Starfields’ first DLC is a large, lore-heavy expansion for Bethesda’s struggling new IP. Blast off in our Starfield: Shattered Space review!

When I first played Skyrim at the start of the previous decade, it took me several tries to finally get fully into it. With Starfield, I had the same issue when I put my space suit on a year ago. The game had too many moving parts and boring planet traversal, making it a challenge to get truly immersed in until it clicked. Now that a year has passed, its first expansion, Shattered Space, aims to get players back into the fray with an engaging mission within Var’uun’kai.

Welcome to Var’uun’kai, the hubworld of Shattered Space where you’ll have to win over all manners of folk.

Starfield’s middling reputation is a far cry from its massive winners in Elder Scrolls and Fallout, meaning it truly needs to hit a home run with Shattered Space to restore its reputation. Cyberpunk 2077 made a full recovery and released one of the most acclaimed expansions in history with Phantom Liberty, and Bethesda has had success with DLCs like Far Harbor and Dawnguard, so the bar is set high for Shattered Space. Does this DLC crash and burn or does it stick the landing? Find out in our Starfield: Shattered Space review!

Starfield: Shattered Space Review – Story

The main focus of Shattered Space, after landing onto Var’uun’kai, is to unite three houses: House Veth’aal, House Ka’dic, and House Dul’khef. Each of these entail a fetch quest where you’ll travel far and wide across the planet to rescue someone, fight zealots, or something else tedious. The character motivations are usually selfish, and out of the bunch, there may be one or two that actually stood out, but the rest of the dialogue was a blurry haze of religious diatribes and sob stories.

I hope you like talking for hours, because that’s the name of the game in Shattered Space.

While things do eventually pick up in Shattered Space, it isn’t until the very ends of its climax that I felt like choices mattered, and the aftermath leads to an even more baffling final decision that left me scratching my head. Even the most devoted Starfield fans that buy into its lore are going to question what was going on in the writing room throughout Shattered Space.

Starfield: Shattered Space Review – Performance/Graphics

The world of Var’uun’kai serves as the setting for the majority of Shattered Space. That’s right – a game centered on space travel only sees you go to one planet for the entirety of the DLC. Thankfully, Var’uun’kai has some of the most extravagant skies in the entire game of Starfield with hues and colors that made me stop and take some pictures to ogle at later.

Ethereal skies steal the show in Shattered Space, but the landscapes are nothing to write home about.

There’s been some real polish added to Starfield in the past year, as the game runs significantly better than it did during the 1.0 launch. Shattered Space managed to max out my screen’s refresh rate indoors at 1440p, which is a night-and-day difference from the sub-3o frames I used to get at 1080p. In this regard, this is where Starfield has improved the most, by a long shot.

Starfield: Shattered Space Review – Gameplay

The biggest ask Starfield players had after launch was to add vehicles so that they wouldn’t have to walk for minutes at a time to each planet’s destination. With this recent addition, Shattered Space makes getting around Var’uun’kai a breeze, as its dense world exceeds the size of any other planet in the main game. While the capital, Dazra, is a bog-standard city, the best parts of Shattered Space are outside of it, fighting zealots and otherworldly beings.

This side quest of uniting bickering brothers was ironically the most fun I had in the entirety of Shattered Space.

While there’s no shortage of combat in Shattered Space, especially towards its climax, the majority of the expansion is spent learning about “The Great Serpent” and how important this religious deity is to the people of this planet. It’s certainly a dialogue-heavy DLC that expects you to pick sides between people you barely know and might not even necessarily agree with, leaving me bored to tears waiting for the next chance I could explore or fight something.

Var’uun’kai has plenty of exploration and side content for those aching to explore every nook and cranny.

While the recommended level to start Shattered Space is 35, I massively benefited from starting around level 15; getting over-leveled weapons gives you an edge and evens the odds for under leveled players. This works in Starfields’ benefit for those that don’t want to sink 20-30 hours to get to that level before jumping in, as the difficulty has a solid balance for those that can use cover well and maximize their weaponry.

With great new weapons, you can handily start Shattered Space around level 10 or 15 as opposed to the recommended 35.

Clocking in at about eight hours for the main questline, the side content bolsters the playtime to roughly fifteen or so. As Bethesda’s asking price is $30 (twice Far Harbor and triple Dawnguard), with most of the expansion spent in NPC conversation, those looking for a huge expedition or a combat trial aren’t going to be pleased with investing that much into Shattered Space.

Starfield: Shattered Space Review – Audio

Bethesda’s go-to composer returns for Starfield: Shattered Space: Inon Zur. To tell you the truth, though, I couldn’t recall anything about the music, nor can I locate even a single original song for the expansion on YouTube. That’s a telling sign of how unremarkable this DLC has been since release, and doesn’t bode well for the acclaimed musician’s performance.

Now that’s awkward…

Starfield: Shattered Space Review – What Else?

Bethesda really needed a win for Starfield to get some buzz after a ho-hum launch, and Shattered Space was their opportunity to do just that. Sitting at Mostly Negative on Steam with only 30% approval seems like a nail in the coffin, as even longtime fans of the IP don’t have much good to say about it. Things can’t get much worse after a flop like this.

Breaking her out of a base and barely a smile to show for it.

Starfield: Shattered Space Review – Conclusion

Starfield: Shattered Space is an overpriced, disappointing expansion that adds little to the game aside from some neat weapons. There’s too much talking, not enough shooting, and an underwhelming amount of content for its asking price of $29.99 USD. It’s a serious drop in quality from what Bethesda was able to do more than a decade ago.

Sayonara, Starfield – it’ll be tough to recover after this dismal DLC.

How the mighty have fallen. Bethesda is known for their buggy, bloated games, but they sell like hotcakes and still traffic Skyrim on anything that has a screen. Starfield is floundering and Todd Howard’s promise to release a story expansion every year is off to one of the worst starts imaginable.

So, why should you play Starfield: Shattered Space?

• More of the same for fans of deep diving the stars.
• High-level weapons to make the rest of the game a bit easier.

But why shouldn’t you play Starfield: Shattered Space?

• Talking, talking and more talking about a lot of nothing.
• Only a few hours of truly good content for a whopping $30.
• Boring for anyone that isn’t a die-hard Starfield lore fanatic.

A review code was kindly provided by Bethesda for the purpose of our Starfield: Shattered Space Review.  You can check out our other reviews here and if you haven’t already, be sure to join the Qualbert Discord to find out about the latest game and review updates!