It would seem that Bethesda finally received the memo that some of us are kind of concerned about the current stateandfuture of its latest flagship,Starfield. Notably, it’s been months since the game last received a major update, though Bethesda says there’s lots more to come.
This information comes from Bethesda’s surprise response to player concerns on Twitter. “We know you’re eager for an update,” says the officialStarfieldTwitter account, “we have a lot of exciting things planned for the game this year…” Of course, there’s nothing concrete to talk about just yet, but that’s how these things go. Even though this might sound like cause for celebration, I’d argue it’s quite the opposite and that fans still have plenty of reasons to be concerned aboutthe state of things.
We know you’re eager for an update, and we truly appreciate your passion for Starfield. The team has been hard at work, and while we’re not ready to share specific details just yet, we have a lot of exciting things planned for the game this year that we can’t wait to talk about…https://t.co/XJDGkAEv8m
There’s stuff happening with Starfield still, probably
Here are the hard facts: Bethesda went ham with major, feature-rich content updates forStarfieldahead ofShattered Space‘s crummy release back in October 2024.Shattered Spaceitself I could do without, but the actual updates and improvements delivered toStarfieldahead of the DLC wereunprecedented for the company. For a little while there, we were getting actual driveable vehicles, a ridiculously useful minimap feature, a proper and full-featured set of survival-themed gameplay options, and more. Those were the good bits, and they were genuinely praiseworthy. They all ground to a screeching halt when it became clear thatShattered Spacefailed to deliver in ways that actually mattered, which in turn led to Bethesda closing off its communications pipeline.
That’s where we currently are, and Twitter promises of Bethesda “always listening and taking [the players’] feedback to heart” don’t mean much when the community doesn’t have the slightest clue what’s next on the horizon.
There’s more, too: sinceBethesda finally succeeded in elevating its own paid Creations modding platform over the more open-ended Nexus, we now have a situation whereStarfield‘s modding community didn’t properly take off. Not in the same wayTESandFalloutmodding community used to, at least. Some of these games’ most interesting and promising modding frameworks came about due to collaborative efforts, which simply hasn’t been popped off on Creations. Instead, Creations has a smorgasbord of small and simple additions (i.e. armor, weapons, customizations, rebalancing) that pale compared to, say,Fallout: New Vegas‘s Project Nevada.
It’s not a good look, though I obviously could be wrong, and Bethesda might be cooking up a monumental release sometime in 2025. We do know that the plan was for Starfield to get a new DLC after Shattered Space, though I imagine that’s been brought into question by now. It’s a shame, and Bethesda might’ve learned the wrong kind of lesson from how the community responded toShattered Space. There are still many ways Starfield could be improved, and the vague idea that there are “a lot of exciting things planned for the game this year” frankly isn’t enough.
