Starfield: Shattered Space
Developed by: Bethesda Game Studios
Published by: Microsoft
Platforms: PC (reviewed on) Xobx Series X/S (also reviewed on)
Release Date: September 30th (PC, Xbox Series X/S)
Price: $29.99
Sometimes in life, you just have to admit that what you see in front of you is the truth, no matter how hard you want it to not be, at somepoint you just have to accept it. At this moment, the unfortunate truth I am speaking of, is the fact that Bethesda’s Starfield is boring, and unfortunately, its first expansion, Shattered Space does nothing to change this.
Previous to its release Shattered Space was hyped up to be a horror entry into the Starfield story, the expansion was supposed to spice things up, and introduce us to the mysterious faction of House Va’ruun. Advertisements for the expansion hyped up the spooky atmosphere with shots of corpses floating in zero-g, and abandoned space stations, but after all the advertisements, and all the hype, all the expansion really brought us was more of the same anti-climatic story lines, and random errand side quests.
Shattered Space’s missteps seem to start right from the beginning, with a motion sickness inducing story quest to explore a seemingly abandoned House Va’ruun space station. While this motion sickness can be mitigated by adjusting the FOV settings in the game’s accessibilty settings, it doesn’t get rid of it entirely, and changing the FOV for the game from it’s default setting leads to a whole other set of graphic issues during conversation cutscenes. Many times during conversations my companion would chime in, and instead of seeing them in the frame, I would see a random wall, or seemingly looking through their head, at several points during my play time, I was tempted to just reset the FOV settings and deal with the motion sickness just so I could have a normal conversation. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of a lackluster story, and missions that just recycled the same introductory paths as Starfield‘s opening missions.
Shattered Space‘s story was supposed to lift the veil on the mysterious and scary interstellar boogey-people of House Va’ruun. The very same people that were introduced in the base game as wild crazed zealots, akin to the Reavers from the Firefly universe. Instead what we were given was a settlement of religious fanatics that have no problem reminding you that you’re an outsider almost every chance they get. From the moment I set foot on the House Va’ruun homeworld of Darza, my interactions with the npcs felt awkward and in a lot of conversations, facial expressions did not match the voice tone, or emotional content of the conversation. I admit, some of this awkwardness may of been my own world making that I tend to do with my characters when I play open world RPGs like
Starfield, and really when you go around looking like this it’s pretty obvious that maybe saving a group of serpent worshipping religious fanatics isn’t really up your alley. I mean, really how serious of a pilot do you really think I am sporting a moustache like that?
Lackluster npcs isn’t the only issue Plaguing Shattered Space, one thing I found surprising was the fact that I had to join House Va’ruun, or I couldn’t experience the expansion, and joining a cult of folks that had been waging a mini war on the settled systems seemed a little out of character for my humble space trucker. From this initial gateway quest, the story of Shattered Space follows the same tired political intrigue story lines usually found when a political leader is missing and those who were not ready to become leaders are forced to. All of this culminates in a very anti-climatic ending, one which players can easily see coming, pretty much from the start.
I wanted to like Shattered Space, I really did, unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, and how many times I put it down, and came back to give it another shot, it just didn’t live up to the hype for me, and honestly made me realize that it wasn’t just Shattered Space that I found disappointing, but Starfield as a whole. The game itself is boring, for lack of a better word. Planets are lifeless, with the exception of sporadic outposts populated with random science teams, or the game’s generic baddie “spacers” the encounters are to sparse to really bring excitement into the game. Intial exploration was tedious, and repetitive, something I felt would be addressed with the introduction of the buggy in the last patch prior to the expansion’s release, but even that felt like it wasn’t everything it could of been the buggy feels sluggish, and clunky. A little more speed, and tightening of the steering controls, and the buggy would of been a blast to drive.
Starfield has it’s fans, just like any game, and if you were a fan of Starfield from the start, then you’re probably going to enjoy Shattered Space. If you found yourself struggling to really enjoy Starfield, Shattered Space is sadly not going to fix that. What could of been a truly frightening space cult experience, instead follows the tired political intrigue trope, only to finish in a predictable manner.
