Speaking with Kinda Funny Games, Bethesda’s Todd Howard confirmed that there will only be four romanceable companions in Starfield, down from seven in Fallout 4 and over 60 in Skyrim. According to Howard, the four main Constellation companions will have full quest lines and romance options, so hopefully we’ll be getting fully fleshed-out stories in this area. It’s a big step up from attempts in previous games at least, all of which felt flat and empty.
Unfortunately for me, the crew of the Constellation are all human. Please, don’t peg me as some kind of weird fetishist, I’ve just loved having the option since I first played Knights of the Old Republic. Romancing Juhani, who is basically a humanoid cat, gave me a hunger for that kind of immersion. Being able to romance multiple aliens in Mass Effect, like Liara, Garrus, and Tali scratched the same itch. If there’s intelligent, sexy alien life, why wouldn’t we want to strike up a romance?
What’s more, we don’t even know if Starfield has intelligent alien life. We’ve seen sentient life, sure. Weird critters roam about ten percent of Starfield’s planets, some of which will have large cities and other quest locations. Maybe that means alien civilisation – or maybe it means human colonisation. I’m hoping for the former, partly because I’m tired of seeing sci-fi where humans take over the world, and partly because, of course, alien civilisation is interesting as hell. What’s a better opportunity for interesting world-building than a whole new world, no uniquely human social hang-ups, and getting to design a whole society based around a differing form of existence? Dating aliens is awesome because it gives you similar insight into other civilisations, other ways of living. It de-centers the human experience as essential, showing us that in great science fiction, our perception of the universe is not the only one that can exist.
Besides, there will be sex in Starfield. Weird, creative, potentially freaky sex. Thanks to a public ESRB rating, we know that there is the potential for jetpack-assisted intercourse, as well as at least one terrible line about life being a sexually transmitted disease. I doubt we’ll see straight up sex, but if we did, god, it would be so much more fun with aliens. I do not need to see human sex in video games – if they’re animating that, I want them to get real weird with it. Of course, Bethesda has never done this, and I seriously doubt we are going to be seeing alien full-frontal in Starfield, whatever that entails. We probably won’t see human full-frontal either, to be honest.
I know my desire to be able to fool around with extra-terrestrial life is a little silly, but if everybody else gets to hope for things that give them full immersion, then so do I. Some people want a variety of weapons, some people want to be able to hijack random ships they see in space, some people want to navigate through asteroids every time they leave a planet, and some want to collect mementos from every place and ship they visit. I want to kiss consenting aliens, god damn it.