Starfield's expansion, Shattered Space, launches to 42% positive "mixed" reviews on Steam

The user reviews are dinging the expansion for "reskinned" weapons and outfits, a fairly limited location to explore, and a main story you can complete in a handful of hours.

[dveio]

I totally lost my interest in Starfield even before it was getting released.

Because the unability to freely land on planets, especially due to comparison with No Man's Sky, was a huge let down for me.

Don't get me wrong - my satisfaction being able to do that in No Man's Sky isn't that over-whelming that I just can't stop doing that in NMS. It get's repetitive, too. But to me it's like the reload animation in a shooter - you've got to have that.

It was a simple "How can it be possible that console hardware from 2013 was able to do this but 2020 hardware isn't? In a space game?" conclusion.

That was even before we learned the 1000 "hand-crafted" planets were basically just empty.

Sure, promote that as "Well, that's how space is." But as a videoGAME designer you may have missed the point there. And only lost me ... again.

Well, but that's just me. Right?

Everyone who's enjoying Starfield and the DLC should continue doing so.

[mkis007]

A meet me in the middle could have been what SW outlaws uses to land on planets too...but no.

[The_Blue]

Def just you. It's just a game, not a girlfriend simulator.

[MrBaskerville]

I just wanted a space game where I didn't do everything in my power to skip all aspects dealing with space. It's wild how easy it is to use fasttravel to almost completely erase space from the game and because it reduces the amount of loadtimes, it becomes very tempting.

[The_Blue]

The issue is people want Bethesda to make shitty games and gets upsets when Bethesda makes shitty games.

[MrBaskerville]

@The_Blue
Personally I was rooting for them to make a game that wasn't shitty. Did poor research and thought it was Fallout 4 in space and not fragmented Fallout 4.

[Reaper22_]

You just just stick to playing no man's sky. Starfield is different which isn't a bad thing.

[MrBaskerville]

I don't particularily like No mans Sky. I would prefer an rpg where you sometime fly around in a space ship, but this isn't it.

[Snookies12]

I was actually advocating for Starfield when it first launched. I was enjoying my time, and even commented a few times on here mentioning that I enjoyed it. However, I lost interest about 8-10 hours in with the base game. When I started running into the same exact base layouts on planets with the same exact loot, at the same exact locations. Honestly, I was really starting to get into it before that realization hit. Then I realized I was just wasting my time on some copy/paste BS. It was a huge letdown when that dawned on me. I'm not even all that excited for Elder Scrolls VI at this point. That series used to be in my top 3 most anticipated franchises of all time when a new game launched.

Sad to see how far Bethesda has fallen. Morrowind was their crowning jewel. Oblivion and Skyrim were great despite having some rather big flaws respectively. I just can't expect much going forward after seeing how lazy Starfield was.

[mkis007]

Exact same experience as me.

[Armaggedon]

Thats what happens when you go to procedurally generated locations. Somehow people thought they were going to be able to handcraft all of that space in 5-8 years. Insane.

[MrBaskerville]

I did like Fallout 4 as a dungeon crawler. But even then, I still find Starfield very lacking and unappealing. Gave it 20 hours, but I can't find a decent way to enjoy the game.

[Smellsforfree]

Pretty much my same thoughts but I somehow managed to put 20 hours into it. I also did a lot of the main story and it never developed into anything I was interested in. I did a handful of sidequests and they were all incredibly boring delivery-type quests and find things in the city quests. It was really baffling to me that I still managed to drop so much time here. Must be that ambient bethesda music that lulls me.

[MrBaskerville]

I got really tired of the dungeons because they all felt huge and samey and there's never any payoff. There'd usually be a natural conclusion where you find an item or some story or something. In Starfield you just run out of rooms and you find nothing noteworthy.

[mudakoshaka]

Yeah, same here. Felt the same about Hogwarts Legacy. I was enchanted (pun intended) for about 20 hours and then the realisation that it is a copy/paste game hit me. At that point, I assessed the situation and came to the conclusuon that I don't think the developers have made the rest of the game any better. So I stopped playing.

[pwnmaster3000]

Really sad. I was just watching reviews on YouTube and even some Xbox fan YouTubers are not liking it.
Hopefully they redeem themselves with elder scroll 6 if not then oh well. We got Obsidian I guess

[OtterX]

Yea, I'll be really upset if they screw up Elder Scroll 6. Starfield we can chalk up as a mediocre experiment, but I've enjoyed Elder Scrolls games too much since I jumped in on Morrowind. Between Mods and VR, Skyrim has become infinitely replayable. From what I gather with Starfield, not even Mods can fix its problems.

[Jingsing]

People tend to have lower quality standards when it comes to Sword or Sorcery games or at least the vast majority of players will not scrutinize it the way Starfield has been. I think that is in part due to the gender split for each genre. If Elder Scrolls 6 launches buggy and gets slaughtered in the reviews I'll happily admit I'm wrong.

[LightofDarkness]

I have zero faith, given recent comments and Starfield, that they are going to deliver anything of worth with ES6.

[The_Blue]

Sad, it's decent but not worth the 30$ price. Maybe 20

[MrDead]

The only thing this DLC added was more loading screens and bugs.

[Sheppard7t3]

I am only a few hours in, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Story is decent and the atmosphere is pretty cool.

[Flewid638]

No cinematic combat, camera angles or finishers. Dull story. Robotic facial animations. Outside of that the game is pretty, but lacks seasoning.

As a galactic experience I enjoyed Outlaws way more.

[Christopher]

A $30 DLC that cost more to make than a NMS major update and yet provides less content and improves nothing. Please, just support the modders who can actually save the game from mediocrity. They're not stuck in a business line of thinking with no goal to expand beyond the basic vanilla concept they've provided.

[Christopher]

*** This is the same unbiased admin who celebrates and defends Sonys paid remasters of nearly new games.

Your bias is showing Christopher - put it away! ***

You got me! I mean, just the other day I was saying "Safe to say any game since PS4 doesn't need a remake. Just backwards compatibility and support for framerate improvements if possible. PS3 do need remakes because otherwise we aren't seeing them as BC supported games."

https://n4g.com/news/262717...

[Richhard1]

It’s not bad, I’ve played worse. particularly like hide and seek with the local kids.

[WolfSeed]

If this is their best, currently, I fear Elder Scrolls VI will also be a disappointment.

They have big pockets, experienced developers and talent. Yet, they fall short on many technicalities. Perhaps Creation Engine needs to be scrapped?

[Profchaos]

All those people who picked up the season pass to play early via gamepass... This is what you get enjoy mediocrity as long as you've renewed your gamepass sub of course

Convenient this came out just 12 months after the base game right in time for gamepass renewals

[DarXyde]

More than anything, it's a cautionary tale for season passes and pre-orders.

With any game, it's a lot of risk these days. You've got masterpieces like The Witcher III where a season pass is worth it. You've got games where a pre-order based on track record is worth it like Metaphor: Re-Fantazio.

Then you've got cases where the base game has big issues and you wonder about DLC but it ends up being great like Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty.

This is perhaps one of those cases where a pre order and season pass are not good. I personally can't say much specifically since I've never played Starfield in any capacity, but generally, I think we should be moving away from pre-orders and season passes. We're seeing a mentality with many developers that "it doesn't matter, we've already got their money" or "we'll fix it later".

In Bethesda's case, they're unique where they seem to depend on mods to make their games better (or even just "good"). Regardless, let's not throw money at developers before it's in our hands anymore.

[Profchaos]

Absolutely agree I've been burnt before by the gold edition strategy but the game and season pass before ever seeing the content included.

Far cry 5 is one I remember buying the gold edition and absolutely hating the DLC that came with it.

[Armaggedon]

I found the witcher 3 to be dry. Struggled hard to get through that game, but it showed me that people really like their cutscenes and “adult” material.

Bethesda doesn’t need modders to do anything. Their games succeed at launch without mods even being present. The mods just give a way for the game to be added to over time. Its brilliant.

[DarXyde]

Profchaos,

Yeah, it's difficult to know what is worth it now. For me, I think it just makes good sense broadly to wait on Bethesda games because it's a forgone conclusion that they'll have issues at launch. I find it so bizarre that the issues are described as "charming". You know the bar is in hell when the media described it as "the least buggy Bethesda game at launch". Insane. I'll be fair to them in that their worlds are pretty massive and it is difficult to account for the insane variables. But you've got Microsoft backing you, so hire more QA...?

Armageddon,

It's definitely not for everyone and I think the combat was a bit underbaked in some ways, but the world and overall gameplay was fantastic—I think many would agree.

I can't say I agree with attributing its success to adult material and cutscenes. The world just felt very alive with very meaningful quests.

As for Bethesda, that might be the case normally, but I have to push back in the case of Starfield: I think modders didn't want to touch this game and Bethesda kind of forced them to work on Starfield instead of prior works like Skyrim.

[Armaggedon]

People need to be reminded what real mediocrity is.

[zero_jp]

Ask for a photo of the staff for any of these once great AAA companies from 10 to 15 years. Then ask for one from 2024 and you’ll have your answer clear as day as to why most of these studios are putting out hot garbage. It use to be about hiring premier talent. Now it’s about, well we all know what’s it’s about these days.

That aside over the last two console generations that’s Xbox One and now Series X/S Xbox hasn’t had one smash hit with a new I.P. not one. During that same time period PlayStation and Nintendo have had several each. How is that even possible? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Phil needs to go. The rest of Xbox leadership needs to as well. They have whiffed on both new and old I.P. time and time again. At some point someone within Microsoft has got to clean house with that terribly ran division. It’s a literal embarrassment that for all of their resources fail after fail continues to happen.

Starfield and now Shattered Space its first expansion have both missed the mark. SMDH, and just wait until Elder Scrolls 6 rolls around. I have zero confidence that they’ll be able to even get that right. I won’t be surprised if it too ends up being forgettable mediocrity.

[Armaggedon]

It appears you have it all figured out. Maybe phil doesn’t need to go, maybe gamers need to stop being overstimulated and lrarn to find value in things that even they do not personally like. Maybe if people were more patient and understanding, it wouldn’t be so bad.

[Knushwood Butt]

'maybe gamers need to stop being overstimulated and lrarn to find value in things that even they do not personally like.'.

Eh?
Spending what may be hard earned money on gaming is not about trying to find value in something they don't peronally like.
Who does that?
I don't like toffee apples. I won't buy one and force it down to try and find value in toffee apples. If other people like them, then great. Enjoy!

[Armaggedon]

It seems you missed the point. People keep wasting their energy complaining about starfield. Just play and spend somewhere else. But I guess if I dont like tears of the kingdom, I suppose that makes it a “bad” game based on the logic of the common starfield naysayer. Its not about “spend money on the game even though you dont like it” its about understanding, something that is in short supply now a days.

[Knushwood Butt]

I still don't follow.
Most of the people complaining seem to have played it.
I haven't played it so don't know, but it doesn't look like my sort of thing anyway. There are more games out there than I have time to play. I'll spend my time with something I enjoy. I understand that much.

I don't often abandon games, but a recent example is Plague Tale Requiem. I beat and platinumed the first game. Had some qualms but stuck with it. Really wanted to like the sequel but it had the same issues that I didn't like about the first game; namely that the game forces the player to progress in a certain way, and if you deviate from that you fail. There's almost no player freedom. I got to a big area where this play style was forced, and spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out what the forced solution was. After failing a few times I realized it just wasn't enjoyable, turned it off and moved to another game. Recently I deleted it to make room for Last of Us Part I. I've beaten LoU many times and am enjoying playing it yet again.
Plague Tale makes it seem like there's player freedom but there really isn't. I deleted it.
What's to understand?

[Armaggedon]

@Knushwood Butt

My initial response was not aimed at you. Myabe you understand this, but there are so many that dont

[Knushwood Butt]

Yep, I understand that :)

[Jin_Sakai]

But Phil said Starfield was “THE” game.