Starfield: Shattered Space review — Three houses

When Starfield launched last year, it was met with praise and derision alike. People going into the game expecting a typical Bethesda experience were met with a title that was something like that on the surface, but dig a little deeper and you find a game that’s more about making a life for yourself in space, getting to know the universe, and eventually choosing to leave it behind or stay and live with your decisions. It’s certainly not for everyone, but I loved Starfield and its unique take on Bethesda’s open worlds. The game’s first DLC, Shattered Space, released recently, and while it attempts to return to more traditional Bethesda fare it misses what makes Starfield special in the first place.

Shattered Space takes players to the homeworld of House Va’ruun, the space cult that worships a giant space snake that will eventually devour the space universe. You may have encountered many Zealots in the game already as enemies, but the rest of the House doesn’t like them either, and most of the DLC is spent getting to know the various factions within the House. You can start the DLC by jumping to another solar system and boarding the station that emits a distress call, though the game recommends you be at least level 35. I’m going into the DLC at level 40 with a non-Starborn character, though there may be unique dialogue options and choices for Starborn.

The Va’ruun capital of Dazra, located on Va’ruun’kai, has been almost completely destroyed by a mysterious experiment taking place in the Scaled Citadel. Now, Vortexes, the space between universes, are appearing all over the planet alongside Vortex Phantoms. On top of that, the current speaker for House Va’ruun was caught in the experiment and is now appearing around the city as a Phantom, in great pain but oblivious to anything around him. For whatever reason, you are the only person who can hear the speaker so, as the first convert to the religion in centuries, have to negotiate House politics, get rid of the Vortexes, and save the speaker.

If that description sounds messy, that’s the overall vibe of Shattered Space. It has some great side quests, but the main story here feels lackluster. The plot often introduces elements only for them to never be revisited. For example, for most of the DLC you get each of the three main houses within House Va’ruun to cooperate by doing favors for them. It’s clearly meant to be selfish and petty that the houses won’t work together until they each get what they want, but this never really comes up again. I suppose it factors into the DLC’s final choice, but I don’t feel like that would change much of anything.

Shattered Space certainly touches on cool concepts, but again it only touches on them. Just what is the Vortex? Does it have something to do with the Great Serpent? Why is this random farmer having dreams of murdering people as a ghost? Well get ready to have none of those questions answered or even really posed. To be clear, I’m perfectly fine with the game remaining vague on all of these and more, mystery is fun and leaves room for speculation or further answers down the line, but Starfield just introduces these concepts and does nothing interesting with them.

Meanwhile, side quests will have you mediating a duel between two brothers, contemplating whether a mass murderer can ever really be redeemed, or simply delivering packages in the recently introduced vehicle, the Rev-8. While far from the peaks of New Vegas’s side quests, they don’t offer you a ton of freedom overall, these types of quests are where I was most engaged with the DLC. Story and gameplay wise, they have the most interesting content by far, helped by the fact that all of Shattered Space takes place in a single area on a single planet. No fast traveling or getting in your ship to load the quest areas, once you land in Dazra you can walk or drive to every relevant point of interest. I don’t really mind when Starfield does make you fast travel to load things, but this is definitely better for questing.

You may also be wondering about a certain companion who was already a part of House Va’ruun, Andreja. Seeing as I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with her in the base game, I was very excited to get to know her and her hometown. No doubt she would have a lot to say or even start unique quests in this place that’s so important to her? Right? Turns out, not really. She’ll occasionally have some color commentary or offer unique dialogue options to bypass some checks, but that’s about it. Since you don’t have to bring Andreja into the DLC, this does make sense, but I would have preferred being forced to take her if it meant we had a good character to latch onto as the center of the DLC, like Serana in Dawnguard.

This puts Shattered Space in a very weird position. The side quests are some of the best Starfield as a whole has to offer, while the main quest feels like some of the worst. It’s certainly not awful as a whole, but it has so much squandered potential I can’t help but feel disappointed. It certainly won’t make anyone who doesn’t like Starfield come around, and those of us that do won’t find what makes the game so appealing here. It’s a small, self-contained taste of Skyrim or Fallout’s structure, for better and worse.

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