One of the many traits available to players in Starfield will be called Hero Worshipped. “You’ve earned the attention of an annoying ‘Adoring Fan’ who will show up randomly and jabber at you incessantly,” the trait description says. “On the plus side, he’ll give you gifts…” Sound familiar?
The Adoring Fan is an (in)famous Bosmer NPC in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, who all but worships the player for becoming Grand Champion of the Arena. You can take him on as a follower if you like—he’ll offer to carry your weapon, shine your boots, or even give you a backrub—but you probably won’t want to because he is incredibly aggravating.
He’s also incredibly fragile and useless in a fight, but that’s okay because he’s also immortal: If he dies in battle (and he will), he’ll come back to life a few days later to resume his irritating ways.
Imagine this, all the time:
The presence of an adoring fan came to light in a preview video released last year, but it wasn’t until today’s big Starfield Direct showcase that we got an actual look at him. And hoo boy, does he look a lot like his predecessor.
Dare to compare!
Uncanny, right? I can’t decide which of them I want to smack first.
But it’s not just a physical resemblance: Like his Elder Scrolls counterpart, Starfield’s adoring fan takes hero worship to a whole new level of bothersome. Here he is in action:
He’s got to have every molecule. Yeah, he’s not just annoying, he’s also a little creepy.
Starfield’s adoring fan might be a little more practical than the fellow from Oblivion, depending on the nature of his “gifts,” and if you’re not interested you can just skip the trait entirely. Traits are optional and, much like in Fallout, have both positive and negative effects—they’re generally more of a “flavor” aspect of character creation than a core element, so they can be taken or left depending on how eager you are to embrace particular bits of strangeness.
Starfield comes out on September 6. If you didn’t catch it live, here’s Bethesda’s full Starfield Direct showcase.
