Wesley Yin-Poole
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Bethesda is reportedly preparing the much-rumored PlayStation 5 release of Starfield for spring 2026, which will come alongside a new expansion.
According to MP1st, Starfield was pushed out of 2025 “partly due to the RPG’s weak sales of the first expansion, Shattered Space.” Shattered Space, which launched in September 2024 to a ‘mostly negative’ Steam user review rating, was meant to be followed by an expansion this year as part of an annual release schedule.
IGN has asked Bethesda for comment.
The PS5 launch will apparently coincide with the release of Starfield’s second expansion and other quality-of-life updates. MP1st said not to expect an announcement at gamescom later this month, or an imminent shadowdrop, as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered benefited from.
The question of whether Bethesda might walk away from Starfield to focus on its other franchises has been a running theme since release. In June 2024, Bethesda insisted it remained committed to supporting Starfield, and confirmed at least one other story expansion would release following Shattered Space. And in an interview with YouTube channel MrMattyPlays, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard said the developer was aiming to release an annual story expansion for “hopefully a very long time.”
But there has been little news since, leading Starfield players to express their dissatisfaction at the level of communication coming out of Bethesda on the future of the game, with its no-show at June’s Xbox Games Showcase considered the final straw for some.
Starfield launched in September 2023 as Bethesda’s first brand new IP in 25 years, and it went on to reach 15 million players. But it was not as well received as the studio’s previous games in the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls franchises, and the Shattered Space expansion did nothing to improve sentiment.
Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer later revealed that he had had a conversation with Bethesda development chief Todd Howard about the release cadence for Starfield content. “Todd and I were talking about Shattered Space,” Spencer said. “Starfield is a game I put a ton of hours into and really love, but they've had this thing where they've added features throughout the year and then they had an expansion. I think some of the feedback on the expansion is: ‘We wanted more features.’ And he's like, ‘Well, should we have waited to put buggies out?'
"And so, I think you're trying to tune both development effort and the impact of the expansion. And I think there will always be a balance to managing the game month to month. But not every game will do expansions.”
Ultimately, though, Shattered Space was criticized more for its lack of space content than its lack of ground content. As IGN wrote in our Starfield Shattered Space review: "As far as I can tell there’s absolutely nothing added for spacefarers other than now you have a way to legitimately acquire Va’ruun ships instead of stealing them from Zealots who attack you in space. That’s fine, as an expansion doesn’t always have to meaningfully expand every aspect of a game – but I was surprised that there wasn’t at least a token feature thrown in for space jockeys in an expansion with 'space' in the title."
Last week, Bethesda finally broke its silence on the future of Starfield, insisting it was still working on updates and would share details on the “exciting things” it had planned in the coming months.
Bethesda was seriously affected by Microsoft’s latest round of layoffs, with cuts to its London office and ZeniMax Online Studios. Its unannounced MMORPG was canceled, and its veteran studio head stepped down.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].