Why Did the New *Starfield* DLC, Priced at Only 70 Yuan, Still Fail to Gain Traction?

It’s gone cold. This result isn’t surprising.

This week, Bethesda Game Studios launched Starfield’s second major expansion, Terran Armada, priced at $9.99, or about 70 RMB. The price isn’t high, and the issue isn’t the price either. The real problem is that it hasn’t shown players that Starfield can still keep climbing.

The developers had already tempered expectations in the community, making it clear that this update would not turn the game into “Starfield 2.0” and that the focus was simply on improving the core player experience. It was a very candid statement, but it also meant lowering outside expectations in advance. For a game that has already gone through one round of reputation damage, the biggest fear for a DLC is that it can only smooth out the edges without touching the root of the problem.

Terran Armada is the second major expansion following 2024’s Shattered Space. In the marketing, it promised a new faction aiming to dominate the galaxy. But according to foreign media, what was ultimately delivered lacked substance, and the promises never truly materialized. Put simply, the premise was huge, but the payoff was thin.

The data is just as straightforward. After the DLC went live, Starfield reached a peak of 27,000 concurrent players on Steam. That doesn’t look too bad at first glance, but compared with its historical peak of 330,000, the gap is obvious. If a major expansion can only bring this kind of rebound, it means it can’t win back the players who left—it’s only serving the ones who stayed.

What hurts most here isn’t that one DLC turned out mediocre, but that it once again proves Starfield’s core appeal has not been strengthened. As the article points out, this is a project that was in the works for 20 years. For a 20-year project, what players got was not a comeback, but yet another round of “maybe wait a little longer,” and naturally, their patience is going to run out.

If you still haven’t bought it, my advice is simple: don’t rush. Unless you’re already a steady Starfield player and willing to spend 70 RMB for additional content, this money is unlikely to buy you any real sense of freshness. For most players who are still on the fence, it’s more practical to keep waiting for future updates—or simply shift your attention to The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5.

There are already plenty of voices in the community suggesting that Bethesda should stop continuing to pour resources into Starfield and instead redirect them toward new projects that players are more excited about. It sounds harsh, but it’s understandable. Players aren’t unwilling to give it chances—it’s just that by the time a second major DLC arrives and the response is still flat, attitudes inevitably become much more pragmatic.

Starfield hasn’t reached the point of being completely over yet, but Terran Armada at least makes one thing clear: minor fixes can’t solve major problems. A DLC can extend a game’s life, but only if the content truly has weight. This time, it clearly doesn’t.