Starfield: Shattered Space deep dive reveals more about House Va’ruun’s broken homeworld

thesixthaxis.com:

Bethesda has released a deep dive video for Starfield: Shattered Space, the first big expansion for their interstellar RPG. Launching on 30th September, the DLC will take up the dangled threads of House Va’ruun and explore a new, and rather broken, corner of space.

The deep dive explores the brand new, handcrafted world of Va’ruun’kai, the homeworld of House Va’ruun. This secretive faction has been conducting strange experiments in the name of their otherworldly snake god, that have broken through the boundaries of space in a completely new way. The expansion’s story takes place entirely on this world, a planet that is bathed in dark reds, blues and purple lights.

Their home planet and the city of Dazra (where most of the population has taken shelter) has been deeply affected by these experiments, both with the physical changes that have created pockets of low gravity, and the invasion of mysterious negative creatures, and on the political side of things, as a power vacuum in the absence of Ernasco Va’ruun leads lesser factions to scrabble and vie for control over House Va’ruun’s future.

The deep dive leans into the horror vibes at times, but also emphasises a shift in tone to the combat. Zero-G will be a recurring factor in battle, but Bethesda is also shifting the combat style of the enemies to push and rush towards you more, forcing you to evade and escape their reach.

I previewed Starfield: Shattered Space back at Gamescom, with our early look at the above deep dive, saying “With the galaxy of systems and planets already generated, Bethesda’s expansions to Starfield can take on a much more hand-crafted approach. Shattered Space is the first fruits of this labour, building within this established framework to expand the universe narrative and make this a game worth revisiting.”