Starfield: Shattered Space – Why Bethesda Needs to Listen to its Fans!
Starfield: Shattered Space – A Disappointing Expansion and a Glimpse into Bethesda's Future
Starfield: Shattered Space, the first major expansion for Bethesda's 2023 flagship game, totally bombed with many fans, including myself! Released on September 30th, it received negative reviews for a whole bunch of reasons; mostly a lack of overall engagement and excitement; failing to generate that kind of epic space adventure many were hoping to get from this expansion; instead giving an experience that many simply felt lacked the depth needed to feel excited. And Bethesda Game Studios design director, Emil Pagliarulo's, response to the backlash? It's honestly what worries me the most. Even the response to negative reviews show how these issues affect other productions within this particular game design company!
(Spoiler warning: This article contains minor spoilers for Starfield.) I get it; Bethesda employs a lot of amazing people, but that interview made me really worried about future projects including the much-anticipated Starfield: Starborn expansion, and future games such as Elder Scrolls 6! Let’s delve deep into those problems, analyzing just what happened.
The Biggest Problem? Lack of Meaningful Choices!
My main issue with Shattered Space is the illusion of choice; something many fans and critics of Bethesda Games already found to be problematic; now even highlighted here for this particular title. Bethesda games have this long-standing issue of "choices" that don't really matter. Other games prove a much stronger, and more impactful way of dealing with such storylines, showing just why the choice design matters greatly, demonstrated well through Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3; showing why other creative designs and storytelling choices could've greatly benefited Starfield. They proved this level of freedom was not simply an unattainable impossibility for this studio. However, it is likely due to some larger studio oversight and these failures could impact how these projects affect fans.
Starfield's New Game Plus totally shows this issue. A second playthrough exposes this lack of genuine consequence and makes most choices rather pointless. Attempting to approach quests differently produced mostly the same ending! It’s not like Bethesda's never done this before. Yet combined with Shattered Space’s rather boring, predictable storyline; that lack of true impact for decisions became a critical and significant failure in generating that kind of gameplay necessary for engaging a wide variety of players who wanted to find themselves having an enjoyable and creative time in a space-faring universe which was promised by this game!
I loved the Crimson Fleet and UC Sys Def missions – these are really some of the best, in my opinion – and are critically impacting quests and significant storyline decisions found in the base game – and show exactly how well choices are structured and executed if done well; and unlike many areas throughout Shattered Space, those aspects had a massive impact that showed those creative decision-making methods used successfully to improve the initial base game design, proving a methodology that clearly works! The other aspects of the game don't use this kind of gameplay approach at all.
Bethesda Needs to Listen: What Fans Really Want
I admit some parts of Starfield were awesome—questlines like those from Ryujin Industries were amazing. But overall it left me disappointed; despite all that incredible detail given, and a ton of creative storylines that never developed as well as hoped for! That's sad. There’s a huge difference: Not a lack of content; instead that much content is sadly lacking engagement – which creates a conundrum: there are many things to do, yet none of those aspects provide meaningful experiences or compelling reasons to push further and engage further within this created and expansive fictional environment; resulting in the current version falling flatter than initially expected!
That GamesRadar (via GameRant) interview with Pagliarulo really highlighted why I’m worried. Bethesda seems completely clueless regarding those audience complaints! Yes, the Va'ruun'kai planet is amazing, visually, showing some high-quality craftsmanship in some specific places! That still doesn't fix the lack of risk-taking, creativity or generally delivering a fresh, novel and exciting gaming experience; creating yet another repetitive and shallow gameplay that makes players find the very premise entirely tedious!
A Clear Path to Starborn's Redemption (Please!)
Starborn needs to deliver; not repeating those same errors found within the previous, much-hyped expansion. Choices should have immense value! Starfield feels limited despite an enormous space setting—those decisions like destroying UC Sys Def had absolutely minimal impact, a total nonsensical thing that further hammers down a significant point concerning these major choices that completely underwhelm. This really makes little sense from various viewpoints. Yet other elements such as those added into environments such as New Atlantis never improve, despite adding incredibly violent events; they continue feeling lifeless, despite how important those events would have seemed, showing those other serious flaws regarding the actual execution within this title!
We need real, lasting changes! Things like the removal of those awful ship limits, the addition of ground vehicles, even mechs – fixes for game-breaking bugs—these should be top priorities. But it seems unlikely that these requests are going to be fulfilled, and frankly it is sad; but a likely situation, that many players now predict. I really, really hope Starborn will fix things! It is highly unlikely that this will ever be achieved; and as those games like Starborn demonstrate; some people like to simply pour more money into something they had already grown somewhat disaffected toward, based on their prior experiences within those past titles and the company’s poor record surrounding updates in the past. This highlights that expectation: disappointment.
Conclusion: Can Starfield Find Its Stars?
Starfield's initial launch created tremendous excitement! Yet, after the initial gameplay, there were massive drops and feelings of discontent in the fans; largely a failure from Bethesda regarding listening to the needs from fanbase which failed to materialize as improved design choices, further reinforcing this disappointment that players already predicted to happen.
Shattered Space further shows Bethesda needs to take those comments seriously, taking serious consideration of those user-provided insights in designing better experiences. Fans provided a clearer and better direction; it remains entirely dependent upon Bethesda’s willingness and efforts toward acting upon what the viewers want and this willingness itself becomes even more critical for success.
