“How long that continues… hopefully a very long time”: Unlike Skyrim, Todd Howard Wants Starfield to Follow Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76’s Expansion Plans, Even if it’s Only a Single Player Game

This is great news for future Fallout and Elder Scrolls releases.

Starfield, Skyrim and Elder Scrolls Online

SUMMARY

  • Bethesda plans to support Starfield with continuous updates for many years.
  • The upcoming Shattered Space DLC is the first of many planned expansions.
  • Todd Howard emphasizes a long-term vision for both Starfield and future Bethesda games.
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It’s been around nine months since Starfield, Bethesda’s ambitious open-world space RPG, had its monumental release on Xbox and PC. Now, we’re nearing the release of the major Shattered Space DLC, which adds a new story, areas to explore, weapons, spacesuits, and more.

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Usually, Bethesda’s plans for any of its games end after dropping several expansive DLCs like these. However, executive producer Todd Howard makes it clear that this is only the start of a much more extensive plan for the game.

Continuous Long-Term Support Is Now the Standard at Bethesda

Bethesda's games will receive a lot more love from the get-go, moving forward.
Bethesda’s games will receive a lot more love from the get-go, moving forward.

One of the biggest fears with single-player Bethesda games is regarding how long the studio continues to support them with consistent content updates. It feels like the studio has been evolving in that regard, considering how we’ve been getting new content for decade-old games like Fallout 4.

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Matty Interviews Todd Howard: Future Of Fallout, Starfield Year 2, Elder Scrolls VI Info, & MORE!

It’s nice to get official confirmation that Bethesda is going full steam ahead on supporting its games for a long time, which Howard did during a recent interview with Matty Interviews:

That expectation that we’ll update them for years is is true.

He mentions regrets about not supporting Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls 5 longer than the studio initially had, especially considering how they still have active fanbases even now.

That’s why, when going into the 2018 multiplayer Fallout release, the studio knew it would support it for “as long as [we] can.

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This philosophy extends toward Starfield and the upcoming Elder Scrolls 6 as well:

With all these games, you got to start now by thinking about a 10-year horizon.

Fallout 76 continues to get updates even today, and Elder Scrolls Online just celebrated its 10th anniversary, with both games having a lot of active players.

Bethesda keeping its word and continuing in this direction only spells good news for fans everywhere.

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The Shattered Space DLC Is Only the Start for Starfield

We can expect to see at least one more DLC for Starfield.
We can expect to see at least one more DLC for Starfield.

Exciting news for all space travelers; there is no doubt that the studio is planning on releasing a lot more content for Starfield for “hopefully a very long time.” It has already started plans for the expansion after the soon-to-be-released Shattered Space, which is great news.

Howard mentions there’s no set time for how long the gaps could be between content updates, so the period between the City Maps update and Shattered Space isn’t indicative of how things could be going forward; it just happened to land that way.

He also briefly talks about a ‘year-two’ plan for the game, which, fingers crossed, is just year two of many more years to come.

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Judging from Howard’s answers throughout the interview, it doesn’t feel like too much of a stretch to say the game could be receiving content updates for a few more years at the very minimum. Whether they’ll be the size of Shattered Space remains to be seen, however.

What kind of content would you like to see come to the game? Let us know in the comments below!

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Written by Vibha Hegde

Articles Published: 335

Vibha is an avid gamer that has been in the content writing space for over three years. With a Bachelors in Computer Applications, Vibha chooses to explore their passion for pop culture and gaming. When not hunkered over a controller trying to beat the Demon of Hatred in Sekiro, you can find Vibha relaxing to jazz during a digital painting session.