Starfield Shattered Space Review: An overpriced ride to Bethesda's phantom roots

Shattered Space is no giant leap for Starfield. The gravity on planet Varuunkai allows for little jump height. This would explain its miniature space-huts, and it's one of the ways the world feels cohesive. Not that it's a big world to explore, lest you jump across the entirety of its purple space-sand dunes. At best, it's on par with the better parts of Starfield. At worst, it feels like a high-quality Creation Club mod that did the legwork to get a few voice actors to enliven its hundred-line exposition dump episodes.

Before I drop into my two cents on Shattered Space, I should set the record straight about my take on Starfield, the base game. The procedural generation was a complete whiff, and stripped away Bethesda's strongest suit: their handcrafted worlds. In a literal sense, then, Shattered Space is the return to Bethesda's roots as a game-maker: their deliberately sculpted landscapes with hand-placed hamlets. Unfortunately, they seem to be rusty, and far from their peak.

Starfield Shattered Space, or how I learned to shut up and follow the railroad

Bethesda games are known for their adherence to the power-fantasy narrative to a fault. In all Elder Scrolls games, you're the larger-than-life prophesized figure, here to save the day from an epoch-making crisis. The Nerevarine (Morrowind) is the reincarnation of a Chimer hero, and the Last Dragonborn (Skyrim) is theorized to be manifested by the gods to end Alduin's plot. All of your characters' canon path ends in becoming mythologized as historical figures; the protagonist of Oblivion transcends to godhood at the end of Shivering Isles.

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Dazra is no Vivec City (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

It worked so well in the pre-Oblivion era Bethesda narrative because you were given true freedom to make paper aeroplanes out of the codices. You could sever the threads of prophecy if you chose to kill another important figure necessary to progress the main quest. In other words, the prophesized canon is there, but you could just cast them off as ahistorical gibberish from cult followers and do your own thing after you sideline the main campaign.

Bethesda didn't go that far back into their roots with Shattered Space. You're still the Starborn and the world awaits your arrival to save the day. Such is the case with the splintered city of Dazra, freshly thrown into chaos by an explosion that traps its administrative HQ into a different plane of existence.

Part of the marketing pitch in Shattered Space trailers was the mystique of House Varuun, a secret society that doesn't communicate with the rest of the settled systems. For an isolationist theocracy, the Varuun people sure accept you as one of their own wicked fast. You get fast-tracked VIP access to their initiation chambers just moments after setting foot on their doorstep—for a mere $30 price of admission.

The in-world explanation is that you can hear the Phantom of Anasko, a supposed medium to the Great Serpent, whereas everyone else in Dazra cannot. A contrivance of this sort is to be expected of a stock-standard sci-fi adventure that Shattered Space seems to be going for, but in effect, it completely nullifies Dazra's identity as a secretive heartland of an isolationist people, and yours as an outlander who must earn their salt.

This general sense of missed opportunities came up time and time again in my 10-hour-long playthrough of Starfield: Shattered Space. It probably won't take you that long to beat it. I took my time with this DLC to give it the benefit of the doubt to balance out my listlessness toward the base game.

The one or two odd instances of funny dialogue can't overturn its linearity (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

Going into it, I expected some semblances with Morrowind's brilliant peculiarity; what with the turmoil of minor houses as factions you can swing between. There's none of that here. If you try to murder house Ka'dic (the centrist faction), you'll find that you can't, in fact, be a self-motivated agent of chaos.

Many of them are essential NPCs, meaning you just can't kill them. You only temporarily down them, Andreja hates you, and after a while, you figure out you'll have to reload from the last checkpoint and stick to the railroad. To enjoy Shattered Space, you'll have to forgive its continued lack of true sandboxing and take it as it comes.

The roleplaying options here are limited to token character flavors. In this case, the Serpent's Embrace trait will finally pay off for some Starborns, as it allows you to use exclusive dialogue options; yet, you can't bring forth any exclusive outcomes with that tag.

Fallout 4's dialogue options allow you to be either earnest or sassy, whereas Starfield adds zealotry into the mix of possible masks to wear. It's the same as your companions chiming in once in a while about the ongoing events: this sort of thing makes for some easier suspension of disbelief, but it's "roleplay" only on a cosmetic level.

Roid Rage, Phantom Menace, and Big Critters

The DLC starts out strong with the space-horror setpiece of a derelict ship adrift in the middle of nowhere. The reason the Oracle is stranded in space is delivered through audio logs: there was some sort of energy surge in the Varuun Capitol, which triggered their grave drive and replaced some of their crew with Vortex Phantoms.

The opening makes Shattered Space look better than it is (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

This brings us to the new enemy types. Chiefly, there are three. The first is the most barebones type: the Redeemed. They're your average hand-to-hand brawler with the ability to withstand big damage because of the "genetic experiments" they have willingly partaken. The others are somewhat more interesting: Vortex Phantoms are blue maddened sprites that can teleport randomly, making a fight more chaotic.

He took the STR pill too far (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

The third type is what Shattered Space uses as a form of jumpscare in some interior locations: Vortex Horrors. Some strange creature out of an SCP vault, these are the Chaurus of Skyrim roided up and mystified further by having skulls for kneecaps (which explains why the legs are the weak spot).

On the whole, these enemy types are not particularly game-changing but make up for some extra intrigue in a few combat setpieces. The problem is that there are only three of them. The rest of the grunts, zealots, and other fodder enemies from Va'ruun are refurbished space pirates.

This town ain't big enough for three noble Houses

Dazra is not the best of Bethesda's work when it comes to materializing living, breathing cities. It's not even the best in Starfield, where the scale of cities like New Atlantis already fail to live up to the hype. Varuunkai is the first "hand-crafted" planet in Starfield, but it leaves much to be desired.

To give credit where credit's due, some attempts are made to make the map believable. Varuunkai has a degree of self-sustainability with some seaweed and Groat farms, a refinery, and a couple of power stations. The problem is that these POIs are only about two dozen. There's not much of great interest to be found in going off the beaten path. Shattered Space is a massive downgrade in this aspect from the latest available referent, Fallout 76. Those who already liked Starfield will be over the moon with the outskirts of Dazra, but it's not good enough to convert someone not enthused with the idea of Bethesda's NASA-punk offering.

Shattered Space is a looker at times, too bad there's not enough to look into (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

Readers who have reached this point will have pieced together the core problem with Shattered Space by now. There simply isn't enough to justify this $30 tag. What's in there exhibits some degree of quality, although not with great consistency. There are pages worth of dialogue, but not all of them are good enough to keep your attention. The main quests are done in five or six hours with a serviceable showdown at the Scaled Citadel, and then there are some side-quests that range from lukewarm intrigue to window dressing.

Story-wise, Shattered Space could have utilized a few interesting pivots. The genesis of a Vortex Phantom is an inevitable descent into madness, as the events of The Oracle so deliberately explain. Like many others, this ends up being an untapped potential.

The political intrigue and power dynamics between the three Va'ruun Houses are contaminated by the immediate urgency to unify them in a moment of crisis. In turn, the conclusion of that crisis also feels phoned-in, as you're left with a pacifist vs radicalized choice at the end—a choice with no significant tangible consequences to ponder afterward because your journey with Shattered Space is already at an end. It's a very Bethesda way to wrap things up, letting you take the rein as the puppeteer of every faction you finish homework for.

This is not to dunk on Bethesda Game Studios' art team, though. Shattered Space is intended to be a NASA-punk view (if they're still sticking with that tag) into a retro-futuristic theocracy. Varuunkai manages to look visually distinct. A lot of the details are somewhat mitigated by the purple haze it settles down into at most points, but between its monastic ruins out in the dunes and the gold-plated interiors of house Ka'dic, it really grows on you. The wildlife, interesting geological features, and fauna may be limited for what we expect of a full-fledged DLC, but they do give this desolate planet a reasonable amount of flair.

Looks are subjective, so I can't say it's the best-looking theme park Starfield has on offer. There's not enough sample size to conduct a poll, because there's not much variety here.

The Verdict: My Kingdom for a Horse Armor

It's a foregone conclusion that Starfield hasn't been the next big thing for Bethesda's legacy, and Shattered Space does nothing to redeem its reputation. Its return to the roots of hand-crafted exploration results in a just barely serviceable landmass designed for a brief visit. This being priced more than Fallout 4's Far Harbor is already a travesty; the fact that many will compare it to Cyberpunk's Phantom Liberty only adds insult to injury.