"All the survival gear and payload capacity needed" Starfield teases its first look at utility-based travel companion Vasco

Starfield, Bethesda's upcoming all-new sci-fi role-playing game IP, releases this November.

An off-shoot of the monthly dev diaries, which showcase different aspects of the game, introduced Vasco via a mini-feature. This is the first character from Starfield Bethesda to be revealed so far, and there could probably be more to come.

Vasco is a robotic companion, whose abilities are utility-focused. It will be part of a long lineage of robotic companions from Bethesda-published Fallout games: Sergeant RL-3 in Fallout 3; ED-E in Fallout: New Vegas; and Codsworth in Fallout 4.

Of the three, Vasco's "utilitarian" nature seems to align most with Codsworth, the 'Mister Handy' domestic-model homemaker.

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The name of the newly teased Starfield robotic companion refers to Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama

As per the second episode of Starfield dev diary, Starfield is "made for wanderers.” Bethesda's open worlds, as seen in Fallout 3, Skyrim, Morrowind, and Oblivion, have always been designed with a sense of wonder.

Weaving worlds like this is Bethesda's strong suit, being the chief component of what makes the first playthrough of these games so compelling. Needless to say, the astronomical world of Starfield will be no different.

Todd Howard mentioned in the aforementioned dev diary that what players think about most are the stories they create for themselves "...and the companions." 'Made for Wanderers' provided the first glimpse of the player's first companion, Vasco.

It is only befitting that the utility-centric robotic friend has been named after Vasco da Gama, the first Portuguese explorer to proverbially connect the Orient and the West.

The featurette went on to explain:

"Vasco's design is based on a standard Type-A bipedal chassis capable of traversing rough terrain, along with all the survival gear, and payload capacity needed for extended overland journeys."

Aside from its manifest role as a pack mule, a trait taken for granted in companions seen across Bethesda role-playing games, the player's second-in-command comes with the ship. The robotic boatswain is manufactured by none other than Constellation, 'the last group of space explorers', of which the player is a part.

Despite its military capabilities, its implicit selling point as a companion will be its utility. Drawing parallels from Fallout games, Vasco will be a companion suited towards auxiliary soft-skills like Repair, Science, and Lockpick. Specialization in a particular set of skills is also found in previous Fallout and Elder Scrolls companions.

Thus, it will be interesting to see how companions in this game take their specialization one step further.