Bethesda Doubles Down on Starfield- Promising More DLC and Updates

Despite fan reception on the release wavering over time, it seems that the financial success of Starfield is encouragement enough for Bethesda to continue working on big updates to the game in coming years. In an interview, Todd Howard spoke on how the team is already working on the second big expansion before the first even releases (with Shattered Space still not being given a release date) and that they’re gearing up for ‘year 2’ of the game with more free updates planned. This includes plans to introduce vehicle traversal on planets as teased in the last patch trailer.

Image by Bethesda

This comes after the first trailer for the DLC ‘Shattered Space’ was dropped as part of Xbox’s Games showcase last week. The trailer was met with excitement from a lot of the community alongside hope that it would fix a lot of Starfield’s more glaring issues. Alongside this trailer, however, another announcement left fans less than enthused. This was the reveal that Starfield would be receiving its very own creation club in the same vein as Skyrim and Fallout 4. The creation club exists as a spin on the paid mods formula that allows Bethesda to sell officially licensed content for their games for a few pounds depending on how much is added. This can range from a new Armor set to whole new questlines. Its important to note, however, that these almost always fall short of quests in the base game or DLCs.

Image by Bethesda

With updates, expansions and additions to the creation club likely already lined up in the coming years, Bethesda is clearly doubling down on Starfield even if its community dwindles. Newer updates have brought back some fans, with better city maps and a performance mode on Xbox Series consoles causing players to dip their toes back into Todd’s space fantasy universe.

Its unclear as to whether ‘Shattered Space’ will be enough to retain more of the fanbase for longer than the base game when it launches later this year but, if Bethesda truly want to continue their plans of a multi-year spanning Starfield, they’re going to need to keep players invested. Considering how Skyrim and Fallout 4’s daily player count remain higher than Starfield, however, this may not quite work out.