Starfield doesn’t force the main character to explore its more than 1,000 planets alone, and followers can be a valuable tool in combat. Each companion will be combat ready with their own weapon, but asking them to trade gear will let the player give them a new loadout and choose what items they have equipped. Giving companions good weapons early on when ammo is scarce is a great way to ensure they’re effective while fighting, but putting one other item in their inventory will increase their efficacy even more.
The follower system in Starfield has essentially been inherited from 2006’s The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, which established much of Bethesda Game Studios’ modern formula. Oblivion‘s followers weren’t quite as robust, being effectively blank-slate NPCs that helped out in combat (Fallout 3 two years later would give companions personalities), but they served much the same purpose in combat. Outfitting a follower in Starfield is still a bit clunky, requiring a short conversation to get to their inventory, but it’s likely a routine players will grow familiar with if they frequently use companions to haul loot.
Give Your Starfield Companions A Grenade
Likely for the sake of convenience, followers don’t expend ammo and throwables in Starfield. For instance, giving a companion a weapon that uses 7.77mm Caseless ammo only requires them to have a single 7.77mm Caseless bullet in their inventory – they’ll never run out. The same applies to grenades, which can be extremely effective in combat. Compared to ammo, which is found in abundance, grenades are relatively scarce, and best saved for tougher enemies, or when a group of foes can all be caught in the blast radius. Followers won’t have to be cognizant of their throwable reserves, though, and adding a grenade to their arsenal significantly increases their firepower.
Starfield Followers Can Be Very Effective In Combat
Romancing companions and doing their personal side quests are generally the highlights of having them in Starfield, but giving them the right equipment can also help tremendously in combat. Followers are effectively invulnerable – they take damage but can’t be killed, only downed. Even if a companion falls during a fight, they’ll get back up when all the enemies have been cleared. Adding grenades to the mix only makes them more effective, and players will only have to part with one.
It can be tempting to hoard all the best weapons for oneself, but it’s arguably better to give them to a companion. Generally, more powerful weapons have rarer ammo, or they eat through bullets very quickly, but giving a minigun or grenade launcher to a follower circumvents this issue. Equipping grenades on a follower will similarly alleviate the anxiety about using some of the more valuable variants, like Incendiary or Cryo Grenades. As long as players stay within star systems reccommended for their level or below, there usually won’t be too much of a threat, but every once in a while, having a Starfield companion with plenty of grenades to throw can get Constellation out of hot water.
