Gab Hernandez 
Bethesda has revealed story information about Starfield’s upcoming Shattered Space DLC, which may answer some questions about the game’s lore.
Starfield, despite being labeled a success commercially, didn’t achieve the critical acclaim the company was hoping for. Some harsher fans expressed disappointment with the game’s seemingly barebones story and shallow gameplay. Other fans enjoyed the game but felt it lacked something compared to other landmark Bethesda titles like Skyrim and Fallout 4.
Flash forward to 2024 and Skyrim has higher player counts than Starfield while Fallout 4 has seen a resurgence surrounding the Fallout TV series. Meanwhile, Bethesda also announced that The Elder Scrolls 6 has begun active development. With other franchises taking attention away from Starfield, the space exploration game needs a shot of adrenaline. The Shattered Space DLC may be what it needs to regain momentum.
Starfield: Shattered Space DLC story details revealed
The story of Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC may focus on the mysterious House Va’ruun.
In Starfield’s May Update video, the developers showcased footage of the Shattered Space DLC. The footage depicts a purple-hued skyline with massive ruins, and the developer text explicitly references the ruins as “Varuun.”
This seemingly confirms that the Shattered Space DLC will tell the story of Starfield’s most unsettling faction.
House Va’ruun, a clan of religious zealots who worship the Great Serpent, is the third great faction in the galaxy. In its history, House Va’ruun went on a religious crusade against all non-believers, to the point that both the UC and the Collective signed a peace treaty to stop the violence.
The group is the most alien of the major factions, and adherents are hyper-aggressive. Fittingly, the Great Serpent is described as a hateful and destructive deity, and the footage of a ruined planet may hint the deity has become more “hands-on” with its followers.
House Va’ruun is notably one of the few factions the player never meets on their home turf. All the Va’ruun cultists the player meets are extremist factions, separated from the main house. Shattered Space may take place on their home planet.
Some fans speculate the bizarre nature of Va’ruun’s world may mean it’s not another planet, but another dimension altogether. Both Skyrim and Fallout feature DLC where players are taken to some kind of nightmare dimension, so Starfield: Shattered Space could do the same during its story. Either way, fans won’t know more until closer to Shattered Space’s release.
