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?”
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 in our landscapes. We’re kind of applying the same thing to our people as well. Because it’s not just the appearance of your player and all that, but we want all the personal interactions with NPCs, other characters in the game to be as impactful as possible. And for that you have to believe these are real people, you’re a real person, and you’re interacting with real people.”
The new Starfield video covers a lot more than just companions, introducing information about the game’s factions, lots of new concept art, and how it’s repurposing a system used back in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.
The hugely anticipated Xbox console exclusive will arrive on November 11, and will be Bethesda’s first brand new series in decades. We’ve slowly been learning about the game, including its 1st and 3rd person viewpoints, its full mod support, and that players can pick pronouns, with characters reacting accordingly.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Source: IGN Video Games All
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