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Bethesda’s new Starfield short sets the stage for Terran Armada before April 7

The latest animated anthology episode, "Ab Astris Ad Terram," leads directly into the Terran Armada story, which arrives with the Free Lanes update and Starfield's PlayStation 5 release on April 7.

Angel Kicevski April 6, 2026

48 1 minute read

Bethesda added a new animated anthology short for Starfield on April 6, and this one points straight at the game’s next big story beat. Titled “Ab Astris Ad Terram,” the episode is part of The Settled Systems series and shows the Terran Armada at the height of its power, with a robotic army that moves with ruthless precision against the people of the Settled Systems.

The short is more than a lore piece. Bethesda says the events in the episode lead directly into the opening of Terran Armada DLC story content, which arrives on April 7. That expansion will put players into a new conflict where they help save the Settled Systems from a hostile takeover, with new faces, new choices, and an authoritarian threat that keeps pressing forward.

The DLC also lands alongside the Free Lanes update, which will be available to all players at no cost on the same day. Bethesda also confirmed that Starfield officially launches on PlayStation 5 on April 7 as well, so the date is doing a lot of heavy lifting for the game’s next chapter.

If you want more context on how Terran Armada first surfaced, we covered the earlier tease in our previous report. For now, Bethesda is clearly treating this animated short as the bridge into the next story line rather than a throwaway promo.

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Starfield is a single-player action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and set in an open-world space environment. Players create a customizable character and explore a region of the Milky Way galaxy spanning approximately 50 light-years, landing on over 1,000 planets with procedurally generated landscapes. Gameplay includes first-person and third-person combat using firearms, explosives, and melee weapons, as well as spaceship construction, outpost building, resource gathering, and crafting. Players recruit companion characters, join factions, and progress through skill trees spanning Physical, Social, Combat, Science, and Tech categories.