Starfield: Next week, on January 17, we’ll be putting our biggest game update yet into Steam Beta with over 100 fixes and improvements, with a planned release date for all players two weeks later...

Will the game world still be empty?

This announcement feels 2 months late. They should have been announcing a DLC by now.

While technically true, they have had one update since launch, and a small hotfix. It isn't big in changes but just the biggest yet in bugfixes.