300 years from now, the Earth is a barren desert. Like its brother Mars, the planet’s electromagnetic area has been broken, drying oceans to mud and eradicating all breathable air. The invention of the Gravity Drive has made interstellar journey potential, however the value of that innovation proves staggering—humanity should abandon its dwelling, by no means to return.
Even so, vestiges of the useless planet’s civilization are all over the place in Starfield—numerous copies of Oliver Twist, transportable parts of pizza and hen, and a bottomless sea of superb intoxicants. You’ll discover a great deal of stuff to select up all over the place you go. A lot of it’s ineffective, particularly meals, which solely restores a paltry variety of HP relative to the quantity of house it takes up in your stock. And curious although I could also be about what pink wine tastes like in “Chunks” kind, there’s one meals merchandise that casually reveals maybe essentially the most devastating morsel of lore in regards to the grim future Bethesda has concocted—an innocuous little tin field of treats known as “Chocolate Labs.”
The tin reads: “Centauri Mills’ candies, formed like an extinct canine known as a Labrador Retriever.”
It’s true: Canine now not exist within the timeline of Starfield. Nor, certainly, do cats. The place have all the great girls and boys gone? Into the starfield, I suppose.
When you’ve performed any exploring past New Atlantis, you’ll know there are beasties aplenty each inside and past the Settled Programs. Lots of them are revolting, outsized bugs that appear very desirous to gnaw your face off. Some are docile and gooey, content material to munch on crops or energy cables, simply ready to be blasted into scrumptious crafting supplies or Alien Jerky to revive a measly 3 HP.
However none of those creatures are notably inclined to observe you dwelling to the Lodge, curl up on the foot of your mattress, and ask for stomach rubs. You can’t costume a Terrormorph in a bumblebee or sizzling canine costume for Halloween, even in its early larval phases. You can’t stage a pretend engagement photoshoot with a Mannequin A robotic. Not a single one of many members of Constellation will react with rhapsodic glee in the event you toss a pungent sock at their mouth. (Sarah disliked that.)
The choice to nix canine and cats from humanity’s spacefaring period makes little sense for 2 causes. The primary is a story one—I discover it extraordinarily unlikely that each human exiled from Earth simply complied with the rule that mentioned “no pets” on the cargo ship. I’ve seen 90-pound ladies toting 40-pound canine of their purse simply to skirt guidelines on the subway. And even when sneaking a Nice Dane onto a packed transport ship is likely to be robust to tug off, the residents of Starfield’s doomed Earth had years to organize for this calamity. Absolutely a pair somebodies would have frozen some pet embryos and stashed them at the back of the cargo maintain?
Sorry, however I’m simply not shopping for the truth that humanity saved hundreds of copies of Dickens and never a single canine. You don’t assume any wealthy idiots escaped Earth? They had been the primary in line!
From a gameplay perspective, not permitting gamers to have a canine or feline companion always makes a bit extra sense. You don’t need to deliver a Corgi right into a nest of stim-addled Spacers and Crimson Fleet Pirates, even when that Corgi can be a extra fascinating companion than Sarah. However pets might open up some fascinating alternatives by way of exploration, useful resource gathering, and outpost constructing. Are you able to think about how a lot a canine would love operating and leaping in low gravity? And let’s not even start imagining all of the lovely spacesuit choices.
What in case your fuzzy buddy might robotically choose up any assets on the bottom after a combat, or acted as an extension of your sensor capacity? Think about coming dwelling to your luxurious flat in New Atlantis’ Mercury Tower and being warmly greeted by a smiling four-legged buddy. Possibly then I’d really furnish the place!
It’s not too late for Bethesda to proper these grievous wrongs, and provides us the booster-packed good girls and boys we so richly deserve. My two largest asks for the upcoming Shattered Area DLC? Extra Home Va’ruun and extra canine, dammit.