So I’ve been noticing a trend growing on the internet, not just on Reddit, but throughout social media as a whole. That trend is, especially when it comes to open World RPGs like “Starfield”, to eschew more heroic-oriented companions in favor of… let’s say, those with a darker outlook.
Basically, companions who don’t mind when you blow up a spaceship full of children.
Now many video RPGs like “Starfield” and “Baldur’s Gate 3” have romance options, this has been a standard for such games for years. But I find more and more over the last few years, many players will downgrade reviews on a game, if they don’t have a romantic companion who is:
- Beautiful in a conventional sense
- Absolutely willing to agree with any carnage the player wishes to engage in
These guys (as it is almost always male players who complain about this) don’t want their companion to have their own personality and opinions or morality. They effectively want a Sexbot that cheers on whatever the player chooses to do, which is frankly kind of sick, when you get right down to it.
For example, Andreja is the ‘darkest’ of the four romancable companions in vanilla “Starfield”. She is a beast in combat, screaming invectives at your enemies while she mows them down en masse’. She also has the darkest backstory, which I won’t spoil here, but it definitely explains a lot of her morality.
While many think she’s the best companion in the game, a lot of guys complain that she’s “too good”, which is to say, she gets upset if you murder innocent people.
Now there are companions in “Starfield” that you can get via mods who have virtually no morality issues whatsoever, and will cheer on your murder sprees with glee. There is also at least one mod that removes the ability for vanilla companions to lose Affinity when you make choices they normally would disagree with. Effectively, their ability to disagree has been removed.
Sarah disliked that. As do I.
Now I know these are just video games we’re talking about here, but it also points out an issue that is a bit disturbing. These games are effectively power fantasies, right? So when it comes to these Incels complaining that their companions complain too much, what they are really saying is this.
In their fantasies, their romance partners can’t say No. In those fantasies, their partners are lobotomized Sexbots with guns.
No wonder that no woman in their right mind would f**k these guys. You can sense the Misogyny wafting off of them from 30 feet away.
Meanwhile, I’ll be romancing Sarah in one universe, Andreja in the next, then taking a universe off the next trip through the Unity, just because. I don’t whine that they are hard-coded to dislike murder and other egregious acts, because that’s basic Human morals. If I wanted to play with a companion that cheers while I murder innocents, I’d… no, wait, I wouldn’t do that anyway, so any companion will do.
Sheesh, I have to wonder about people sometimes. Maybe they should go play more “Grand Theft Auto”?
