When I finished reviewing Starfield back in 2023 one of the major issues I had with the game was that it was mostly devoid of things to do. The sheer number of planets and planetoids you could visit, compared to the number of things available to do on them, just didn't line up and part of that came down to the generated planets that the team at Bethesda used to fill the game. Which is why I was very happy when the Shattered Space expansion was revealed to have been completely handcrafted, has this approach shattered my expectations or is it just more of the same?

One of the more frequent encountered throughout the main game is with the House of the Serpent, House Va'ruun and their belief in a being known as the Great Serpent. If you adhere to their principles and believe as they do then you are welcome, but if you do not believe then you are a heretic and therefore must be killed. In the main game you constantly encounter members from this cult and there is no talking with them, if they see you they will try to kill you, so having a story DLC set upon their planet was a choice but I go where the adventure takes me. The story starts off with you coming across a derelict space station called the Oracle, all you get from it is a disjointed message that something has gone wrong and not to board the station, so of course you immediately bored. After restoring some power, the station is transported back to the system of House Va'ruun and stations itself above Dazra, home of those you've spent most of the game either avoiding or killing. As you might expect with an extremely xenophobic society the moment you disembark your ship you are greeted by the business end of a gun but then a mysterious glowing person appears that nobody else can hear except you and they give you passage into their mysterious city.

For obvious reasons, I will not spoil anything beyond that point so you can discover the story for yourself, just know that there's a lot of running around the planet, talking with people, finding objects and then saving the world; and all of it stems from the fact that you don't get a choice at the start. One of the big aspects of Starfield originally was that it was your universe, that you could fly to a different planet anytime you wanted to, you could become a pirate or a soldier or even a farmer if that is what you wanted. Having choice meant that you were in control and in order to undertake the DLC storyline or really anything on Dazra you have to accept the conversion to worshipping the Great Serpent. When they first said in order for me to enter the city I must accept, I said no and I was content to try and walk in on my own but the game wouldn't let me, for a game about choice it's really odd that it won't let you enjoy its expansion without accepting the fact you don't have a choice. Later on, you're given a few choices that you choose from and if you choose the same one I did you're kicked off the planet and told if anyone from House Va’ruun ever sees you they will try and kill you.

As far as the gameplay of the expansion goes there's nothing new here it's the same exploring that you will have done in droves by now, or shooting things that come at you. The biggest change is that the game now sports 2 new enemy types, one are humanoid beings that phase in from another dimension and the other are more arachnid type beings. The second only come in if you kill a good number of the first in a certain area, so it's entirely possible that you will not see the second enemy type for quite a while. Because these beings come from another dimension, not the same one that the star born come from, but one they called the vortex, all their weapons are more energy based and it took me a moment to realize that's why I kept dying because my suit was protecting me against projectile damage not energy damage. The same also takes effect when you try and shoot them back because if your gun is more traditional with bullets, then you're going to have a hard time taking down any sort of energy type binging.

Beyond the main storyline, there numerous side quests that you can undertake, such as providing aid if the aftermath of the tragedy, or accidentally triggering a duel between brothers. While more quests are always welcome, there was nothing really special about the quests on offer here. Please don't get me wrong there's nothing bad about what's presented, but outside of the fact that I had to download and install the expansion, there's nothing from this that makes it stand out from the fact that it's not part of the main game. The location of House Va’ruun is interesting as it has a lot going on, but even with new locations to discover on the planet it's still just another just a planet which the game already has a lot of. Because every person you meet there is predisposed to hate you, because you're not from the planet, each encounter that I undertook always had the same flow, someone would say something offensive I would then try to appease them, we would do the business we needed to do and then I would move on. I was really hoping for more here than just slightly more of what we already have and that's probably the biggest let down with the expansion.

Kicking off the adventure requires you to board the Oracle and it's here where you first discover the giant glowing space goo, for lack of a better description and that helps bring a level of wow to the visuals that I wasn't expecting. This blue space goo does appear multiple times throughout the main story thread and each time I encountered it, it was always in a different spot and had different lights hitting it, which reflected back differently in the world and it was quite a hypnotically beautiful thing. But outside of that, the rest of the planet and the locations are essentially the same we've already seen, the people are different but their locations feel the same. The planet itself is more purple to brown in its colour spectrum so it will feel a little more alien than some of the locations that you visit in the main game, and of course the giant field of blue energy surrounding the citadel in the middle of town also gives off a very alien vibe, which helps sell the fact that you're not in the settled systems anymore.

The people that you encounter be they from the high council or all the various families that call Dazra home, sport that same sort of Eastern European base. This is something anyone who spent time with Andreja will be familiar with and it is a nice constant to see that brought across to the home planet. Something that's a little unique for the people that have remained on the planet is that they are pretty much covered in tattoos to some degree. There is a reason for this, it has to do with growing up, as people start to get tattoos and then the more tattoos you have the higher you are in the belief system, but it took me a while to realize they were tattoos because it's not explained until much later in the story. Visually there's a nice little identity being built up around this new location and given that it's only been 100 or so years since the planet was settled on, there's quite a lot of familiar assets involved with terminals and doors and such, but I would have liked to have seen a little more variety in what the people have done in that time.

On the sound side of things there's not much to talk about it's the same game that you've had before, the main Starfield theme kicks in fairly often, especially in combat and there are a few new melodies but nothing that's going to stand out as being spectacular. The voice work continues to be excellent and again with all the folks on the planet sporting that sort of Eastern European accent, it does help ground the world.

With Starfield creating a lot of its world automatically, it made the hand crafted locations feel all the more special and that same feeling carries across to Shattered Space. House Va’ruun has a great vibe to it, though its partially destroyed and while I would love to say that the world is one you need to explore, it still is just more of the same that exists in the game already. The story does have some great missions to undertake, but not being able to enjoy any of it, unless you convert to the cult is just a slap in the face, when the game has always been about choice. If you enjoyed Starfield then Shattered Space will give you more to do, but there is just nothing here that is going to shatter expectations for anyone else.