to get into it, it’s bad news for the base game.
It will be incredibly difficult to return to the generic and repetitive randomly generated planets after exploring Va’ruun inShattered Space, and even harder to come back to the exploration model thatStarfieldadopts.Hopping from planet to planet through endless loading screens will feel exhaustingly trivial when the DLC offers an experience with seamless explorationon a singular planet. The desire for a more traditional Bethesda experience will grow even more, and yet it will be impossible to offer without fundamentally changing the entire base game.
Starfield On PS5 Will Have An Edge Over Xbox Series X In At Least One Way
The PlayStation 5 has a distinct advantage over the Xbox Series X/S, which could make Bethesda’s Starfield a far more immersive experience.
It’s almost a mistake to have madeShattered Spacethe way Bethesda has, even if it is a significant step up fromStarfield’soriginal experience. It offers too much hope for what a Bethesda game in space should actually feel like, and the need to slog through the base game to properly appreciate the DLC will become frustrating as a result.Shattered Spacefeels as if it should have been released as a standalone spin-off titlethat anyone disillusioned withStarfield, or simply those longing for Bethesda’s original style of game design, could pick up without being burdened byStarfield.
Starfield Needs A No Man’s Sky-Style Make Over
It Needs Major Updates To Fix Its Boring Systems
There’s little chance Bethesda will invest as much effort into updatingStarfieldas Hello Games did forNo Man’s Sky, and yet it’s exactly what it needs for it to retain the same kind of love and attention over a decade or more asSkyrimhas enjoyed. Firstly,planets need a major overhaul to the number of potential biomes, thus diversifying the types of planets players can explore. Additionally, there needs to be more unique POIs and encounter types that players can experience to keep each planet feeling fresh and grant a unique, memorable experience.
If Bethesda wants to commit to its thousand-planet structure, thenit needs to give a good reason to explore each planet and to make each one feel, in some way, a worthwhile experience. Players landing on a new planet inNo Man’s Skydo so because of the potential of what they can discover, as much as it is to see what type of wonderful creatures and biomes they’ll encounter. That same incentive does not exist inStarfield, as, aside from a handful of story-focused planets, the rest feel as lifeless and dull as each other.
Every Home Location In Starfield, Ranked Worst To Best
Selecting the perfect dream home in Starfield might take some consideration. Here are all the home locations available in the game, ranked.
Alas, it seems that evenStar Wars Outlawshas beaten Bethesdato its own game, a truly harrowing defeat considering the pedigree of its plethora of other games. The chances of Bethesda overhauling the base systems ofStarfieldare incredibly unlikely, with its next move seemingly to be to move away from its failed experiment back to its original game design philosophy, best evidenced byShattered Space.
This is a shame, asStarfieldhad the potential to be something great. However, at least players will have theShattered SpaceDLC to remind them of what that potential could have manifested itself as.
