Why More Games Should Have Companions

In my opinion, games should have more companions, not less. I am all for the single player experience but having someone watching your back is something to be cherished rather than derided. Fallout does this very well, giving you companions like Fawkes in Fallout 3, Boone in Fallout New Vegas and Nick Valentine in Fallout 4. All three of these particular characters enabled you to take those challenges that might have been out of your reach if you were attempting them on your own.

So should we have more of them? I would always say yes, but the companion needs to fit the game. Elizabeth in Bioshock:Infinite is the perfect companion. She finds you vigours, ammo and health kits and hides when the shit hits the fan. The partnership between Booker and Elizabeth made the game that much more real and gave you even more backstory to get lost in. She probably wouldn’t work quite so well in Fallout or Resident Evil. Even someone like Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2 way back in 2002 gave us a glimpse of what a useful AI companion could add to a game. She was funny, useful and, at times, life-saving.

When it comes to games like Fallout or Skyrim, I think they benefit hugely from characters you get who become your companions. Not only can they carry all the useless crap that you’ve accumulated throughout the game, but they also provide you with some much needed backup when you’re about to be overrun.

Some would say that by having a buddy by your side, it detracts from the overall experience and probably makes you worse off as a player as you may have to constantly rely on your mates to come and save you when you go in guns blazing. The whole point of the single player campaign in most games is that you do it by yourself: you conquer the world, kill the dragon and rescue the princess by yourself. Mario didn’t need any help nor did Solid Snake. So really, followers or companions could potentially make you a worse player.

I would have to agree to a point, when playing Skyrim I frequently let Lydia or Erandur take on much bigger enemies whilst I sat back and watched from a distance. Giving them arms and armour only served to make them even harder to kill, thus giving me less impetus to go in and start giving people impromptu haircuts with my sword.

So do companions or followers make for a better game? I would say they do but it certainly depends on the type of game. Looking at games like Skyrim, Fallout, Bioshock they are undoubtedly much, much better when you’ve got someone with you. The same goes for Half-Life 2, The Last of Us, Mass Effect – all of those games have benefitted from companions. Even Assassin’s Creed had the novel idea of ‘initiates’ who could do assassinations for you, although it defeated the objective of being an assassin. It made Ezio look like he could just sit back and chill out whilst eager unpaid interns did his dirty work in public.

Horror games could do with a few more companions or followers just to make life that little bit easier against the zombie hordes. Maybe future games would benefit from a similar type of thought process. However, whilst I will always take a follower with me whilst venturing into a cave or into a vault I would have to say that the companions fit the game.

You couldn’t take the idea of a follower like Lydia or Nick Valentine and put them into a game like Call of Duty or Watch Dogs. Elizabeth would only work in a Bioshock type game or maybe something like Deus Ex. So really what would need to happen would be for any games like Skyrim or Fallout to continue giving the choice of bringing someone with you on your adventures.

Maybe this shows that really I’m just a big softy when it comes to anything remotely scary. In any case, games should have more companions, not less. They make for a better experience, help you with carrying all the stuff you don’t want and have your back when you need them most.