During a recent interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays, Todd Howard shared significant updates about Bethesda’s latest game, Starfield. The hour-long interview covered various aspects of the game, such as its growing player base and future content plans.
Starfield has reached a milestone of 14 million players, up from the 13 million reported in December 2023. Howard highlighted the game’s impressive engagement, noting that the average playtime remains over 40 hours per player, showing a significant amount of time invested in the game by its community.
The discussion also focused on Shattered Space, the first DLC for Starfield, which is set to be released later in the year. Howard revealed that Shattered Space will be an annual story expansion, similar in scope to Fallout 4’s Far Harbor. If we go by the estimate of Far Harbor’s length, Shattered Space could be anywhere between 10 to 20 hours depending on if you are just breezing through the expansion, or aiming for 100% completion.
Howard explained the vision behind Shattered Space, pointing out the expansion’s focus on a single planet and the city, with quests and content similar to Fallout 4’s Far Harbor. He expressed excitement about the new alien world that players will be able to explore. The information revealed regarding the expansion so far has been quite positive, so it could help improve the overall player base.
MrMattyPlays asked whether Shattered Space was a response to community feedback regarding the exploration mechanics in Starfield. Howard acknowledged the challenges of making exploration enjoyable on vast, barren planets and stressed that the development team had anticipated this issue from the outset. He explained that the expansion was a way to address the desire for more bespoke landscapes to explore.
Regarding Starfield’s future, Howard confirmed that Bethesda plans to release annual story expansions for the game, with another expansion already in the pipeline following Shattered Space.
Starfield is a 2023 action role-playing game by Bethesda Game Studios, with players exploring an open world in the Milky Way galaxy. Described as “Skyrim in space,” the game’s development began after Fallout 4, and it runs on a modified Creation Engine. It was released for PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6, 2023.