GAMERTIMES

Bethesda has plans to release annual story expansions for Starfield, according to game director Todd Howard. In an interview with YouTube channel MrMattyPlays, Howard confirmed the company’s intention to deliver new content each year.

“I would say more or less, yeah,” Howard responded when asked about the annual release strategy for story expansions.

He also hinted at the long-term nature of these plans, expressing hope for continued expansions. “How long that continues [for is uncertain], hopefully a very long time, but we’re planning for the one after this, so there will be another one.”

The first story expansion, Shattered Space, is set to launch later this year. The expansion’s trailer reveals a tantalizing storyline centered around a mysterious power in the city of Dazra on House Va’ruun’s concealed homeworld. Players will face a cosmic threat, explore a new planet, and discover unique weapons, spacesuits, and gear.

Howard compared the scope of Shattered Space to Fallout 4’s Far Harbor expansion. He explained that the bulk of the expansion occurs in a single city and planet, allowing Bethesda to create a rich landscape filled with quests.

“It allows us to build a landscape like we would traditionally do and have the city and the quests. And so, that story takes place there and the landscape’s kind of, content wise, we’re looking at kind of like what we did with Far Harbor on Fallout 4,” Howard elaborated.

He emphasized that this approach aligns well with their development process for annual expansions. “This is a scope that works for our development in doing this kind of annual story expansion type of thing,” Howard said. “So, 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.”

In the same interview, Howard noted that Bethesda is not rushing a new single-player Fallout game despite the franchise’s current popularity.