Starfield's first story expansion, Shattered Space, launches to 42% positive "mixed" reviews on Steam

Starfield Shattered Space
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Over a year after the launch of Starfield, its first big story expansion Shattered Space is here - but so far, fans have generally been less than enthused with the results. The DLC has launched to "mixed" reviews on Steam, as players take issue with its limited content and compare it unfavorably with previous Bethesda expansions.

Shattered Space launched just yesterday, and players have already had time to wrap up the main story - which is, itself, perhaps not the best sign for a $30 expansion to an expansive Bethesda RPG. 681 reviews from people who bought the DLC on Steam have dropped so far, and just 42% of those are positive. In Steam's parlance, that equates to "mixed" reviews.

The user reviews are dinging the expansion for "reskinned" weapons and outfits, a fairly limited location to explore, and a main story you can complete in a handful of hours. While the negative review percentage might sound like people are slamming Shattered Sky, it's all a lot more tepid than that. As one negative review puts it, "It's not that it's bad, it's just incredibly mediocre."

The general sentiment across both the negative and positive reviews seems to boil down to 'it's more Starfield,' and given that the base game has also settled into Steam's mixed range - albeit with a higher 59% ratio of positive reviews - it makes sense that the expansion would get a similar response. Starfield is no doubt a better game than it was at launch, owing to a wide array of bug fixes and content updates, but many Bethesda fans are clearly still suffering a fundamental malaise with the studio's latest RPG.

Trying to figure out how to start Shattered Space in Starfield? We've got you covered.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.