Todd Howard Confirms Annual Expansions for Starfield

Starfield: Shattered Space is only the "first" story expansion for Bethesda's space-faring expansion.

By Ricky Frech

At the Xbox Games Showcase, developer Bethesda gave fans their first look at gameplay in the upcoming Starfield expansion Shattered Space. The developer still hasn't given us a firm release date for the expansion, but it is set to launch this fall. Hopefully, they reveal the exact date within the next few weeks. That said, Bethesda isn't keeping completely quiet. Director Todd Howard recently spoke at length about Starfield and the company's plans for the future, even revealing that Shattered Space is far from the only story expansion the team has planned. If things go according to plan, it sounds like fans can expect yearly expansions in Starfield for the foreseeable future.

Starfield Yearly Expansion Plans

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This news comes from Todd Howard's latest interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays. The two talked about Starfield and Bethesda's other projects for more than an hour, but Howard's comments about future DLC in the space adventure are what's drawing the most eyeballs. Howard mentioned annual expansions in passing about halfway through the interview. Later, Matty followed up on that comment, asking if Bethesda is planning to drop new expansions every year.

To that, Howard said, "I would say we want to...more or less. Yeah. How long that continues, hopefully, a very long time, but that's, we're planning for the one after this. So there will be another one. And I don't know that our goal is to answer every question. We sort of look at it and say, 'Hey what's the good angle? What do we want to add to the game as far as an experience or a tone?'"

From that, it's clear that Starfield should get at least two expansions, though the team would seemingly love to do even more. However, it's not about answering every question players have from playing the base game. Instead, the team wants to find a story they find interesting and dig into the details. At the end of the day, that's probably the best course to take if the developers want to stick with Starfield long-term.

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It's also worth noting that Howard talked a bit about the length players can expect from Shattered Space. He compared it favorably to Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC, which was roughly 10 hours long for most players. That's a sizeable chunk of content and if that's what we can expect from future DLC, Starfield players will probably be happy.

Starfield is available now on Xbox and PC platforms.

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