'Nobody, and I mean nobody, at Bethesda is patting themselves on the back while ignoring our players': Starfield design director reassures fans that developers are paying attention to community concerns

In the wake of a less-than-stellar reception for the Starfield DLC Shattered Space, design director Emil Pagliarulo has taken to X to say he's proud of it, but that nobody at Bethesda "is patting themselves on the back while ignoring our players."

Pagliarulo's comments came in response to a Starfield player who seemed to take issue with some of the comments made in a recent interview with GamesRadar. He was quite effusive throughout, saying Starfield is "in a lot of ways, the best game we've ever made," and also talking up the shift of focus in Shattered Space, which lets players "wander around and explore tons of specific, hand-crafted content."

His words raised a few eyebrows around these parts: Despite an initial burst of enthusiasm from some quarters, Starfield has received a very lukewarm response overall, while Shattered Space holds a "mostly negative" user rating on Steam (at least some of which, to be fair, reflects dissatisfaction with the core game) and had a nearly negligible impact on Starfield's concurrent player count.

Pagliarulo's upbeat tone in the face of what is, in comparison to virtually any other RPG in Bethesda's long and storied history, a failure didn't sit well with X user MountainDude112. He posted a lengthy thread saying it seems as though Pagliarulo is "doubling down, protecting choices that at best have had mixed reviews while ignoring issues your fan base has been pointing out for years."

That prompted a similarly lengthy reply from Pagliarulo. "As the design director, sometimes I’m asked or instructed to do interviews," he wrote. "I was happy to do that, to represent the designers and the studio. Seeing how hard and passionately they worked on Shattered Space, they deserved nothing less.

"Optimism and excitement are pretty standard for interviews. And I'm generally pretty optimistic and excitable (about games) by nature. That said, my optimism is in no way meant to be mud in the eye of any dissatisfied fan. That's not how it works."

Pagliarulo reiterated that he's very proud of Shattered Space, saying that most of the quests and levels in the DLC were designed by Bethesda veterans, some of whom have been with the company since Morrowind. Starfield fans who haven't yet played Shattered Space are "missing out," he said, and while it makes him "sad" that some people don't like it, "just know that we’ve also been hearing from plenty of people who love it."

"Maybe it’s a game of expectations. Fans want a lot, and we do all we can to accommodate them," he wrote. "Here’s what I can tell you—nobody, and I mean nobody, at Bethesda is patting themselves on the back while ignoring our players.

"In addition to Shattered Space, we’ve also spent a lot of time this year addressing community concerns and making fixes. We’ll continue to do so, and will be listening to our fans every step of the way. We make these games for all of you."

The exchange is reasonable, thoughtful, and civil, which is something of a rarity on X, a point Pagliarulo acknowledged in a separate post that continued his line of thought. "Talking about specific issues on X is a recipe for disaster (or clickbait articles)," he wrote. "That said, there's not a bug or issue with the game that Bethesda as a whole isn't aware of. We're constantly evaluating everything we come across. Every fix is just a matter of time and risk.

"But, as a hardcore gamer myself who often encounters issues with other devs' games—games I love!—I know it sucks when it's an issue that is affecting you personally... and making the game less fun. Seriously, that kills me. I wish we could automagically address everything."

Despite being a recipe for disaster, as he put it, Pagliarulo hasn't been shy about sharing his thoughts on X. In December 2023 he called out unfair criticism of game design from people who don't actually understand how game design works; a few months later he caused an uproar by implying that the male protagonist of Fallout 4 was actually a war criminal from Fallout 1, although he later clarified that's not actually Fallout canon, just a bit of "head canon." Recipe for disaster, indeed.