Last March, Bethesda began teasing the future of Starfield, before essentially going radio silent. The team behind Starfield did ship some updates to the game throughout the year, but it was hardly inline with the previous teases on X. Last September, Tim Lamb of Bethesda continued the Starfield teases saying “I can’t go into all the details just yet, but I will say, part of the team has been focused on space gameplay to make the travels there more rewarding. We’re also adding some new game systems and a few other smaller delights.”
It seems we shouldn’t have to wait much longer to find out more. I saw a post from LukeStephens on X that crystalized rumors I’d been hearing that Bethesda recently held an event behind closed doors to showcase some of its plans for Starfield. I’ve spoken to a few people with first and second hand knowledge to try and catch a glimpse at what we can expect.
As rumored, it seems that Starfield will break free of its loading-screen heavy space flight systems. Space flight will now feel more free-form and continuous if the rumors are accurate, and various other systems pertaining to space travel and exploration will be improved as well. Creation Engine has reportedly undergone some large technical improvements to facilitate some of these types of systems, that will also carry forward to future games.
Also, Starfield will not only be getting its PlayStation 5 version in 2026, but also a Nintendo Switch 2 version on top. The game has already undergone some optimizations for “low power” devices like handhelds, so hopefully it’ll be a good experience on the Nintendo Switch 2 as well.
Some of my sources have suggested that the expansion for Starfield was previously planned for 2025, but Microsoft’s busy holiday period coupled with the delay of Grand Theft Auto 6 made them feel more comfortable to drop it in the first half of 2026 instead. Although, others such as DetectiveSeeds on X have reported that the updates will come later in 2026.
Indeed, I’ve heard some conflicting opinions on some of these Starfield rumors, so it’s worth taking them with a pinch of salt. One conflict pertains to the scale of the upgrade, too. Some of my sources have sought to downplay how much of an overhaul it could be, shying away from claims that it will be a “Cyberpunk 2.0 moment” for the game. Others who attended the event, reportedly led by Todd Howard himself, were far more upbeat about the content being offered.
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Yeah, comparing it to Cyberpunk 2.0 is a bit disingenuous. Maybe it could be like Phantom Liberty, a large expansion with some big improvements and new content, but Cyberpunk was broken at launch. It needed a lot of work to get to what it is now, years of hard work that they promised because of the poor reception.
I really enjoyed Starfield, and while it didn’t have the staying power of Skyrim or Fallout 3 or 4 for me, it was a more than capable sandbox RPG that had plenty of grand moments to discover among its vast stars. It never needed a “Cyberpunk 2.0 moment,” but there are a lot of things that could elevate Starfield with more time and investment.
In a lot of ways, Starfield feels like it has vast amounts of untapped potential. Its lore and world building has solid foundations, and the scale of the game’s ambition is undeniable — on a scale more typical of MMORPGs or multiplayer games. I think the lack of density is what primarily hurt the game, and the sense that its points of interest (POIs) were too few in number and variation.
In that sense it kinda just feels like Starfield suffered from internet meme outrage over being too “mid”. People had insane expectations from Skyrim or maybe were just wanting Bethesda to fail post Xbox. Either way Starfield is pretty good and fine at worst and people hate it for that. Cyberpunk was an actual catastrophe resulting in mass refunds at launch yet it’s looped around and got people worsphing at its feet. When Starfield launched YouTube recommended me these videos of people comparing how bad Starfield is compared to the peak Cyberpunk 2077… honestly I’ve never played much of either. I find Open Worlds too big to really get lost in. That said it really just feels like Starfield Hate is a cool fad that’s socially acceptable, just like Xbox hate.
Cannot wait when it shows xbox is at the top of the food chain once cloud and play anywhere are the standard in gaming and these people will have to grit their little teeth and bare it for an entire decade or more.
Never understood the letdowns with the travel system, i mean realtime ship landing would be good but it wouldn’t be a big change for the game.
Starfield is what it is and i wouldn’t expect sustantial changes on it’s core, imo Bethesda should have focused on what they are best known for, exploration.
I just hope they do better with TES VI, their games were once my favourite but other studios have copied and evolved in some ways their formula, i just pray they can step up in sections like music, quest design, gameplay or narrative/dialogues, it doesn’t have to be perfect on each of these, but just great exploration might not be enough this time.
People complained that there was a lot of loading screens/transitions that were breaking the immersion. But all Bethesda games have been like that : interiors, cities, caves, they were all behind loading screens.
But if they can make everything seemless, and some people theorized that it was possible, not only in space but also on planets, with the tile system loading and updating terrain around you while you’re moving. If they can achieve that, that would be amazing. It would be transformative. But as usual, temper your expectations people.
It was compared negatively to Star Wars Outlaws even though the planet landing sequences in Outlaws were not interactive and essentially were just nice looking loading animations (this is not a knock on Outlaws, I love that game).
Half the time people don’t even really understand what they’re complaining about.
I wouldn’t be surprised if part of this update is a fancy landing sequence where you “break through the cloud cover” to transition between the space map and the planet surface map, just like in Outlaws. And that’ll probably be an improvement, there’s something to be said for immersive animations.
But yeah, in no sense were the space and planet maps congruent areas that you navigated between in an interactive way, in either game.
Glad to see Bethesda haven’t given up on it. I logged about 200 hours on my playthrough including the DLC. Overall, I found it to be very competent and ambitious, but not really genre defining in any way. I’m hoping these improvements along with the PS5and Switch ports will launch a new wave of players into it, as it deserves to be appreciated by as many people as possible.
I can’t wait for the Starfield update!! I always wanted the ability to fly my spaceship on autopilot or have Sarah or Vasco fly it while I’m crafting or just walking around my ship! Time for me to save the galaxy again!
Not much information on the actual expansion in terms of location, story etc, but let’s wait and see.
When Starfield was announced and Todd said it was Skyrim in space in all the best ways I got excited because Skyrim’s biggest strength for me is the exploration and I felt this was just a bit lacking in it. Have yet to play Shattered Space.
Those PS5 and S2 versions are all fine and dandy as long as it’s not taking significant dev time away from TES VI. But it doesn’t matter, we won’t know anyway.
Yea it’s something to appreciate, but i think Starfield had bigger problems to deal with first, anyway, if they can do that at least it’ll be great news for TES 6, in games like KCD, the lack of loading screens helps immersion quite a bit, and that’s an important part of Bethesda games
Same… put more hours in Starfield in the two years since its release, than I have for Fallout 4’s entire existence… and I love Fallout 4. There’s just nothing like Starfield, in the same way there’s nothing really like No Man’s Sky where it stands in its lifecycle, or in the same way as Elite for me.
There’s just something about space sci-fi that fills me with a sense of optimism that’s completely missing from nearly every other aspect of my life. Ultimately, I wanted a Bethesda RPG in space and I got far more than my own expectations, and it’s only gotten better
Also, Cyberpunk was fundamentally broken and unplayable on half the platforms it launched on, whereas the biggest complaints that can be lodged at Starfield are purely subjective in nature. Love the state of journalism…
