Shattered space has the best single player dungeons ever done by bethesda.

[Emphoise]

(may contain spoilers).

First, they are huge. Lots of floors and the rooms are gigantic. You can fully take advantage of the boost pack and fly everywhere to relocate and avoid fire or melee enemies. Very action packed especially on higher difficulties. Visually pretty impressive with some cool and intriguing stuff. The station from the intro mission in particular is astounding.

The combat encounters are very well put together :

-Enemy types complement each others. Melee enemies spawn alongside gunmen and will force you to relocate by either tanking absurd amounts of damage (redeemed) or teleporting in your face for a fatal blow or at least an instant -60% hp (vortex horrors).

-Phantoms teleport to avoid damage or chase your character. They are more dangerous than starborns from the masada ecliptic base (end of the main quest of Starfield).

-The new AOE based heavy weapon (penumbra) is far more deadlier in the hands of hostile NPCs on higher difficulties (since your character takes a much higher amount of damage per hit), and it's a lot harder to dodge that huge energy ball.

-The last dungeon from the main quest has a very large amount of NPCs, I'm pretty sure it's the largest battle ever done in a single player Bethesda game.

-The last boss is very challenging in a good way. Mechanically speaking, think about the baby repear from Mass effect on steroids (lots of room to move and fly around, constant enemy spawns, need to relocate because of the constant threat from explosives or vortex horror spawns).

The narration is pretty good. Similar to previous dungeons from bethesda you get notes and computer entries giving answers about the past and current events. I was initially a bit disappointed by the absence of an actual great serpent reveal, but the way varuun experiments and subfactions are portrayed still work for me. I think the lore is very solid.

I completed everything with a end game lvl 225 character (pretty much best gear in the game, all powers rank 10, all relevant combat skills) and the encounters felt very snappy and unforgiving. Looking forward to replay them with much lower level characters.

[Varanus]

Alrighty. Thats alot to read, but here goes.
Note: I do enjoy Starfield and dlc
However.......
These are not even close to the best dungeons Bethesda has done.
-Most are small. Some are large. Control Site Kappa easily being the best dungeon I've come across in the dlc. And one of the better ones in SF as a whole
-Thats generally how the enemies have been in the entire game. Nothing really new there.
-Indeed they do teleport, and also try and kill you. Not really relevant to the topic, but yes, they do those things.
-I dont think I've ever been directly hit by the prenumbra. Its an impressive looking weapon, visually however. And makes me actually want to try a heavy weapons build, for the first time.
-I'm not even close to finishing the main story yet. So I'll just have to wait and see.
-Same as above
-Dont know about the main quest dungeons, but as for the rest, I've found lore and the like to be VERY lacking in locations. Which is a problem Starfield as a whole, has had. Maybe 2 or 3 slates or terminal entries(sometimes nothing at all at a location), with maybe a line or 2 of text. Compare those to FO4s, sometimes paragraphs of text on terminals and holotapes, that can take 5-10 minutes to read, and it doesnt really hold up.
-Level 84(?) when i started the dlc. NG+10. Settings on extreme. Unforgiving is certainly a word I would use. Had to turn enemy damage down, because I was being, quite literally, one shotted, by almost every enemy. XD

[Ellorien]

I played with lvl 140 char, all powers at lvl 10, on very hard difficulty (next time will do it on intense). It was very challenging until I started using phased time. That power was a game changer. Void form + Phased time + stealth + scoped Inflictor = one-shot kill. Was killing 3-5 phantoms simultaneously every time after casting phased time. After a while I did not even bother with stealth or anything else, just kept casting Phased time. It was hilarious. Got almost 200 vortex shards in the Citadel. That dungeon was enormous.

[Kai]

Bethesda doesn't hire writers, it makes it's artists write the lore.
And they hire DEI as well.

[Varanus]

Originally posted by Ellorien:

I played with lvl 140 char, all powers at lvl 10, on very hard difficulty (next time will do it on intense). It was very challenging until I started using phased time. That power was a game changer. Void form + Phased time + stealth + scoped Inflictor = one-shot kill. Was killing 3-5 phantoms simultaneously every time after casting phased time. After a while I did not even bother with stealth or anything else, just kept casting Phased time. It was hilarious. Got almost 200 vortex shards in the Citadel. That dungeon was enormous.

Between you and OP, I'm starting to get a little excited for the Citadel. This is the first time I've seen anyone talking about it. Love big dungeons. :D

[Emphoise]

Originally posted by Varanus:

-Most are small. Some are large. Control Site Kappa easily being the best dungeon I've come across in the dlc. And one of the better ones in SF as a whole

(very) Large dungeons :

-control site kappa
-subterannean Mal'siir farm
-scaled citadel
-Tull shak monastery (outdoors)
-Misthaze cavern

Others are still pretty large like

Jarek's rest
Maleen dam
deep gorge refinery

And so on. Most are pretty large. The smaller ones are things listening posts or small unmarked camps.

Originally posted by Varanus:

-Thats generally how the enemies have been in the entire game. Nothing really new there.
-Indeed they do teleport, and also try and kill you. Not really relevant to the topic, but yes, they do those things.

Whats new is that enemies use their abilities better. Melee based hostiles reach your character faster (vortex horrors) or they are tanky enough with a good enough AI to form a threat (redeemed). Humanoid phantoms catch you instantly with teleport if you try to run away. Encounters are much more challenging than the base game.

Originally posted by Varanus:

-I dont think I've ever been directly hit by the prenumbra. Its an impressive looking weapon, visually however. And makes me actually want to try a heavy weapons build, for the first time.

happens all the time against random phantom squad spawns on the map (not that much inside dungeons). The weapon is not great for the player character on extreme difficulty/ NG+10 because your damage is too greatly reduced (high rate of fire weapons with decent crit rate like beowulf or longfang are best for that setting).

Originally posted by Varanus:

-Dont know about the main quest dungeons, but as for the rest, I've found lore and the like to be VERY lacking in locations. Which is a problem Starfield as a whole, has had. Maybe 2 or 3 slates or terminal entries(sometimes nothing at all at a location), with maybe a line or 2 of text. Compare those to FO4s, sometimes paragraphs of text on terminals and holotapes, that can take 5-10 minutes to read, and it doesnt really hold up.

You may want to read books. The DLC adds quite a lot of them.

IIRc the big walls of text in Fallout 4 are mostly miscellanious pre war emails or instructions that are more fluff than anything sensible

Main quest dungeons are better than side quest ones in terms of narration (as expected).

Originally posted by Varanus:

-Level 84(?) when i started the dlc. NG+10. Settings on extreme. Unforgiving is certainly a word I would use. Had to turn enemy damage down, because I was being, quite literally, one shotted, by almost every enemy. XD

Thats normal for max difficulty. You need phased time effects, sneaking, void form, chems or some other strategy to get through, taking cover and firing is not enough (you can still do it but it gets really tedious).

[Emphoise]

Originally posted by Ellorien:

I played with lvl 140 char, all powers at lvl 10, on very hard difficulty (next time will do it on intense). It was very challenging until I started using phased time. That power was a game changer. Void form + Phased time + stealth + scoped Inflictor = one-shot kill. Was killing 3-5 phantoms simultaneously every time after casting phased time. After a while I did not even bother with stealth or anything else, just kept casting Phased time. It was hilarious. Got almost 200 vortex shards in the Citadel. That dungeon was enormous.

phased time 10 is a little bit of a cheat code but it becomes almost balanced with shattered space on extreme/NG+10 (especially if you don't use the absolute best weapon). In the last boss fight its safe to say you really need it if you're not save scumming every step.

[Emphoise]

Originally posted by HondoXP:

I walked away from it after 10 minutes. I really didn't like that serpents path thing. Having to join a cult took the wind out of my motivation to play it.

You don't really join them if your character doesnt care. You can go through the rituals and ignore all the instructions.

Its a standard bethesda faction quest where the content is locked behind accepting to join the faction. However the game offers options to reject and insult the varuun later.

[Varanus]

Originally posted by Emphoise:

IIRc the big walls of text in Fallout 4 are mostly miscellanious pre war emails or instructions that are more fluff than anything sensible

I like the fluff. Its something I feel SF is missing, in alot of cases. :(
Also have some points for being one of the few people to engage in an actual discussion.

[Varanus]

Originally posted by Emphoise:

(very) Large dungeons :


-subterannean Mal'siir farm

Ok, this place is huge. I've actually gotten lost a few times already. XD

[Neo]

The new dungeons are very well made. Even the stuff not tied to a quest have had a lot of thought put into them. I did the "goose cave" yesterday and it was brilliant.

[Emphoise]

Originally posted by Neo:

The new dungeons are very well made. Even the stuff not tied to a quest have had a lot of thought put into them. I did the "goose cave" yesterday and it was brilliant.

its technically tied to a miscellanious quest (you can find a slate that mentions it and puts a marker on your map, it is in the control site kappa, iirc

And yes it is brilliant. Compared to older bethesda games including Starfield base game, Shattered space dungeons are on an other level when it comes to the scale of the encounters. Tons of hostiles.

[Neo]

Originally posted by Emphoise:

Originally posted by Neo:

The new dungeons are very well made. Even the stuff not tied to a quest have had a lot of thought put into them. I did the "goose cave" yesterday and it was brilliant.

its technically tied to a miscellanious quest (you can find a slate that mentions it and puts a marker on your map, it is in the control site kappa, iirc

Ah okay. I guess I found the cave before that happened then. Good to know, thanks.

[Emphoise]

Originally posted by HondoXP:

Perhaps a Serpent's Embrace character would be a good fit.

I read there's a lot of dialogue associated to this trait in the DLC.

[Lemecc]

I couldn't agree more with this. I'm a "filthy casual" or whatever other dismissive term because I came into Bethesda games with Skyrim. So I appreciate I have less of a history to draw from.

However, in terms of both Skyrim and Fallout 4, both of which I have about 2k hours in each, including bleeding their DLCs dry because I love them so much, I whole-heartedly agree with this. They both have excellent DLCs with some great memorable dungeons like The Gauntlet. A personal favourite of mine is Safari Adventure, and in general Nuka World is my all-time favourite, even if it's filled with the dreaded "reskins" (Deathclaws reskinned into Gatorclaws, Radstags reskinned into Gazelles, Raiders... into just more raiders.). Turns out what matters most is gameplay and level design, how I interact with whatever the assets may be, and Shattered Space delivers in spades.

The level design of The Scaled Citadel and the way the sequence plays out is the very best thing Bethesda has made in the three modern single-player games ("modern", haha, ah time, it slips away). On paper it sounds so simple and no different to Fallout 4; environmental hazards turn an ordinary office into a labyrinth. FO4 does this all the time... on paper. Shattered Space makes exceptionally clever use of it and dynamically moves those hazards around in real time in response to player actions. I wish Fallout 4 did this! The Scaled Citadel was a fantastic experience.

I wrote it in my review but the final fight captures the same energy as the final sequence of Portal 2, an expertly timed marriage of music, mechanics, chaos, narration, and atmosphere. Perhaps that may or may not sound impressive, but compared to Skyrim and Fallout 4, it's in a whole new league.

I had some initial misgivings right at the start of the DLC, but once the story got going I was interested, and by the final fight I was enthralled. This absolutely sits up there with Dawngard, Far Harbor and Nuka World for me.

[Ellorien]

Originally posted by Emphoise:

Originally posted by HondoXP:

Perhaps a Serpent's Embrace character would be a good fit.

I read there's a lot of dialogue associated to this trait in the DLC.

True. My character has this trait (simply because it is the best trait in this game so every char i create must have it) and yes, almost every dialogue dialogue has the option for Serpent Embrace.