If you were hoping for a Cyberpunk 2077 style redemption arc where Bethesda completely rips out the guts of Starfield and hands you a brand-new game, you might want to adjust your thrusters. Todd Howard recently hopped on a podcast to clear the air, and he was pretty blunt: there is no “2.0” update coming to fundamentally reinvent the wheel. While games like Cyberpunk or No Man’s Sky went through massive metamorphosis stages, Bethesda is taking a different path. Todd basically said that if you already find the Settled Systems a bit boring or the gameplay loop isn’t your vibe, this next wave of updates probably won’t be the magic wand that changes your mind.
But don’t toss your flight suit just yet, because “no 2.0” definitely doesn’t mean “no new stuff.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Bethesda is shifting into a new phase where they are ready to talk about a massive amount of upcoming content that has been cooking behind the scenes. The team is leaning into what they call meta changes, focusing on how players interact with outer space in ways we haven’t seen before. We’re talking about updates that aren’t just isolated bug fixes but tweaks to the actual procedural generation and travel mechanics to make the galaxy feel more alive for the people who are already clocking hundreds of hours in their custom ships.
The big news for the long-term fans is the Terran Armada expansion, which is looking like the next major milestone in the Starfield roadmap. After the somewhat divisive reception of Shattered Space, the devs seem to be doubling down on larger-scale story content and quality-of-life improvements that reward the “hardcore” explorers. There’s also constant chatter about the Creations platform, which continues to be a playground for modders to fill in the gaps that Bethesda leaves behind. It’s clear that they view this as a ten-year game, and while they aren’t apologizing for the original vision, they are committed to layering more and more onto that foundation.
So, while we aren’t getting a “re-launch,” we are getting a persistent evolution. The goal isn’t to fix a “broken” game, but to expand a “polarizing” one. If you’re a fan of the slow-burn NASA-punk aesthetic, the next year is looking stacked with DLC and technical tune-ups. Just don’t expect the loading screens to vanish into a black hole or the core dialogue system to suddenly turn into Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s still Starfield, just with more toys in the toy box and a bit more grease on the gears.
