Bethesda Trademarks Starborn, Sparking Speculation About Possible Starfield DLC [IGN]

Bethesda has trademarked ‘Starborn,’ a clear reference to its recently released Starfield.

The trademark, spotted by X/Twitter user @bogorad222, was submitted by Bethesda owner ZeniMax Media Inc., which itself is owned by Microsoft. The trademark has already sparked speculation about whether it relates to an expansion-sized DLC that might follow the upcoming Shattered Space, or a smaller-scale DLC, perhaps focused on the player character.

It looks like Starborn may be Starfield’s next expansion pic.twitter.com/wisHr7ohzI

— Timur222 (@bogorad222) July 29, 2024

Warning! Spoilers for Starfield follow.

The word Starborn in the context of Starfield relates to the beings revealed after the player character collects enough artifacts for Constellation. During the course of the Starfield story, the beings are confirmed to be humans who have passed through a portal that enables travel between universes.

When you complete the main story for Starfield, you can begin a New Game Plus immediately. To do this, you must decide to become Starborn during the final quest, One Giant Leap.

Starfield launched on PC and Xbox Series X and S in September 2023 as the biggest Microsoft-published game of the year. IGN’s Starfield review returned a 7/10. We said: “Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.”

Since then, Bethesda has released a number of updates for the game, but it is this year’s Shattered Space expansion that is expected to give the action role-playing game a big shot in the arm.

In June, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard insisted the developer was committed to supporting Starfield long term, and confirmed at least one other story expansion will release following this year’s Shattered Space. Could it be Starborn? Howard said Bethesda is aiming to release an annual story expansion for “hopefully a very long time.”

As for Shattered Space itself, Howard has likened it to the well-received Fallout 4 DLC Far Harbor.

It’s a busy time for the 450-person Bethesda Game Studios, which currently operates five teams: Starfield; Elder Scrolls 6; Fallout 76; mobile; and external development partnerships. It’s working on the aforementioned Elder Scrolls 6, ongoing content for Fallout 76, various mobile games, updates for older games, and, eventually, the next Fallout.

But will Starfield see a sequel? If it does materialize it may be some time before we see anything of it, with Elder Scrolls 6 expected no earlier than 2028 and another Fallout game set to follow.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.