Even Phil Spencer's been bugging Todd Howard to get vehicles in Starfield: 'Come on Todd… I'm tired of walking'

Gamescom Opening Night Live saw Bethesda announce the release date of Starfield's first expansion, Shattered Space, alongside a brief trailer and the surprise early launch of the game's new vehicle. The Rev-8 is now available in-game for all players (talk to your ship technician) and has big Mako energy, with shock absorbers working overtime on the rocky ground (and yes, it has a gun, too).

Ever since launch vehicles have been the most-requested feature for Starfield, for the obvious reason that this is a game chock-full of gigantic planets that you have to traverse on foot. It's probably one of the reasons that exploration ends up feeling a bit dull, and it just feels a bit odd that, in a galaxy full of spaceships and super tech, no-one seemed to think that a car of some kind might be useful.

"In one sense, you do have a vehicle, which is you obviously have your spaceship, you can go around in space," said Bethesda chief Todd Howard at the time. "But then on the surface you do have a jetpack which you can upgrade, which is a super fun, new experience for us."

That justification satisfied practically no-one, and it turns out Xbox head Phil Spencer was among the unconvinced. Spencer dropped in on Xbox's Gamescom stream to say all the usual things about how great Xbox's lineup is looking, before noting that his presence at Gamescom has stopped him trying out the Rev-8 (timestamp, first spotted by GamesRadar+), and he's been bugging Todd Howard to make it happen.

"Oh and I'm here so I'm not doing it: my buggy in Starfield," said Spencer. "I've been asking Todd for vehicles. 'Come on, Todd, I want vehicles in this game. I'm tired of walking around this planet.' I thought the trailer for that looked really good last night, so I can't wait to drive around planets in Starfield."

Bear with me: There's an animated series called Llamas in Hats, where one of the most amusing things is how Carl the llama will explain he's done something terrible, and Paul the llama will go "Caaaa-rrrllll!" I like to imagine Phil Spencer sitting in his Redmond office, surrounded by neatly folded and ironed gamer t-shirts, using his personal hotline to get straight through to Todd Howard and moan about space buggies: "Come onnn Todddddd!"

You can tootle around in Starfield's Rev-8 now, while Shattered Space will arrive on September 30. The expansion will explore the House Va’ruun, a "weird space cult" who "believe in an eternal space snake," and looks to have some sort of creepy cosmic horror tilt to it. The Rev-8 crops up several times in the trailer, so expect the expansion's campaign to be giving its wheels a good workout.