Sometimes, it feels like I make up about roughly 20 percent ofStarfield’soverall fanbase, but gosh darn if I’m notgoing to be the most supportive 20 percent you’ve ever seen. I have an unending adoration for this game, both in how beautiful and special it is, but also how every bit of science fiction is grounded in a believable reality, taking the approach of an alternate future, much likeFalloutdoes.
Last year’s Shattered Space DLC was great, and really showed how Bethesda is still capable of providing an isolated, hand-crafted experience, even in the face of a game as vast as this one. This sort of world-building and storytelling was something sorely missing from Starfield, with a city surrounded by local farms, industry, and dangerous areas to explore, interconnected by paths and rocky structures that constantly invite your curiosity.
But now, fans of the game are awaiting Starfield’s second expansion, long rumoured to be titled ‘Starborn’. Much like Shattered Space, this expansion has the potential to do some big things for the game, and more than you might expect.
SPOILER WARNING FOR THE PLOT AND ENDGAME OF STARFIELD
What Are The Starborn In Starfield?
In Starfield, Constellation’s mission is to uncover the secrets behind the Artifacts and their associated Temples across the galaxy. Tracking these down, you begin to unlock supernatural powers, before encountering a mysterious people known only as the Starborn.
Simply put, the Starborn are people who gather the power from these Artifacts and Temples, building a device known as the Armillary, before jumping between universes - essentially becoming ever-powerful travellers of the multiverse. This is something you’re able to do at the end of the game, should you decide to take the plunge and step into The Unity. It’s the game’s form of New Game Plus, and while it might just seem as simple as that, it actually goes a lot deeper.
What Could The Starborn DLC Be?
So what could we actually see in a potential Starborn expansion? There are a couple of things to note about what we know regarding the Starborn - and more specifically, what wedon’tknow.
Firstly, where do the Artifacts and Temples we race to find come from? They’re not created by the Starborn, but by a people we only know as The Creators. We don’t know what The Creators are, whether it’s a civilisation or a singular being, and what its form and intentions are. There’s so much more room for discovery surrounding these secrets, and it’s only a question of what will be answered in Starfield and what will be held for a potential sequel.
Secondly, Starfield’s endgame leaves infinite possibilities, quite literally. After entering The Unity, you begin your journey again. As I mentioned before, it’s essentially New Game Plus, but it’s also a continuation of Starfield. Each time you enter The Unity, things can change. You could return to the Lodge and find that Vasco is the only survivor after the Hunter murdered all members, including you. You could find Andreja with Va’ruun soldiers ready to kill you, after already dealing with Constellation. You could find… you; either the version of you that just arrived at Constellation for the first time, or a room full of variants of yourself. It can get really weird.
The point is, a deeper exploration of the Starborn and their traversal across universes gives us so many possibilities to flip the entire game on its head, changing everything we know in various ways. It could even be a completely different experience from what other players might have, depending on the choices you make and how many times you enter The Unity. Is there a stop to the multiverses? Is there a reasoning behind everything? There’s no shortage of questions that could be answered.
Will We Get The Second DLC For Starfield In 2025?
While we do often see new Creations for Starfield shared by Bethesda, it’s been an otherwise quiet time since Shattered Space. Even as we passed Summer Game Fest and the Xbox showcase, there was no sign of anything new for Starfield.
However,as reported by PureXbox and pulled from an episode of The Xbox Two Podcast, Windows Central’s Jez Corden claims “Bethesda’s core team is still working on Starfield […] Starfield’s gonna have more DLC from what I’ve heard. I don’t know when, I just heard that at least the Starfield DLC — and this is post-layoffs by the way — hasn’t been cancelled.
It could be cancelled in the future, next quarter, I don’t know, but for right now it’s not cancelled. So, the core teams at Bethesda right now are working on Starfield DLC, and also Elder Scrolls 6 is full-steam ahead.”
Following this, Starfield received a patch addressing some issues only days ago, with the following paragraph included in the patch notes:
“A new Starfield update is available today, with improvements to the Creations menu as well as crash and stability fixes. Looking ahead, we’re continuing work on future updates and will share more about the exciting things we have planned for Starfield in the coming months.”
To this end, it’s likely that we’ll see Starfield’s second expansion - whether Starborn or something else entirely - announced within the next few months, and potentially in our hands before the year is out. I only hope we get to see it sooner rather than later, and it continues to push the game forward in the way that Shattered Space did.
