Starfield Crossed 14 Million Players, Will Get Annual Story Expansions; Shattered Space Set on Single Planet, Is Far Harbor-Sized

Today, renowned YouTuber MrMattyPlays posted an hour-long video interview with Bethesda’s Todd Howard, which touched on several topics, including the studio’s latest game, Starfield.

Howard provided an update on the game’s player base. Last we heard, in December 2023, the game had registered 13 million players. Now, it’s increased by another million.

We now have three big franchises. Starfield has 14 million players, and the average playtime is still over 40 hours a player. It’s just like a staggering amount of time in-game.

The conversation then shifted to Shattered Space, the first Starfield DLC slated for release later this year. Todd Howard revealed that it’s an ‘annual story expansion’ that is around the size of Fallout 4’s Far Harbor (which took around 15 hours on average for main plus side quests) and mainly takes place on a single planet, allowing to return to that seamless exploration Bethesda games are known for.

Something we had planned for, and one of the things that – I mean, it’s great to everybody react to the trailer and the mood that we’re trying to put out there, but one of the things that we always liked about it from the get-go and I don’t think people realize is that Shattered Space, the bulk of that expansion pack, once you get to the city and the planet, it pretty much takes place there.

It allows us to build a landscape like we would traditionally do and have the city and the quests. That story takes place there, and the landscape, content-wise, we’re looking at kind of like what we did with Far Harbor on Fallout 4. This is a scope that works for our development in doing this kind of annual story expansion type. Really excited about that and it lets us kind of do some things the way we would in previous games and give people not completely that experience because it’s still Starfield, but this new kind of alien world that you’re able to explore and it takes place there.

MrMattyPlays asked Howard whether it was a reaction to the community’s criticism toward the different kinds of exploration available in the sci-fi RPG. However, it sounds like Bethesda was already inclined to do so even before hearing from players.

When we were making Starfield, we struggled with how to make exploration fun on big, barren planets. We felt good with where we landed, knowing that it was not going to scratch the same itch for a lot of people that you would when you have a more bespoke landscape that you’re exploring.

So it was for us, too. We wanted to build something like that and felt that this was the right way to go about it with something that had its own theme and tone that we could put you on a planet. One of the benefits of Starfield and its scope is it allows something like that within it while feeling natural, so it was our own reaction that we had as well.

Going back to the mention of annual story expansions for Starfield, Howard clarified:

I would say we want to, more or less. How long that continues, hopefully a very long time, but that’s what we’re planning for the one after this. So, there will be another one.

Are you excited to get back into the game with Shattered Space? Let us know in the comments.