Todd Howard says Starfield's Shattered Space DLC launches this fall, and a "big update that's coming really soon" has city maps and shipbuilding improvements

Starfield
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Starfield: Shattered Space, the big story expansion for Bethesda's space RPG, is launching this fall, and Bethesda boss Todd Howard says there's another "big update" coming much sooner with a host of requested features.

"Shattered Space is in the fall," Howard says in an interview with the Kinda Funny Gamescast. Previously, the expansion had only been confirmed for 2024, so that narrows down the release window quite a bit.

On top of Shattered Space, Howard says "we have a big update that's coming really soon for Starfield." This update will feature some "gameplay options that we're adding," as well as "other display modes on console that people have asked for." The update also delivers "some great stuff for shipbuilding," and Howard says "we redid the map stuff - so we have some city map stuff."

Starfield's map has been perhaps the most widely criticized thing about the game since launch, and the devs first teased a city map update back in December. It looks like the patch is finally coming soon: "I think it's gonna get announced in a few days actually this week, and be up on Steam beta," Howard says, emphasizing that it "should be" announced this week.

As for when Shattered Space will be properly unveiled, Howard plays coy, saying "We're going to have some stuff to show… I can't say." All eyes will, of course, be on the Summer Game Fest schedule for 2024 when it comes to this kind of announcement, but we'll just have to wait and see if Bethesda uses that venue to show off the expansion.

Starfield and Baldur's Gate 3 actors say their games are "easily" better-written than many TV shows and films they've worked on.

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.

Read more
Starfield
Bethesda breaks silence as Starfield fans hope for an update: "We have a lot of exciting things planned for the game this year"
A player character looks out at a sci-fi landscape in No Man's Sky's Worlds Part II update.
Massive No Man's Sky update adds new solar systems, revamped tech, deeper sea exploration, and gas giants "ten times bigger than our biggest planet"
Avowed screenshot showing companion Kai wielding a pistol in one hand and short sword in the other while facing a large reddish-orange bug-like creature
Avowed DLC seems likelier than ever as Obsidian Entertainment promises "ongoing support" and a roadmap coming soon
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 screenshot showing a group of medieval men sitting at a table with food, cheering together with wooden mugs of beer lifted high
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is getting its new 1.2 update soon, and it sounds absolutely massive as Warhorse reveals there are "34 pages of patch notes"
Starfield
10 best games like Starfield to get swept up in when you're ready to leave Constellation
Light No Fire screenshot showing a desert biome and flying dragon mounts
As No Man's Sky adds "billions of new solar systems and trillions of new planets," Hello Games says it's also "extremely busy" with its open-world survival RPG Light No Fire
Latest in RPG
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
Reclaiming their crown, pacifist Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 player beats the whole RPG as "Merciful Henry": 1,741 strikes blocked, 472 knockouts, and zero kills
Top-down screenshot of Monsterpatch, showing a grid-based town with Pokemon-like creatures, GBC graphics and vegetations sprinkled about.
This cozy RPG promises a Pokemon and Stardew Valley mashup with "limitless customization," 208 monsters, and more, so no wonder its Kickstarter was funded in just 16 minutes
Dragon Age: The Veilguard art showing the RPG's companions grouped together
Dragon Age: The Veilguard director is leading an unannounced game for Wizards of the Coast, which recently hinted at more Baldur's Gate
A large, muscly bloke eating noodles at a bar while two people point pistols at him from behind in Cyberpunk 2077.
The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 developer enters into partnership with Pokemon Go owner to create a new game "set within one of CD Projekt's IPs"
The Witcher 4 screenshot with Ciri using sword and sorcery to fight an ancient monster
The Witcher 4 and Naughty Dog's Intergalactic are reportedly skipping 2026 and won't be ready until at least the year after
Latest in News
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Destiny 2 Lightfall
When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something"
Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo looking at a giant key which is also a clue
Netflix is rebooting Scooby-Doo as a live-action series from the producer of Supergirl and The Flash centered around a "supernatural murder" at a summer camp
Astro Bot
Astro Bot went through 23 pitch iterations before its director promised PlayStation "happy gameplay" and "overflowing charm," though it did once end with robot decapitation that made "some people really upset"
Tomb Raider
5 years after Avengers, 2 years after its last layoffs, and who knows how long before Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider return, Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
AI Limit
"AI is not as effective as it might appear": Dev of AI-focused Soulslike RPG says they didn't use any AI-generated content and it can't match "genuine creativity"