Starfield's Second Launch: Free Lanes, Terran Armada and the Road to PS5
Bethesda's space RPG drew huge crowds in 2023 and a mixed reaction after. In April 2026 it tried again, with cruise-mode travel between planets, a robot-army expansion and a PlayStation 5 release. Here is what changed.
On its first weekend in September 2023, Starfield hit a peak of more than 330,000 players at once on Steam, beating Skyrim's record. Within two weeks, 10 million people had played it. Then the conversation turned. Players praised its scale but grumbled about loading screens, empty planets and the lack of a sense of flying through space. By January 2024, its Steam reviews were "mixed".
Two and a half years later, Bethesda tried to answer those complaints all at once. On April 7, 2026, Starfield launched on PlayStation 5, and every player received Free Lanes, a free update Bethesda called "the biggest update to the game since launch". A paid story expansion, Terran Armada, arrived the same day.
What Starfield is
Starfield was Bethesda Game Studios' first new universe in more than 25 years, directed by Todd Howard and built on the new Creation Engine 2. You play a member of Constellation, a group of explorers chasing mysterious artefacts, in a galaxy with more than 1,000 planets you can land on.
It launched on September 6, 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X|S, scoring 85 on Metacritic for PC and 83 for Xbox, with 83% of critics recommending it on OpenCritic. By November 2024, more than 15 million people had played it, helped by its day-one place on Game Pass.
Free Lanes: space finally feels like space
The headline change in Free Lanes is travel. Before, moving between planets meant menus and loading screens. Now a new cruise mode lets you fly between planets within a star system, with frequent encounters along the way and time to spend with your crew on board.
Free Lanes also adds new points of interest and dungeons, a new resource called X-Tech for upgrading weapons and ship modules, and tougher enemy tiers with extra shields or elemental damage. There is a new land vehicle, the Moon Jumper, shared storage across outposts, a new crew member called Muria and a mini-bot. And Starborn players who enter New Game Plus can now carry a limited number of items with them through the Unity.
Terran Armada: a war with robots
Terran Armada is the second story expansion, after Shattered Space in 2024. It adds a new questline with new characters, locations and rewards, in which you face the robotic forces of the Terran Armada. Players who bought the Premium Edition on Xbox or Steam got it at no extra cost.
The first expansion had a rough ride. Shattered Space was free to owners of the Premium Edition but had a "mostly negative" rating on Steam as of January 2025. Terran Armada had a lot to prove.
The PS5 version
On PS5, the standard edition costs $49.99 and the Premium Edition, which includes the paid DLC, $69.99, with Xbox and PC prices adjusted to match. The PS5 version supports the DualSense controller's adaptive triggers and touchpad and the lightbar. On PS5 Pro, players can pick a Pro Performance Mode for a higher frame rate or a Pro Visual Mode for sharper images.
Is it worth returning?
Free Lanes fixes the complaint many players had most often: that Starfield felt like a series of separate maps rather than a living galaxy. With cruise mode, a new vehicle, harder enemies and a large library of Creations, the 2026 version is a fuller game than the one that launched in 2023.
It will not change everyone's mind. Starfield's core structure is the same, and players who disliked its story or pacing may still feel that way. But for newcomers on PS5, or anyone who left after the first few weeks, this is the best version of Bethesda's space RPG so far. For more on the studio's next project, read our report on The Elder Scrolls VI.