"Any Bethesda developer who has been around since the horse armor days knows that by this point, if we understand one thing, it’s DLC," studio design director says of Starfield Shattered Space

Starfield Shattered Space, the first story expansion for Bethesda's latest open-world RPG, continues and evolves a longstanding tradition of "how to plug new content into our huge games," as Bethesda studio design director Emil Pagliarulo puts it, going all the way back to the Elder Scrolls' now-famous horse armor. 

Speaking with GamesRadar+ about the launch of Shattered Space and the importance of players speaking their mind, Pagliarulo reflects on Bethesda's plan to announce and commit to DLC before Starfield had even launched, and the relationship between the base game and additional content. 

"Any Bethesda developer who has been around since the horse armor days knows that by this point, if we understand one thing, it’s DLC," he begins. "That’s not to say we’re on autopilot and don’t think about it now. It means we still think about it and have probably thought about it more than any other studio since those early days. And I think the result of all that contemplating is we have a pretty good handle on how to plug new content into our huge games." 

Pagliarulo points to Fallout 3 as a key learning opportunity for what DLC can do, specifically the way players really "did not like" the ending where you "flat-out died." 

"That was really the moment we realized that our fans don’t want to play our games – they want to live in the worlds we create," he says. "That means their experiences never end, and the content, whatever it is, works together as seamlessly as we can make it." 

Going into Starfield Shattered Space, Fallout 4's Far Harbor was a "touchstone" for size, quests, and quality. "That was a really solid DLC. So I’d say we started there. But then, as happens when you have something special, the project takes on its own life. It becomes its own thing. It exists in its own pocket of awesome outside a comparison to something else. And when that happens, that’s when you dive in, fully committed to the vision, and your gut is just telling you it’s going to be