Starfield: Shattered Space DLC – PC Review

Starfield may not have the storied legacy of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but Bethesda’s first step into sci-fi gripped me with its immersive gameplay systems, return to RPG staples, and earnest, albeit flawed attempt at offering a new type of open-world adventure.

Space is a vast place, though, and despite Bethesda’s ambitions, the base game is abundant in ideas, but lacking in execution. One such example is House Va’ruun, an enigmatic faction that had all the makings of being joinable, only to be relegated to references and a few appearances.

Shattered Space, the first story-based DLC for Starfield, opts to make House Va’ruun its center-piece, offering a dozen hours of new main and side quests that build upon the secrecy and fun lore of this obscure society. Whether it’s worth your money depends on how much Bethesda’s storytelling and tried-and-true open-world formula appeals to you, because it’s largely more of the same.

Shattered Space is accessible to all players who have at least completed the first main quest, “One Small Step”, and begins with an ominous distress signal to investigate a derelict space station called the Oracle. What unfolds is a predictable but engaging introductory section (evoking major Aliens vibes) involving tense shoot-outs against ghostly apparitions in zero-G, and a gradual reveal of where most of House Va’ruun and their home planet of Va’ruun’kai have been hiding all of this time.

Bethesda has an established reputation in delivering interesting albeit flawed self-contained story expansions and that reputation still stands, for the most part, with Shattered Space. I found the world building, hand-crafted new planet, and smaller-scale, political dilemmas of House Va’ruun to be more immediately intriguing and visually arresting than some of the blander factions and procedurally-generated planets in the base game, even if the writing comes across as ham-fisted and reliant on tropes Bethesda seem adamant on re-treading with every game.

Chief among them is the narrative set up, which has your space-farer travel planet-side into an alien world whose main citadel has just been blasted by a rupture in space and time, and be selected by the notoriously isolationist, snake-worshiping space cult to not only join them (as the first outsider to do so for decades) but also take the lead on solving their existential crisis and societal problems… because you claim to be able to hear the voice of their deity (yes, really).

Is the cheesiness a deal-breaker? Not necessarily. The main quest content, which sees you navigate the conflicts and plot twists of three great quarreling houses and several religious and scientific members of Va’ruun’kai’s elite caste, is genuinely entertaining, as are their varying opinions and power plays that make you wonder how these cultists survived each other so long (just don’t think too hard about the logic behind why they trust you so quickly).

The side quests, meanwhile, have you travel across the city of Dazra to handle civil disputes, such as brothers challenging each other to a duel, tracking down missing persons, and helping a repentant former violent zealot commit more violence. These distractions are great hooks to learning more about Va’ruun’s isolationist culture, the origins of the Great Serpent and the rituals the founding families imbued into the populace for centuries. Accompanying these tasks are a few new armor sets and weapons, including the Va’ruun Penumbra and Starstorm heavies and Va’ruun Assault Spacesuit, though many of the new items are re-colours of base-game apparel and equipment assets that don’t exactly help my fashion end-game goals (don’t judge me). You’ll need them to survive the high-level fights you’ll be having, with the recommended level cap of 35 (I went in under-leveled, and it was challenging).

Many dialogue and quest choices in Shattered Space make use of your character’s background and skills to progress (particularly if you opted for Serpent’s Embrace), though, as with many Bethesda games of late, the role-playing aspect of the experience is decidedly more about flavour text than tangible influence. The stories mostly play out the same without major deviations and most interactions you have with key NPCs feel, as other reviewers mention, on rails.

I think the deciding factor of whether this story-focused DLC works for you is if you can maintain suspension of disbelief and accept the fact that this planet filled with fascinating, snape worshiping cultists are putting all their eggs in a total outsider’s basket. I couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that the city of Darza’s people hold no true agency (even the illusion of it) of their own, and that Bethesda’s continuing reliance on this specific power fantasy design – the player being the absolute centre of the entire universe – is limiting their ability to craft more immersive stories.

This leads into my main problem with the Shattered Space DLC and Starfield in general; it still feels sloppy, even a full year after launch. The gameplay systems, exploration zones and world building are built on compelling foundations, but often come across as barely held together with how often I’ve run into random bugs, how unearned the narrative justification for your character’s entrance into both Constellation and House Va’ruun is written (yet another conveniently arrived chosen one), and how inconsequential some of your actions and choices feel – though in this last area, at least, Shattered Space does make strides to improve with more interesting characters and acknowledgement of your choices. Andreja, for example, has much to say during both the main and side quests throughout the DLC, and her own personal quest was subtly updated to reflect the knowledge you gain during Shattered Space, reminding me of Bethesda of old’s attention to detail and strengths in delivering hand-crafted content versus the procedurally generated content of much of the base game.

Alas, if only Bethesda also applied that same level of attention to the bugs.

While Starfield has received several new features and graphical enhancements since its launch, including the Rev-8 land vehicle, ammo crafting, detailed surface maps, and NVIDIA DLSS support, the latest patch that accompanies Shattered Space’s release is rather modest and ineffective. To my incredible disappointment, it still has not fixed several long-standing issues, chief being a nasty bug with the ‘Leadership’ perk that blocks companion dialogue and reactions from occurring.

I unfortunately experienced this bug (and others, such as quest objectives not updating or NPCs failing to trigger their intended script) during most of my review and missed several fun reactions and conversations about the ongoing events of the DLC (forcing me to look up and discover these elements in other YouTube streams and restart my playthrough), and several other Shattered Space players have reported their frustrations on social media with a lack of companion reactions to the DLC events… only to find out it is indeed being caused by an existing bug that has not been officially fixed by Bethesda since launch.

The Final Verdict

While I am a newer player to the game, I have quickly begun to share the same frustrations as long-time fans who have played Starfield since launch when it comes to bugs writing ruining overall immersion. It’s for this reason it’s hard to recommend Shattered Space on launch, but the strengths of its gameplay systems and hand-crafted new environments offered by the DLC (and the numerous high-quality mods created by the community) may be enough to entice you not to wait. Because underneath the bugs and sloppy writing, there is an ambitious and fun RPG few other studios can match.

Game Details

Primary Format – Games – PC, Xbox Series X | S
Game Genre – Role-playing game (RPG)
Rating – MA15+
Game Developer – Bethesda Game Studios
Game Publisher – Bethesda Softworks