There’s just over a month left until the release of Starfield’s expansion, called Shattered Space. Bethesda has not only been busy offering plenty of information before and during Gamescom 2024, it’s also laying the groundwork with additions like the REV-8 rover.
On the other hand, next September 8th is the launch of StarfieldI think it’s a good time to look back and share a thought (or wish) that I shaped during the 100 hours I played to prepare the analysis. The number is around 200-300 after a year.
Starfield must focus on small stories to grow over 10 years
Bethesda announced that it wants to keep Starfield for at least 10 years. I don’t doubt their word, but I don’t think they’re capable of replicating Hello Games’ feat with No Man’s Sky. Nor do they need to! The latter have dedicated themselves body and soul to a single video game, which is not the case with the former.
I am aware that many people will not agree with me when I say that Starfield should focus on the little stories as it grows or evolves over the promised 10 years. Before you send me to the bonfire, let me explain. You can stack the planks, but I don’t think you’ll need them.
Starfield Bethesda has a huge universe, perhaps too much for its initial ambitions. We are talking about dozens of galaxies with an absurd number of planets and moons. At the time, its developers said there were around 1,000, although we now know that not all of them are visitable (they are gaseous) and many others are barren with little or no activity. This is not a criticism, but proven facts. Bethesda has no reason to add new galaxies. It could do so, but there are so many existing ones that it would almost be greedy.
Imagine this universe as a skeleton or scaffolding that holds all the stories (main, secondary, events…) that exist in it. You can spend hundreds of hours to complete them all, but they are not nearly enough to fill the whole void. And this is the reason why I have always believed that Bethesda’s strategy should not be expansionist, but rather should build on what has been created. This includes modifying galaxies with dying stars, collisions of stars and other phenomena in the form of special events.
I admit that the name Broken Space scared me a little when it was revealed, because some theories pointed to a new alternate universe destroyed by the Starlings or something similar. Luckily, Bethesda’s plans were very different and closer to what I have always wanted for the future of Starfield.
Broken Space, the beginning of an anthology
Broken Space takes us to a new planet called Va’ruun’kai in an undisclosed system. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a new one, as Andreja reveals in her romance quests that the location is hidden and very few people know how to get there. Additionally, we know that the capital of House Va’ruun has been affected by a tear in the fabric of space-time, so it could literally appear in any current system.
It sounds contradictory, but the expansion is not about literally expanding the universe. The whole story takes place on one planet. We can go in and out at will, but it won’t be necessary because everything is going on around it. I think it’s a great success because Broken Space will be added to Starfield like another of the dozens of stories that take place on a single planet.
In my opinion, Bethesda should use the “small” stories of the expansions to populate and shape the current universe. Add to this all the free updates. Imagine what it will be like in 10 years. Those who (re)discover this experience in seven years will find a much richer universe than the present one, much more so than if they expand the skeleton itself. If they do the latter, it will feel like too little butter spread on too much bread.
It may seem like an unattractive idea in the short term, especially since the expansions are paid for, but I want to believe that we will see it as a success in retrospect. It all depends on Bethesda knowing how to introduce interesting stories and events that change everything we know, from natural disasters on planets to an expansion that starts a new Colonial War. Small stories that add to the stellar skeleton, I think that is the key.
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