Bethesda are constantly fighting a slow war against themselves to try and post-prove every product that they put out. It took a while with Fallout 4 but most think the came around point was Far Harbour, (I don't carry as positive memories of that DLC and still consider Fallout 4 a step backward) 76 was still labouring under its own inequities until Wastelanders came around and turned the franchise back into being an RPG (thanks for that) and Starfield seems to be entering the second stage of it's life- the added content period. Well, actually it's been there for a little bit, but now is when the team got serious with the pedigree of the content they've adding- because they've invited modders to the party! And with that comes the real reason Starfield was made in the first place- to become a modders haven.
Right from the get-go Bethesda was up and clear with the message that they want Starfield to be the single most modded Bethesda game ever, and to that end they seem to have sacrificed a lot in terms of basic design philosophy to accommodate perpetually updating world spaces where seamlessness might have instead aided 'game feel'. That promise had really sat on the back-burner as everyone waited patiently for the creation kit which- lo and behold- has finally dropped; along with preliminary work from a bevy of the most talent authors that Bethesda could snatch up to be part of an introduction video. Including but not even nearly limited to the wonderously demented mind of Trainwiz and the queen of home design herself Elianora: it's always great seeing modding legends work their strange magics!
The biggest news that Starfield wanted to throw out was that of the upcoming DLC- oh, I'm sorry- they're suing the parlance 'Expansion' for this one- Shattered Space. Predictably expanding on the only part of the original game's lore that sounded a little deeper than the surface, the House of Va'ruun and their creepy crimson coated planet in some deep recess of space we need to uncover. Now I'll admit to being slightly curious as to where this might lead- because the very structure of Starfield makes it plausible that Bethesda could tie in totally distinct ending paths into every major Expansion they bring out- but thus is merely my speculation because for whatever reason- this turned out to be more of a 'teaser trailer' than an actual proper in-depth dive into why this DLC is cool.
Of course, I understand the desire to keep your secret's secret- why else would you be so invested in making these cool trailers and subtle hints wrapped in mysteries: but surely Bethesda have to know that their fanbase are currently wondering what's the purpose for returning to this game. All we have to go on is a slightly creepier looking DLC that looks like it might lean a bit more into that Sci-Fantasy angle which the base game shuddered away from so vehemently- which is music to my ears but I'm angled to try and like this game. The average player probably doesn't look that deep into it and just saw a grim looking trailer and shrugged their shoulders. Is there any significant change coming with this DLC to expand the game out? Because if it's literally just one questline and a couple of side stories on one new solar system... phew, I don't even want to think about that...
So mysteries of Shattered Space aside- we have the other big announcement that dropped the very same day- the same day release of Creations- which allow for Bethesda to sell us tiny chunks of DLC they call mods that set off people's 'paid mod' alarms. Honestly it seems that the only content being charged for is literal verified-user created snippets of content, thus stuff made by the actual masters of their craft which Bethesda brought abroad- not the average mumblings of any Tom, Dick or Harry: which makes this curated charged content more microtransactions than anything else. Which may itself be beyond the pale for you, considering this is a fully Single Player game- but it really is your very own battle to fight. At the very least Starfield is putting it's foot behind console modding by allotting a whopping 100GB of total possible mod space on Xbox Series X!
To put things into perspective- the total allocated space for Fallout 4, the origin of console modding, was 2GB! For Skyrim special edition it was 5! I've been heavily modding Skyrim and Fallout 4 for years now and I have never reached even close to 100 GB in my own efforts. (The only time I did was when I tried to play Fallout 4's overrated mod Collection: 'Storywealth' which was stuffed full off unnecessary texture mods.) I never expected we'd get the opportunity to hopelessly mod a console game to absolute Oblivion but here it is- Bethesda really do want this to be the kind of game we play forever! Now if only their achievements weren't so wholly unreasonable to get without endless grind so I didn't have to choose between disabling my mods forever and jumping fully into the amateur modding world! (Seriously, Bethesda only made a handful of their own creations 'Achievements Friendly'. Some of their own charged content disables Achievements! What the heck?)
To whet everyone's whistles to the possibilities Bethesda released a brand new free faction into the game called the Tracker's Alliance- basically it's a framework for bounty hunting with radiant quests and a single curated major quest which is a decent enough side diversion. However, a second curated quest does exist- if you're willing to fork over the 700... 'Beth Bucks?' to buy it! The intention being that now and again Bethesda will add new bounties to the store over the months and potentially years. Now, I actually am not fully against the idea of new faction questlines behind added into the game for 8 bucks a pop- considering that was pretty much how The Elder Scrolls Online made it's content for a while. But paying 8 Bucks for a single half-good mission? No, that's utterly ridiculous and I hope Bethesda realise just how unreasonable of a value proposition that is! The average faction questline in Starfield is about 7-13 quests long: that means, acknowledging we got the first quest free, Bethesda are looking to charge between 42 to 64 bucks for a faction questline in their single player game. What the hell?
Would it be fair to call the 'story of Bethesda' that of one step forward and two steps back? They can't help but make a fool out of themselves in the most blindingly obvious way, and then stand there with their shoulder's shrugged wondering what all the fuss is about. Of course people will get upset about charging by the quest- especially with quests as middling as what Starfield averages- let alone the price tag attached! And on the verge of so many positive steps for the game, one can't help but wonder if there's some form of intentional self sabotage wrapped up in all this because honestly what else am I supposed to think? Honestly, Shattered Space better be absolutely revolutionary to start clawing back public interest else this game might truly be cooked.
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