Starfield interview reveals the fractured nature of House Va’Ruun

With the reveal of Starfield vehicles and a Starfield Shattered Space release date, Bethesda went on to reveal that House Va’ruun may well be less homogenous than we originally thought. In an incredibly short five minute interview which, frankly, didn’t reveal a great deal, Bethesda’s own Senior Producer Tim Lamb gave us a tiny bit more insight into the mysterious faction taking center stage come September 30, 2024.

Not wishing to deliver any spoilers, Lamb was vague on the details, simply stating that Bethesda had managed to “distill and focus” the “hopeful optimism in the giant sprawling adventure of Starfield” into the first expansion pack. Fortunately, he was slightly less (and I do mean slightly) vague on the overall premise of Shattered Space.

“There’s a moment of strife that [House Va’Ruun] had. We get to experience that with them now.”

This could be referencing the Serpent’s War, which must be one of the largest moments of strife in the Starfield faction’s history, or it could be referring to the status quo that House Va’Ruun finds themselves in on their homeworld of Va’Ruun’Kai.

On reaching Dazra City, Lamb says “There’s a catastrophic event. You deal with the minor houses of the faction of House Va’Ruun to sort of uncover the mystery of what happened and then, you know, resolve it as you do as a player. There’s lots of choices in there for you.”

Sadly, Lamb’s overall response to questions gave very little insight into the DLC except for things we already knew, such as the fact that Shattered Space will feature a much more handcrafted map similar to previous Bethesda games. This design includes “nooks and crannies” for players to explore, and even permits players to explore it with the newly released REV-8 vehicle.

My overall takeaway from the interview is that Starfield is indeed going back to its roots design-wise, giving us a single, rich location to explore, and giving us a story with some meaningful choices that may well alter the balance of the game (at least where the DLC is concerned). At a guess, Shattered Space will be very much like Fallout 4’s Nuka World, featuring a number of distinct branches within the main faction, and you support will decide who comes out on top.

Hopefully we see more of Shattered Space at Gamescom 2024 but, given how reluctant Lamb was to share details, it seems unlikely.

What did you think of Lamb’s… short answers? Let us know in the Starfield forum and be sure to follow StarfieldDb on Google News to stay up to date with all the latest announcements.