Starfield's 'Shattered Space' expansion hasn't launched yet, but we may already know the name for the next DLC in 2025 (2024)

What you need to know

• Starfield is the most recent game from Bethesda's core team behind The Elder Scrolls and mainline Fallout games.
• Starfield is an expansive sci-fi odyssey whose galactic ambitions garnered it a bit of a mixed reception amongst Bethesda's core fans, despite attracting millions of players.
• Starfield has received solid post-launch support thus far, and many are hoping the upcoming expansion Shattered Space will add even more new features.
• But what about after 2024? A new trademark suggests the next Starfield expansion may be called "Starborn."

Starfield has proven itself to be an oddly controversial game, despite its vast popularity.

Developed by Todd Howard's core Bethesda team of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim fame, Starfield is a massively ambitious sci-fi space odyssey set in the 2300s, where humanity has conquered the stars and mastered interstellar travel.

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Sadly, it's a fairly bleak existence for humanity out there, though, with only small colonies scattered across the cosmos surviving, with major factions licking their wounds after a galactic war. You chart your own course as a freelancer of sorts, working with an explorer's guild to study the galaxy's mysteries and make your fortune. In typical Bethesda fashion, you can largely dictate your character's role in the story, opting to support space pirates, undermine certain factions, or play it by ear. Stealth, melee weapons, laser rifles, and all sorts of sci-fi weaponry await, although the game itself has proven a tad controversial since its launch.

Starfield sits at a "mixed" rating on Steam for a variety of reasons. While it's a great game in a vacuum, it does feel like a step backwards from an RPG perspective in some ways. Quests don't offer as many potential outcomes as some of Bethesda's previous RPGs, and the violence and gunplay is heavily toned down when compared to Fallout, giving gunplay a bit of a spongy feel.

Some users decried the game's sense of emptiness, with its hundreds of barren planets having very little to discover or explore, while others felt frustrated by its wooden NPCs and companion characters. Some have been irritated by Bethesda's paid mods store too.

Still, there's a lot to love about Starfield. I said as much in my Starfield review, that when the highs are high, that Bethesda signature feel cuts through some of the game's flaws. And either way, the raw potential is very clear.

To meet some of that untapped potential, many players are hoping subsequent updates will improve the overall feel of the game, as was arguably the case with Fallout 4 previously. The first DLC is slated for later this year, dubbed Shattered Space, and will focus on the mysterious House Va'ruun cult. However, we may already know the name of the next Starfield expansion after that, if this trademark is to be believed.

Registered by Bethesda parent company and Microsoft subsidiary Zenimax, the above trademark describes its use for computer software. Dubbed "Starborn," it fits the Starfield motif pretty well, and also refers to some in-game plot points and mechanics that I won't spoil here for those who haven't played yet.

Indeed, if you haven't played the game yet, you can go and grab it on Xbox Game Pass for free right now as part of the subscription. You should also skip over the next section, since I'm going to discuss what Starborn might mean for the game with some mild story spoilers.

What could Starfield: Starborn mean? (Spoiler warning)

For those who have finished Starfield, you'll know that at the end of the game, you become "Starborn" and gain the ability to traverse parallel dimensions Interstellar-style. The Starborn also has access to some space magic in essence, granting powers over gravity, time, and reality itself. An expansion focused on the "Starborn" might not necessarily be a story DLC pack like Shattered Space, but instead a quality of life package. Fallout 4 had six DLC packs since its launch, and not all of them were particularly heavy on story content. Some simply contained quality of life enhancements, workshop items, and so on, or new mechanics to make engaging in the base game more fun. I could see "Starborn" following similar lines, based on the name alone, oriented around improving the gameplay for the player, or improving the "New Game Plus" experience.

It could also completely be a full-blown story expansion like Shattered Space, though. There's plenty of plot threads Bethesda could explore there, as metaphysical as the plot in Starfield does eventually become. Maybe it isn't Starfield related at all, and we're barking very far up the wrong tree. What do you think?

Either way, I doubt we'll get official confirmation of what "Starborn" is any time soon, at least not until Starfield: Shattered Space itself launches later this year.