I’m jumping to a new planet in Starfield and my space cowboy companion Sam Coe needs to have a serious conversation. He launches into a long story about his estranged partner but he’s facing the wrong way. Stuck on a ladder in the middle of my ship, he tells his sad tale to a blank wall.
Restarting the conversation helps a little. Sam is looking at me now, but his mouth and eyebrows are operating on different wavelengths. Occasionally his face settles on a recognisable expression, but the in-between moments – as he reorganises his wayward features – are deeply strange. All the while he stands stock-still and completely upright, like a toy soldier stuck in his plastic packaging.
Like all of Starfield’s characters, he does not touch anything, or anyone. He does not eat. He does not use the bathroom. Sam Coe rotates on the spot and delivers his lines until the next stage of his personal side quest unlocks. Sam Coe is a horrible, distorted facsimile of a human being.
