Image: Bethesda Game Studios
Starfield’s first expansion adds a new story campaign centered on the homeworld of House Va’ruun.
Bethesda Game Studios has dropped a deep dive trailer for Shattered Space, the first expansion for its open-world sci-fi game Starfield. The expansion will add “a more secluded and handcrafted location” in the form of a new planet called Va’ruun’kai, which should satisfy players who were unhappy with the game’s many procedurally-generated planets and galaxies.
Va’ruun’kai also serves as the homeworld of Starfield companion Andreja, who belongs to the cultish organisation House Va’ruun. Here’s the deep dive video:
Starfield: Shattered Space shows off new characters and locations
Bethesda Game Studios promises in this new deep dive video that Shattered Space will “never send you off planet”, as its campaign is completely focused on the homeworld of House Va’ruun. The cult-like faction has isolated itself to this planet for the most part, but a secret experiment gone terribly wrong has led to a tear in the space-time continuum wreaking havoc on its world.
The secret experiment reportedly led to the creation of a vortex that swallowed up the world’s capital Dazra, and players will reach the planet in the wake of that disaster. The world’s leaders are vying for control over their faction, citizens are searching for their loved ones and many are grieving the loss of their capital city. Presumably, player companion Andreja, who hails from House Va’ruun, will have something to say about all this.
It’s a pretty chaotic time to be a tourist in Va’ruun’kai, but that’s what players will be doing anyway. The newly-created vortex has also led to the unfortunate appearance of otherworldly monsters, which players will have to beat back using more close-range combat than before. Va'ruun'kai is also filled with numerous gravity anomalies to navigate, but you will be able to use Starfield’s new REV-8 vehicle to explore the rest of the planet on land.
The expansion will once again ask players to pick a side among the many rising factions within House Va’ruun, leading to a unique story ending that “could affect the rest of the Settled Systems”. That seems pretty typical of Bethesda’s style of RPG storytelling so far, but one wonders how a seemingly isolated campaign could possibly affect the rest of Starfield’s wide universe.
Starfield: Shattered Space launches on September 30, 2024.