What you need to know
- Shattered Space is a DLC for Bethesda’s space exploration RPG Starfield. Having first been announced when Starfield released, Shattered Space finally launched on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC earlier this week.
- However, all signs indicate Shattered Space hasn’t generated significant player interest, with Starfield’s concurrent player count only rising slightly in the wake of its release.
- Specifically, since the expansion launched, Starfield has been averaging 14-16,000 concurrent players on Steam — far fewer than other recent AAA games and their DLCs like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077. It’s likely doing better on Xbox and the Microsoft Store (it’s on Game Pass, but Shattered Space isn’t), though it still isn’t in the top 25 most-played Xbox games.
- This just barely pushes the game past 2015’s Fallout 4 — Bethesda’s previous single player RPG. At the moment, it has about 13-15,000 Steam players at any given time.
As a seasoned researcher with over two decades of experience in the gaming industry, I’ve seen my fair share of DLC launches that have either been triumphant or dismal. The Shattered Space expansion for Starfield falls into the latter category, and it’s a bit reminiscent of the time when I tried to make homemade pizza with store-bought dough – it looked good on paper, but the taste left much to be desired.
The Shattered Space expansion for Starfield, released on September 30 for Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC by Bethesda, is their largest contribution yet to the 2023 space exploration RPG. Although Bethesda has attempted to generate excitement about this DLC and present it as a rich, captivating roleplaying experience, the number of players indicates that it’s having difficulty attracting fans to explore it.
Currently, SteamDB data shows that between 14,000 to 16,000 players are engaging with Starfield at any given moment. Interestingly, this figure slightly surpasses the concurrent player count of Fallout 4, a game released in 2015 and now nine years old, which averages around 13,000 to 15,000 players currently, with a recent peak of 20,326 on Sunday evening. Despite the boost from this year’s successful Fallout TV series, one might expect Starfield to have a larger player base given its circumstances.
It appears that the game has a slight improvement on Xbox and the Microsoft Store. Notably, Starfield is available on Xbox Game Pass, while Shattered Space itself isn’t. However, it doesn’t make it to the top 25 most-played Xbox games; according to Microsoft’s official list, it ranks 26th, with Fallout 4 at position 35.
Initially, I didn’t anticipate the expansion of this story to surpass the player count achieved by Starfield during its complete launch last year. However, I did hope for a larger response given the game reached 330,723 players on Steam at launch. In contrast, when DLCs were released for Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077, they attracted 781,261 and 274,526 concurrent players respectively. This suggests that Shattered Space has not managed to spark significant player curiosity.
The disappointing outcome of the expansion is evident as Steam reviews have fallen predominantly into the “Mostly Negative” category, with only 35% of players assigning a Positive rating. Generally speaking, the majority of gamers point out that the DLC lacks longevity due to its short playtime and overall dearth of content as its main drawbacks. They voice their dismay at what was promised for the game, expressing feelings of letdown regarding its additions. Before the launch of Shattered Space, anticipation was quite high, with Bethesda promoting it as a more substantial and tailored release compared to typical Starfield, which features numerous large but potentially shallow worlds that are sparsely populated by handcrafted locations.
It’s quite likely that the disappointing response to the DLC hasn’t helped its sales figures much, considering it retails at $29.99, which is almost half of Starfield’s full price (it can be found discounted to $26.79 on CDKeys). In fact, spending $30 on an expansion with only 5-15 hours of content can be challenging when games like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, priced similarly, offer double or triple that gameplay time, not to mention substantial changes, enhancements, and additions to their respective base games.
At the close of the day, I’d contend that Bethesda has chosen wisely by focusing on creating richer, manually crafted Starfield games, but they should strive for even more – providing content similar to the outstanding Far Harbor DLC from Fallout 4, rather than lackluster expansions that fall short. Given that there’s at least one additional expansion in the works, let’s hope it offers a much meatier experience.
Considering their upcoming projects such as The Elder Scrolls 6 and a potential Fallout 5, one can ponder how long Xbox and Bethesda will keep funding future Starfield releases, particularly if its performance mirrors that of Shattered Space. Given the success of possible DLC expansions for Starfield, we might see additional content in this manner. However, if the expansion doesn’t perform well, it could signal a shift for the developers to focus on different projects.
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2024-10-04 02:39