Starfield: Shattered Space details have been revealed through an inteview with Todd Howard. The interview had a special focus on Bethesda’s plans for Shattered Space, which will arrive this year, and their strategy regarding new post-launch content. The game director has now confirmed in an interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays that they are already working on the second major DLC, which will be released in the game’s second year, in 2025.

Starfield Unveals New Details of Shattered Space

Howard said that in addition to paid expansions, they will continue to release free updates, although he is unsure if they can maintain the update pace of the first year during 2025. In Shattered Space, a mysterious power stirs in the city of Dazra, the capital of the hidden homeworld of House Va’Ruun, and players will have to investigate a terrifying cosmic threat, explore a new planet, and find unique weapons, spacesuits, and equipment in this new adventure.

In this interview, Todd Howard explained that the expansion will function differently from the base game. While Starfield’s main missions and secondary content make players jump between dozens of solar systems, most of Shattered Space takes place in the same location, making it a much denser experience overall.

Shattered Space has been in development for just under a year, with production starting right after Bethesda Game Studios finished Starfield in September 2023, although the team had been discussing ideas and thinking about the expansion long before.

Shattered Space Will Be as Big as Fallout 4’s Far Harbor

In addition to revealing this detail about Starfield’s future, Howard also took advantage of the interview to delve into some details of Shattered Space. Although many details are still to be clarified, the creative reveals that the DLC will not differ much from Far Harbor, Fallout 4’s expansion, regarding new content. Moreover, it seems that its events will primarily take place on a single planet.

“It’s great to see everyone reacting to the trailer and the mood we tried to convey, but one of the things we’ve always liked about it from the beginning, and I think people don’t realize, is that Shattered Space, most of that expansion pack, once you get to the city and the planet, it pretty much takes place there,” explains Howard in the conversation. “It allows us to build a landscape as we would traditionally and have the city and missions. That story takes place there, and the landscape, in terms of content, we’re looking at something similar to what we did with Far Harbor in Fallout 4.”

“This is the approach that works for our development when making this kind of annual story expansion,” continues the Bethesda head. “I’m really excited about it, and it allows us to do some things as we would in previous games and give people some of that experience because it’s still Starfield, but with this new kind of alien world that you can explore, and [the story] takes place there.”

Bethesda Has Its Reasons for Not Changing Game Engine

Besides dedicating a good portion of the interview to talking about Starfield, Shattered Space, and the studio’s plans for the RPG’s future, the conversation with MrMattyPlays also addresses one of the community’s most recurring questions when talking about Bethesda: why don’t they change the game engine? While many applaud the possibilities of this technology regarding mod creation, some believe the developer should make a leap forward with a more modern tool. However, Howard reveals that the team has good reasons to stay as they are, always looking for new ways to innovate.

“I’ll say that, with every game we make, we want to push our technology,” begins the creative. “I think, for what we do, having a custom engine is the best way because what we do is so unique in scale, in the agency we give players, and how systemic many of the things are in these worlds, and we keep pushing it. I couldn’t be more grateful to our Technical Team, the technology, and the tools they’ve given us all to build at this scale and speed. You can see what it’s done to our modding community, in terms of their ability to use it. And whatever we do with that technology, it’s always part of our conversation here at the studio.”

“We love doing this, how we can offer it to other people so they can do it too. And I think if you look at, I’ll say, the most popular games, many of them have custom engines and custom technologies, so we’re no different with that,” Howard continues in the interview.

“We’re very, very happy with where we are with Starfield, but we also know that – Hey, we see what else is out there so we can push and work with our industry graphics partners… We’re going to work together and push it as much as we can.”

Starfield Surpasses 14 Million Players

All this is also seasoned with good news about Starfield: the space RPG continues to break its own records and has reached a new milestone, with 14 million players across all users who have enjoyed the game on Xbox and PC.

Additionally, Howard says the average playtime is over 40 hours per user, so many are making the most of the adventure. Now it remains to be seen how these numbers improve after the release of Shattered Space and the other DLCs that will be launched in the future.

Be sure to check out other news Starfield Will Receive 60 FPS Update and also Starfield Confirms Expansion Will Arrive In The Second Half Of The Year And don’t forget to bookmark Starfield Wiki , as you most assuredly will need it!