Starfield Shattered Space deep dive promises a ‘new, handcrafted world’—and that’s great news

With only a couple of weeks left until the release of Shattered Space, the folks over at Bethesda released a deep dive into what Starfield players can expect from the new DLC. And the language used to describe House Va’Ruun’s new planet sounds like the medicine the game needs.

“We’re expanding Starfield‘s galaxy with a brand new, completely handcrafted world and deep new storyline,” said Tim Lamb, lead creative producer on Starfield, to open today’s video—and that word choice seems very intentional. Given so many of the criticisms leveled at the game involve drab, procedurally generated worlds and landscapes that quickly turn it from a space exploration odyssey into a fast travel simulator, a word like “handcrafted” naturally pricks my ears. I found Starfield more and more disappointing the longer I played, but that doesn’t mean it’s beyond repair.

Shattered Space will take players to the home world of House Va’ruun, Va’ruun’kai. The mysterious, hostile faction from the base game doesn’t offer the player much opportunity to learn more about it, but that’s changing in a big way as it seems the player can not only travel to Va’ruun’kai but also become the “promised of Va’ruun.” I have no idea what that means, but it sounds… promising.

Va’runn’kai is extremely isolated, and the DLC will allow players to discover more about how House Va’ruun and their world came to be this way. In a classic Bethesda move, all of the story events in Shattered Space will take place on Va’runn’kai itself when you get there, a la Skyrim‘s Dragonborn DLC or Fallout 4‘s Far Harbor. Importantly, that means you’re not going to be spending the entire DLC fast traveling around from one planet or moon to the next, talking to one person or dropping something off before grav jumping to the next system.

There’s plenty more in the deep dive—spacial and gravitic anomalies, a focus on horror and ramping up the chaos of combat, the very alien ways that have shaped House Va’ruun. But honestly? Hearing the entire experience is a handcrafted one is enough for me.

I felt before that one of the biggest knocks on Starfield was how it punishes your curiosity the further in you get. In its Bethesda predecessors before it, cool-looking places on a map or in a landscape often featured worthwhile things to see or do when you got there. A ton of Starfield, in stark contrast, just throws you another resource cave or nondescript bandit stronghold to assault. Getting a fully realized world inside of the Starfield galaxy sounds like it will do much more to scratch my Bethesda itch than what’s come before it.

You can dive into the mysteries behind House Va’ruun yourself when Shattered Space launches on Sept. 30.