Starfield launched in September of 2023. But as creative director Todd Howard has stressed in previous interviews, the game was made to be played for a long time. That means updates and changes to the game are likely expand the experience the days and years to come. The most recent update from Bethesda indicates that the team plans to add a bunch of new features in 2024, on top of a new story expansion titled Shattered Space.
Expect Starfield to get ‘updates roughly every six weeks starting in February’ 2024
As Kotaku reported in early December, Starfield will be getting regular updates in the new year “roughly” every six weeks. Bethesda’s official blog states “updates will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates.” The cherry on top is that the studio is letting folks beta test these updates by signing up for the game’s beta branch on Steam.
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Joining a game’s beta branch on Steam is as easy as right-clicking on the game in your library, clicking on “Properties,” then selecting “Betas,” and choosing “beta - Beta” from the dropdown (the exact name of the beta may look different when Bethesda finally releases these betas).
Kotaku has reached out to Bethesda for more information on beta tests and platforms.
The Bethesda blog also includes a couple more neat details. Starfield will see “new ways to travel” and city maps (finally!) will get added to the game. Beyond that, Bethesda is looking to expand “ship customization with ship decorations, new ship building options, and more.”
The core of the gameplay is also expected to get some love via updates. The blog post states that future updates will give you:
”Settings [to] alter your gameplay to allow for an easier or more challenging experience that will expand beyond our normal “Difficulty” setting. These will allow you to easily customize carry capacity, cargo access distance, ship damage, vendor credits, how you suffer afflictions, new survival mechanics, and more.”
The Bethesda post reiterates that official mod support is coming to Starfield via “Creations.”
The studio didn’t say much about its upcoming Starfield expansion, Shattered Space. Scant details made mention of “new story content, new locations, new gear, and” you guessed it, “much more.”
Starfield players visited 1,972,346,902 planets
Bethesda also shared some neat stats for those of you that like numbers. Standouts include 12,276,466 deaths at the hands of the Ecliptic, making them the most lethal faction in the game.
Another neat stat is that around 1.6 million players have finished Starfield, many of which likely went on to cross the endgame “unity” a collective 5,178,133 times. Also, Sense Star Stuff, the ability that lets you see people through walls, was the most used power.
Time will tell how well the added features land with the community. While Starfield has a few neat narrative twists and turns and conveys a nice sense of scale, the game could certainly use a shot in the arm by way of more interesting gameplay features.