After Shattered Space DLC, Bethesda plans to keep Starfield alive with more 'annual story expansions'

Shattered Space DLC is the next big thing on the cards for Starfield players, but it will not be the last of its kind. Bethesda Softworks' Starfield team has already started conceptualizing another expansion to follow suit, with plans to work on 'annual story expansions' for as long as they find it viable.

Bethesda Director and Executive Producer Todd Howard confirmed the 'annual expansion' ideation recently. He discussed this, and more, in an hour-long interview with popular YouTuber MrMattyPlays, leaving a lot for Bethesda followers to chew on.

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Shattered Space will be set on only one planet

Shattered Space will not be another fast-travel UI adventure (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

For Starfield's Shattered Space DLC, the developer went back to the drawing board. Instead of the base game's boundless ambition for spacing things out over thousands of planets, Shattered Space will be set on a single planet, sporting the more bespoke landscape design of Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.

Other than tightening the developmental scope, it also allowed Todd and company to go back to the traditional ways of their expansions. In the interview, Todd compared the scope of Shattered Space to the Far Harbour DLC from Fallout 4. He said:

"Shattered Space... the bulk of that expansion pack, pretty much, once you get to the city and the planet, it takes place there. It allows us to build a landscape like we traditionally do."

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After Starfield's Shattered Space DLC, another one is already in the works

One of the most common criticisms leveled at Starfield was how barren and diluted its giant universe felt. Compared to the deliberately terraformed holds of Skyrim, or the rubble-packed detritus of Fallout, Starfield felt more like an open-ended tech demo for Creation Engine 2.

Bethesda's custom-designed content islands for their Starfield expansions might solve this problem a little, planet by planet.

But more importantly, it will allow a relatively smaller team to maintain the same output for Starfield Year 3 and beyond. Todd summarizes:

"This is a scope that works for our development in doing this kind of annual story expansion type of thing."

With enough 'annual expansions', given that they share the success of Far Harbor or Shivering Isles, Starfield might even parallel the lasting legacy of Skyrim.

Starfield supports this annual adventure release not from just a tech standpoint, but also a story point of view. The game's ending may raise more questions than it answers - gaps that story expansions might fulfill.

Todd clarified that this alone did not necessitate the need for a DLC, but also the opportunity to add new 'experiences' with a new 'tone':

"I don't know that our goal is to answer every question... we sort of look at it and say - hey, what's a good angle, what do we wanna add to the game as far as an experience, or a tone, or those kinds of things."

You can check out the full interview here:

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Starfield's Shattered Space DLC is coming later this year. Follow Sportskeeda for more updates.