Starfield developer Bethesda has finally teased some of the upcoming changes coming to the game, confirming improvements to space gameplay “to make the travels there more rewarding.”
Earlier this month, fragments of code uncovered by Starfield fans suggested Bethesda had a more streamlined space travel experience in the works, though potentially still with some caveats. While you may be able to travel between planets within the same system, fans said it looked like you wouldn’t be able to fly all the way between systems. And it looks like you won’t be able to fly directly from a planet's surface into orbit, like No Man's Sky.
References to the new offering, referred to in the game's code as "Cruise Mode," were detected by players and shared on reddit, though Bethesda reportedly issued another small patch to scrub them from view.
Now, in a new video discussing his career, veteran Bethesda developer Tim Lamb confirmed that the studio has been working on Starfield’s space gameplay, and that a new DLC story is still coming at some point.
“I think as it comes to Starfield, I'm really excited for players to see what the teams have been working on,” he said. “We have some cool stuff coming, including free updates and features the players have been asking for, as well as a new DLC story.
“I can't go into all the details just yet, but I will say part of the team has been focused on space gameplay to make the travels there more rewarding. We're also adding some new game systems, and a few other smaller delights. There's also some really interesting stuff coming down the pipe from our verified creators. There's some fun stuff.
“I just want to say thanks. We really appreciate the support and the enthusiasm. We can't wait to get it into the hands of our players.”
Last month, Bethesda said it had "exciting things" coming to Starfield soon — presumably referring to this. However, Starfield was a no-show at gamescom 2025 last week, prompting further fan concern.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Starfield's second expansion and much-anticipated PlayStation 5 port would now arrive in 2026, following the poor reception to 2024 add-on Shattered Space. Bethesda boss Todd Howard had previously talked of expansions arriving annually, but perhaps Bethesda sees the addition of some form of spaceflight as something to keep players occupied until then.
Starfield launched in September 2023 as Bethesda’s first brand new IP in 25 years, but it was not as well received as the studio’s previous games in the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls franchises, and the Shattered Space expansion, released a year later in September 2024, has a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating on Steam.
Starfield went on to reach 15 million players, but the question of whether Bethesda might walk away from the game to focus on its other franchises has been a running theme since release. In June 2024, Bethesda insisted it remained committed to supporting Starfield, and confirmed at least one other story expansion would come out following Shattered Space. And in an interview with YouTube channel MrMattyPlays, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard said the developer was aiming to release an annual story expansion for “hopefully a very long time.”
Speaking more generally about the development of Starfield, Lamb described it as “like making four games at once.”
“You have your, I'm running around shooting aliens and space guys,” he said. “You have your, I'm flying around in a spaceship, shooting other spaceships. You have the ship builder game. You have the outpost game. Starfield to me was like making four games at once.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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