Meet Vasco - Streaming Companion
In September 2023, gaming studio Bethesda, launched ‘Starfield’ - their first new original game world in over 25 years!
Embarking on an open world adventure, players can partner with VASCO, an indispensable robotic friend, designed to assist travellers on gaming missions.
In order to allow both everyday streamers and big name influencers alike to take VASCO out of the game and into the world of live streaming, we created a companion extension. With a simple click of a link, the gaming masses could install VASCO to their stream and interact with the peaceful droid on air!
Our approach
The challenges for our skilled 3D team included: Optimising the game’s high-poly, official 3D robot model for a streaming voyage to avoid latency live; replicating the character’s in-game movements through a set of five custom, unique animations; and faithfully translating the bot’s personality on screen for an enhanced, engaging viewing experience.
Leaning on our vast experience building streamer & producer-friendly products for Twitch, our development team programmed a series of Chat and keyboard commands to enable influencers to trigger the bespoke animations at key moments in-stream.
The results
Unlike traditional Twitch campaigns, the companion tool didn’t rely on a high-profile streamer to launch the activation; this was a fully democratised experience, allowing anyone, anywhere to effortlessly add VASCO to their streams via OBS or Twitch Studio, through one click via a dedicated scrolling microsite. No needfor additional extensions, plugins, or apps!
VASCO became an overnight Bethesda fan favourite and organically popped up on hundreds of Twitch streams worldwide, with a combined reach of over 2 million subscribers.
Notable enthusiastic streamers included Burkeblack (307.4k followers), Rikkichuu (14.3k followers) and TweetyExpert (19.2k followers) who all took VASCO on their galactic voyages.
Critically acclaimed by both games journalists and players alike, Starfield launched with premium early-access release in June, skyrocketing to the most-viewed title on Twitch with a peak of around 500,00 views.
With VASCO charming and entertaining audiences here on Planet Earth, we created a completely new way for fans to engage with high-profile IP while helping support the ongoing engagement of the Starfield launch.
Starfield maintained a high viewer count in the months leading up to the game’s official launch on 6th of September, and since launch has had over 12 million players, becoming a dominating game’s title in 2023.
