When I first sat down and really dug into Starfield after it came out last year, I was between jobs. I had two weeks to interact with the thing as much as I wanted to - this game I’d been looking forward to not necessarily because I was that into the premise, but because of how much I’d dug the previous works of its creators, the people who’d put considerable effort into selling us on their space pipe dream as the next big special thing. I came out of those two weeks with no idea what to make of the damn thing, on the whole.
I’d enjoyed some of it, thought a lot of it fell well short of the lofty expectations set, but even more often than either of those, a lot of it just left me feeling a bit numb . In the time between then, and Starfield’s first bit of story DLC - Shattered Space - arriving, my thoughts on the base game have, thankfully, crystalised into something vaguely coherent. It’s a game that feels like it’s either a few steps (or a bunch of grav jumps) away from actually achieving its potential.
Shattered Space, unfortunately, is a missed opportunity to finally take that leap from impressive - but often soulless - technical feat to unquestionably great video game that'd mark a true step forward for its creators. That’s not to say you won’t find things to enjoy in it. From the moment that you find the The Oracle, the space station that kicks off the adventure, to when you land the home planet of House Va’ruun, through when you’ve finished everyth.
