Starfield Introduces Its First Companion Character
Starfield's first companion character has been revealed – VASCO is a robot, who looks to be a loader droid of some kind.
Revealed in a new developer video, head of Bethesda Game Studios Todd Howard said, "No matter what story we write, the one the players tell themselves is the one they think about and love the most – and the companions."
We then saw what seems to be an in-game shot of VASCO, a very practical looking robot who greets viewers by saying, "Hello, Captain. How may I be of assistance?"
An image of VASCO, Starfield's first confirmed companion. (Image credit: Bethesda)
VASCO is presumably named after Portugese explorer Vasco da Gama, given that Bethesda is aiming for "grounded exploration" in a more realistic universe, and describes its game as NASA-Punk.
The developers continued by explaining how companions have been improved in the new RPG. Howard summed it up by saying, "Something we really leaned into on this game [is] how those other characters felt about you."
Lead artist Istvan Pely added, "That’s probably my favourite part, like when you’re exploring and then your companion makes some comment off the cuff about something that you’re checking out or something that just happened. That just feels so perfect for immersion. It’s just so believable, you think it’s a real person."
In terms of NPCs as a whole, it seems Bethesda is taking pains to make its characters look realistic as well as act that way – hopefully sidestepping some of the studio's previous games' more stilted animations.
"We’ve always allowed the player to create really interesting, unique characters," said Pely. "This game we’ve definitely, severely leveled up. The tech is based on scanning of real world models, similar to the photogrammetry we do
Read more on ign.com
