Starfield Shattered Space warps Bethesda’s final frontier into full-on horror

Space can be a lot of things: beautiful, awe-inspiring, full of hope for mankind’s future. But it can also be the setting for some truly spine-chilling horror – and that’s what Starfield’s upcoming Shattered Space DLC will focus on. It places the base game’s creepy House Va’ruun faction – a cult who worship a deity called the Great Serpent – center stage. (Taking a wild guess, this is probably not going to be one for people who don’t like big snakes.)

Shattered Space will see you traveling to the House Va’ruun’s homeworld, which has been specially designed to tell the DLC’s story. This means, if you decide to venture back out into the stars, you’ll be able to return to the DLC whenever you like and pick up the storyline where you left off.

But where does the name Shattered Space come in? Well, as we found out during a Gamescom 2024 showfloor presentation this morning, if Starfield’s main campaign is about the pursuit of knowledge, then Shattered Space is about the knowledge you should really shut away in a box and never touch.

Upon arriving at Dazra, House Va’ruun’s capital city, you’ll discover that much of it has been lost to a vortex. Space has literally shattered, leaving the citizens searching for survivors and the minority houses who make up their society fighting for control. There’s even worries that the Va’ruun Zealots are trying to use the chaos to re-establish their own house…

You’ll quickly find yourself caught up in the politics of House Va’ruun. Yet, if you decide to journey across the planet, you’ll discover that the vortex’s effects aren’t just confined to the city’s borders. Creatures are emerging from the other side of the vortex and they’re certainly not happy to be on an unfamiliar planet. Not to forget about the planet’s terrain itself which includes gravity anomalies.

The vibes here are pure space horror – to an extent the base Starfield never really touched upon. And it’s interesting, especially off the back of last night’s look at the game’s sporty new space buggy, to see Bethesda trying different things. There, it was a pitch for the game to be a sort of space-set Forza-inspired off-road romp, with the REV-8 – Starfield’s first land vehicle – now available for free.

Starfield didn’t land perfectly – but perhaps it can become, as Skyrim has through its modding scene, a staging ground for all manner of other things. Including giant space snake horror. Shattered Space will be released on 30th September for PC and Xbox Series X/S.