Important takeaways
- Shattered Space hasn't done much to win back Starfield's reputation, dropping to “Mostly Negative” on Steam with a combined OpenCritic score of just 59.
- One fan even took out many of the community's complaints to head writer Emil Pagliarulo on his Twitter in a surprisingly ignorant thread, to which Pagliarulo responded in kind.
Starfield: Shattered Space launched to “Mixed” reviews on Steam before quickly dropping to “Mostly Negative” the same week. The community was mostly disappointed with its story and price tag, but critics also disparaged the expansion for being “unstable” and “burdened with bugs”, leaving it with an overall score of just 59.
In short, Shattered Space has been a disaster. Many are so dissatisfied with the DLC and the Bethesda formula as a whole that they lose faith in any future games from the studio.
This is a sentiment that one player shared with lead writer Emil Pagliarulo on Twitter in a surprisingly ignorant thread, where he wrote that they don't want to see Starfield fail and that they “don't doubt the passion of the developers”, but that the community wants to “feel that their concerns not dismissed”.
What Pagliarulo had to say
Pagliarulo responded to this thread with his own, addressing much of the backlash directly: “I'm very proud of Shattered Space. We all are. Most of the missions and levels were made by designers who have worked on previous Bethesda games and DLC, goes all the way back to Morrowind They are good at what they do, and it shows.
“If people haven't played Shattered Space, and they like Starfield, I think they're missing out. If people have played Shattered Space and still don't like it, it makes me sad, honestly. Just know that we've also heard from a lot of people who love it. Maybe it's a game of expectations, and we do everything we can to accommodate them. There's no one, and I mean no one, patting themselves on the back while ignoring our players.”
Family
The Elder Scrolls 6 must be completely different after Starfield
The Bethesda formula has long overstayed its welcome, and Shattered Space proves that The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to shake things up.
He went on to explain how Bethesda has spent the last year improving Starfield based on criticisms from fans and critics, such as the confusing map and lack of drivable land vehicles. But a key concern he points out is that “with a game as big as Starfield, every fix could potentially break something else.”
Pagliarulo then ends the thread by saying that he himself is a huge Bethesda fan, having played its games since the '95 Terminator FPS, and that all anyone at the studio wants to do is “make those games and then make them better”.
Shattered Space is the first DLC for Bethedsa's space RPG Starfield. It expands on the core story and adds a horror-like twist as players head to the homeworld of House Va'ruun.
