Simply over a yr after its preliminary launch, Bethesda has lastly given Starfield gamers a more in-depth take a look at the sport’s upcoming DLC, the Shattered Area enlargement. A nine-minute deep dive trailer breaking down the enlargement was not too long ago uploaded to Bethesda’s YouTube channel, giving gamers their first actual style of what the enlargement has to supply. The trailer additionally revealed the enlargement’s launch date: September 30.
Targeted across the destiny of what’s simply probably the most attention-grabbing factions from the base sport–Home Va’ruun–Shattered Area is a principally self-contained journey, in line with Bethesda, happening completely on the homeworld of Home Va’ruun–known as Va’ruun’kai–and its capitol metropolis, Dazra.
“We love Starfield’s large open galaxy, however from early on in our planning, we knew we needed to introduce some extra secluded and handcrafted areas just like what you’ve got seen from our previous expansions,” mentioned lead producer Joe Mueller. “There’s a lot thriller to Home Va’Ruun! And becaused they’ve so completely remoted themselves, it made them the proper faction to discover in a very self-contained expertise.”
“From the minute you arrive on Va’ruun’kai, the story by no means sends you off-planet,” lead inventive producer Tim Lamb defined. “You are free to depart at any time, however the story is totally centered round life on the Va’ruun homeworld.”
“All the things you uncover, each location you go to, each facet mission you search out, all of it tells the story of what occurred right here, and the way the Va’ruun folks have survived minimize off from the comforts of the Settled Programs and the remainder of humanity,” Mueller added.
In Shattered Area, gamers will arrive on Va’ruun’kai shortly after a serious catastrophe that sees the reclusive civilization descending into chaos.
“One in every of our principal themes all through the bottom sport is humanity’s seek for information,” lead quest designer Brian Chapin mentioned. “Shattered Area continues to be about that search, nevertheless it’s additionally about what occurs when it goes too far. “Earlier than the beginning of Shattered Area, a secret experiment involving Grave-Drive know-how went terribly improper. It is a very excessive pursuit, and it has backfired horribly for the folks of Home Va’ruun.”
“[The experiment] resulted in an enormous tear within the cloth of space-time that swallowed a good portion of the Va’ruun capitol of Dazra,” design director and author Emil Pagliarulo mentioned of the enlargement’s storyline. “You arrive only a few weeks after the Vortex Incident. It is nonetheless very recent in everybody’s thoughts. There is a large crater of their metropolis, nothing has been reconstructed, individuals are nonetheless looking for lacking family members.”
Along with the huge crater, the folks of Va’ruun are additionally coping with different challenges. After the Grav-Drive experiment went sideways, The Scaled Citadel–Home Va’ruun’s seat of governmental power–became trapped inside a mysterious power discipline. Moreover, Anasko Va’ruun–Speaker for the Nice Serpent and chief of Home Va’ruun–is lacking. His disappearance has created an influence vacuum, and the smaller factions that make up Home Var’uun are every preventing for management of the now-devastated Va’ruun homeworld, its authorities, and its future. As they progress by means of the story and discover Va’ruun’kai, gamers should work together with Home Va’ruun’s numerous sub-factions, and the trailer hints that the destiny and way forward for Home Va’ruun and its homeworld relaxation within the participant’s palms.
“Va’ruun’kai and Dazra Metropolis are like no different location within the base sport,” artwork director Istvan Pely mentioned of Shattered Area’s environments, that are visually hanging and–unlike many different areas within the chronically desaturated Settled Programs–filled with shade.
“Va’ruun’kai has a very distinct visible id,” inventive lead Alan Nanes added. “We are saying it’s extremely ‘alien.’ You may see this within the extraterrestrial panorama, gravity anomalies, and far more.”
By “gravity anomalies,” Nanes appears to imply “moments the place gravity stops working,” because the trailer options a number of pictures of floating corpses and clips of low-g fight.
As a result of tear within the space-time continuum, unfamiliar beings “from the opposite facet” are slipping by means of the tear into Va’ruun’kai, and gamers should adapt accordingly. Bethesda says it needed to make use of Shattered Area as a chance to “amp up” fight and introduce over 50 new creatures (together with an alien species merely known as “Horrors”).
Some creatures can arrange ambushes, and the trailer options an prolonged clip of the player-character taking over a hive of very Xenomorph-like creatures referred to as Cavern Bonecrests. The Cavern Bonecrest Queen seems to pose a big risk, particularly if gamers are unprepared. However the planet additionally has its justifiable share of normal Spacers, Va’ruun Zealots, and Crimson Fleet pirates for gamers to tackle of their quest to uncover the reality behind Home Va’ruun’s downfall, restore order to its bickering factions, and resolve its future.
Starfield’s Shattered Area enlargement launches on September 30 and will likely be out there to buy for $30 USD. Nevertheless, gamers who bought the $100 Premium Version of Starfield will get the enlargement totally free on launch day.
