Starfield - Shattered Space Review Summary

Stunning visuals and a compelling story are let down by poor quality, high price, technical bugs, and tedious fetch quests.

New weapons and gear: The DLC introduces a variety of new weapons, armor, and items that are powerful and visually appealing. Players appreciate the unique designs and the enhancement to combat options.

Beautiful and striking visuals: Players consistently praise the game's visual presentation, describing the environments as beautiful, stunning, and immersive. The graphical quality enhances the exploration experience.

Story is compelling: The narrative is frequently highlighted as interesting, gripping, and immersive, with depth that keeps players engaged. Reviewers appreciate the story's quality, noting it exceeds expectations.

Lore expansion for House Va'ruun: The DLC greatly expands the lore of House Va'ruun, providing depth and intriguing backstory. Players find the additional lore and story development for this faction to be a highlight.

Abundant side quests and content: Players note the main quest is dense and accompanied by numerous side quests, offering variety and multiple solutions. The DLC adds a substantial amount of content, including a new planet, making it feel expansive.

DLC is poor quality and overpriced: The vast majority of feedback criticizes the DLC as low quality, buggy, short, and not worth its price tag. Many players feel the content does not justify the full price and is not a proper expansion.

DLC is technically buggy and unplayable: The DLC suffers from bugs and glitches, and in some cases cannot be accessed or even installed for some players. These technical issues further increase the negative impression of the DLC.

DLC lacks meaningful new content: Reviews repeatedly state the DLC adds very little new or valuable content to the base game, often just a few quests or minor systems. It is seen as forgettable and unimpactful, offering almost nothing for players who already finished the main game.

Quests are boring fetch quests: A significant portion of feedback highlights that the DLC quests are primarily boring fetch quests. Side quests are described as bland, uninspired, and uninteresting, making them a chore to complete.

Main quest is short: The main storyline is repeatedly described as very short, with one player noting it can be finished in about three hours. The story also is lacking depth, and the overall experience feels cut short with an abrupt and unsatisfying ending.

Story-driven quest-heavy DLC: The DLC is heavily narrative-focused, with a main quest, side quests, and dialogue trees. It emphasizes story arcs, choices, and world-building, making it a linear, story-rich expansion.

New single-planet setting: The DLC is set on a new, single planet (Va'ruun Kaï) in a new system, offering substantial new content. This planet is densely packed with quests, exploration opportunities, and unique features.

Exploration and open world: The DLC offers open-world exploration with a large map and multiple points of interest. It retains the base game's exploration-driven gameplay with handcrafted and procedural elements.

New weapons and combat: The expansion adds new weapons, armor sets, and enemies, enhancing the combat with fresh gunfights and action elements. It includes new game plus mechanics, adding replayability beyond the core content.

Side quests as fetch quests: Many side quests are fetch-and-kill style, sometimes described as simple fetch quests. They are lower quality compared to the main questline, with some being dungeon crawls.

Frequent crashes and instability: Multiple players report the game crashing frequently, being unstable, and having severe stability issues that make it unplayable. This feedback appears in several clusters.

Poor optimization and performance: Many reviews highlight poor optimization, causing bad performance even on high-end PCs, with statements that the DLC runs atrociously and has horrendous performance in specific areas. This is a widespread concern.

FPS drops and stuttering: Players note significant frame rate drops, stuttering, and lagging both in the DLC locations and during general gameplay, impacting the overall experience. This occurs across different hardware configurations.

Progress-blocking bugs: Several players experience bugs that block main story progression or critical missions, requiring external solutions or console commands to continue. This can render the game unplayable for some.

Negative visual quality and performance: Reviews criticize the game's outdated and old graphics, questioned outdoor appearance, and pixelation, with some comparing it to older titles. This negatively affects the overall reception.

DLC not recommended overall: A large portion of reviewers advise against buying the DLC, citing poor value, short length, glitches, and boredom. Several explicitly state 'do not buy' or recommend skipping it entirely.

Not worth its price: Reviewers frequently state the DLC is overpriced relative to its content. Some say it's only worth a few dollars or a low discount.

Only for Starfield die-hards: The DLC is frequently recommended only for players who already enjoy the base game. Those who dislike Starfield likely won't change their opinion.

Buy on discount: A common recommendation is to wait for a sale and purchase the DLC at a reduced price. Some suggest it's only worth it at a 20% discount or more.

Skip unless Star Wars fan: The DLC is only recommended to Star Wars fans or those interested in the Star Wars Genesis mod. Others should avoid it.

Community fair range: $5.00 - $15.00.

Game completion: 30.0h.

Story completion: 10.0h.

The DLC begins with a tedious, dialogue-heavy intro but becomes more engaging after the first hour when gunfights increase and the main quest unfolds; however, a substantial number of players found the entire experience boring.

Friction: tedious intro; boring dialogue; fetch-quests; repetitive environments.

Unlock drivers: completing the introductory segment; increased gunfights; interesting main quest unfolding.

Loyal Starfield Fan: Casual exploration and quest completion, accepting the game's design as an extension of the base experience. Motivation: Enjoying more of the same Starfield universe and lore, especially faction content and handcrafted locations. Stance: buy.

Disappointed Veteran: Critical analysis of content depth, performance, and value relative to expectations from Bethesda. Motivation: Expecting a substantial and polished expansion but left deeply unsatisfied by lack of content, high price, and technical flaws. Stance: no buy.

Roleplay Purist: Immersive roleplaying with character-driven decisions and expectations of meaningful narrative consequences. Motivation: Seeking genuine roleplay agency and impactful choices in an RPG expansion. Stance: no buy.

Performance across all VRAM cohorts is predominantly negative, with reports of low frame rates, crashes, and instability.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: negative. Players report severe frame drops and poor performance, with average FPS as low as 25 in some areas.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. A player reports the DLC is very laggy, dropping to 40 FPS at 1080p high settings.

Windows <8GB VRAM: negative. Multiple reports of regular crashes and a buggy, laggy map.

Monetization: The Shattered Space DLC is widely criticized as overpriced and containing content that feels cut from the base game, with one explicit mention of microtransactions for cosmetics and mini-quests. While not extremely predatory, the monetization shows a clear pattern of value extraction via incomplete base content and additional paid items.

DLC content varies widely: Feedback describes the DLC as offering a substantial amount of content, including quests, weapons, items, and a unique world, but some reviewers feel it is not worth buying separately. This disparity suggests mixed perceptions of its overall value.

DLC priced too high: Many reviewers consider the DLC's price, often cited at $30 or 30 euros, too high for the content provided, with some stating it is overpriced and not worth the cost. The premium edition bundling does not alleviate this concern for separate buyers.

DLC requires Starfield game: The DLC is an expansion for Starfield, requiring the base game to play. It is available through the Premium or Ultimate editions, but is also sold separately, with some reviewers noting it should have been part of the base game.

Star Wars mod is motivation: A significant reason for purchasing the DLC is to access the Star Wars Genesis mod, which relies on this expansion. Players bought the DLC specifically to enable this mod, diminishing their interest in the base content.

DLC price compared to content: Reviewers frequently compare the DLC's price to the amount of content it delivers, often concluding that it is overpriced. The value proposition is weak, especially when considering the length and depth of the expansion.