Announced alongside the brilliant Free Lanes update, Starfield DLC Terran Armada is an all-new story expansion set within the existing galaxy of the game. While Starfield’s first DLC, Shattered Space, took players to a singular, dense planet, this new offering aims to give players a narrative that actually spans the galaxy Bethesda created.
Prior to the DLC’s announcement, Starfield lead producer Tim Lamb explained that Bethesda has been listening to feedback from fans of the game. While Bethesda has seen a lot of feedback for the game from many, listening to what the game’s active playerbase wants informed both of the game’s major DLCs.
“When I think of the two [DLCs], I think they’re both responses to community feedback,” Lamb said. “So, after Starfield came out, there was the feedback of ‘I want a more traditional BGS feel. I want something that’s local, I don’t have to get up and leave’”.
“A number of the things that we did sort of synergise together.”
Starfield lead producer Tim Lamb on the simultaneous creation of Free Lanes and Terran Armada
Lamb explained that Shattered Space was designed to service Starfield players who wanted “traditional BGS adventures” within the universe. However, when it comes to Terran Armada, the new expansion is designed to play into the core Starfield fans that liked the main gameplay, but wanted something else to do in the space between the galaxy. Terran Armada weaves its way into Free Lanes, an update which caused Bethesda to reformat all of the game’s existing content.
“For Terran Armada, we come off the back of Shattered Space, and we heard the feedback: ‘Yes, that’s one location, but I want something that’s more galactic impact, something that has me out there in the stars and it’s a broader sort-of impact’”.
Lamb explained that the new DLC has synergy with Free Lanes, hence why it’s taken so long to come to players. “A number of the things that we did sort of synergise together,” he explained. “The Terrans have their incursions that appear and move around on the Star Map and you can see where they are. They have technology that stops Grav Drives from working so the synergy with Cruise Mode that you have to jump into a star system, cruise to where that Incursion is to shut it down to Grav Jump through the system again.”
The producer explained that many of these ideas have come from the community. The community wanted free travel between planets, they wanted more to exist within the space between POIs, and many even specifically called for more content focused around the Colony War, which is where the Terran Armada come into place.
As Bethesda commits to “years” of additional content for Starfield, the studio will be continuing to listen to community feedback. While it seems we’re only due for one major update to the sci-fi RPG a year, 2027 could see even more of the fans’ biggest requests made real. Underwater planets, maybe? We’ve all seen the Reddit posts.
