Starfield: Shattered Space Review

ign.com:

After the fast-travel extravaganza that was Starfield’s base campaign, I very much approve of the way its Shattered Space DLC course-corrects to make the new Va’ruun homeworld location feel much more like Bethesda’s previous open worlds. This planet is host to a substantial chunk of new quest content revolving around a long-winded but not uninteresting story about a futuristic theocracy that dangerously mingles science and religion despite their obvious conflict. That said, this first expansion is not terribly ambitious, either. It doesn’t introduce any significant new features that refresh anything you’ll do once you hop in your ship and leave this planet in a way similar to, say, the Dragonborn expansion did for Skyrim. Not every expansion can be so bold, of course, but those that aren’t miss an opportunity to leave a lasting, revitalizing mark on a replay of a big RPG like this, and limit themselves to a flash in the pan.

After dusting off my save, my level 46 Starborn passed through the Unity, grabbed Sarah from the Constellation Lodge, ran through the Mantis mission to score a ship, did a couple of temples, and then dove into the DLC – which turned out to be easy to find because it shows up the next time you go artifact hunting. The ominously spooky space station you begin on makes some good use of zero-G combat by adding glowing blue walls that, if you’re propelled backwards into them by gunfire, both deal damage and disorientingly teleport you, so you’ve got to be aware of what’s behind you when you open fire.

That’s where we’re introduced to the Phantom menace: these new enemies aren’t ghosts, but their spooky blue energy field and glowing eyes sure makes them look the part (and easy to spot from a distance) until it dissipates when you kill them, which is a notably cool effect. They can be both novel and annoying to fight: Not only are they often high level and thus pretty bullet spongey, they can teleport at will to both reposition when you’ve drawn a bead