Starfield players reckon 'something big is going on behind the scenes,' but it's probably just the upcoming Shattered Space expansion

There are some rumblings going on in Starfield communities right now, as a few players have spotted some activity going on with the man behind the space curtain—specifically, there are more change logs now than ever before in the game's history. 

"Something big is going on behind the scenes," user JarusinTheStars says in a post to the game's subreddit. "It's pointless trying to decipher the changelogs on SteamDB, but one thing is certain from experience: When there are a lot of changes, something big is coming. For example, there were around 50-60 changes between the February and March updates. And around 100 between the March and May updates. We've almost surpassed that figure in less than a month." They go on to theorise that this probably has something to do with the Shattered Space expansion being shown off at the Xbox Showcase on June 9. 

While there is certainly a thread to be drawn between increased changelog activity and the arrival of the Shattered Space expansion, this isn't exactly groundbreaking. We've known that this will be Starfield's first story expansion for almost a year, with it first being mentioned in advertising for the Starfield Collector's Edition (known as the Constellation Edition). 

We've also heard recently from Todd Howard that Shattered Space will be arriving in late 2024. During an interview with Kinda Funny Games, Howard mentioned that a major Starfield update should be releasing soon, and that Shattered Space is scheduled to release "in the fall." It's a pretty lowkey way to reveal a release window for what could be a pretty prominent expansion, but at least we have an idea of what to expect and when. 

So, of course we're expecting to see something about Shattered Space in the upcoming Xbox showcase. Actually, I'd be pretty worried about Bethesda if they instead chose not to mention it at all. 

But instead of focusing on whether Shattered Space is on the horizon, most players in the thread are worrying about when the Starfield Creation Kit will be released. "If they release the CK before the DLC, the DLC will break all those mods," one player says. "It makes sense to release it either with or after Shattered Space." 

Bethesda may want to avoid another Fallout 4 scenario, as well—for context, after releasing a "next-gen" mod for Fallout 4 (which didn't provide players with anything massively noteworthy, while breaking loads of fan-favourite mods and delaying projects like Fallout London), modders were up in arms about the lack of communication from Bethesda. So it would make sense for Bethesda to play it safe going forward—mod-breaking patches first, mod tools second.