Starfield Makes You Friends With The Worst Parent In The Multiverse

09.10.2023 - 14:15 / screenrant.com / Sam Coe

In , players will spend time with several members of Constellation — the society of spacefaring explorers — but one member stands out for all the wrong reasons, thanks to terrible parenting skills, which are possibly the worst in the multiverse. The cowboy hat-wearing Sam Coe is one of the most distinct companions in, thanks in part to his anachronistic appearance but more so due to his daughter, Cora Coe. Cora is the archetypal precocious youth, a 12-year-old girl with knowledge well beyond her years. Sam repeatedly endangers Cora throughout ’s story, making him an unfit parent, before committing the most profound act of child abandonment possible.

Some may think Sam is one of s best companions, thanks to his charm and the complexity of his backstory. Though Sam may be likable, his insistence on bringing his preteen daughter along on dangerous missions already renders his parenting skills suspect. Perhaps the developers thought the dialogue exchanges with Cora on the ship added energy and character development to Sam’s missions. Sam does not bring Cora into the field to dodge gunfire, but she could be onboard for spaceship battles outside the atmosphere of planets. Whatever value Cora’s presence might bring to the game’s storytelling, few players can ignore the fact that Sam is putting his child in danger.

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Not every Constellation member acts as a field agent, as several remain behind at the Constellation Lodge on New Atlantis. Vladimir generally stays at The Eye, the space station from which he locates the sites where the player uncovers additional powers. Cora could have interacted with the player and her father during visits to the Lodge, but has Sam insist she accompany him on missions. This already casts Sam’s parenting skills in a poor light, but it is ’s endgame that provides the most damning evidence. Bringing Cora on away missions is at least a way to keep her close, but Sam ultimately abandons her profoundly.

Players who speed towards ’s ending or complete it after exploring myriad side quests eventually learn the secret of the artifacts and discover the method to reach Unity at the center of the universe. Breaching Unity allows a human to become a Starborn, a process in which their physical body is destroyed and reconstituted in an entirely new universe. There are no “family packages” allowed when becoming a Starborn. Each person is separated from everyone they know and love in exchange for the chance to explore another reality. Sam not only elects to enter Unity himself, he allows his 12-year-old daughter to do the same.

By the final stages of ’s main story, Sam is fully aware that being a Starborn is dangerous. The eternal feud between The