A new Starfield mod has gone out of its way to buff the Adoring Fan - the iconic (and rather irritating) companion character first seen in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. 

The Adoring Fan is one of Starfield’s most infamous NPCs, solely due to his old Oblivion roots. Since Oblivion’s release, he became an icon of annoyance, following players around incessantly and praising everything they do. In the 2006 game, it is possible to get rid of him, but it’s not exactly straightforward - hence the internet’s glorious reaction when it was first confirmed that he’d be donning a space suit to follow you to the depths of space in Starfield.

In Starfield, the Adoring Fan will accompany you if you select the ‘Hero Worshiped’ trait when you create your character. Again, you don’t have to be stuck with him forever, but assuming that you enjoy his company and would like to transform him into an unstoppable “combat machine,” then Nexus Mods user InquisitorOverhaulsReturn has got you covered.

‘Juiced Adoring Fan’ gives the infamous NPC four new perks, as well as rank four in Sharpshooting, Ballistics, Marksmanship and Rifle Certification. That’s an enormous upgrade on his current skills, which are currently only really helpful for carrying things and scavenging. In addition, he’ll also give players five times more gifts than usual. 

“I wanted to make him really strong for people who would like him to be more combat based,” the mod’s description reads. “Vanilla [Adoring Fan] is useless. So this makes him a combat machine.”

It’s always worth keeping in mind with unofficial mods like these to exercise caution before downloading them, but if you want to check it out, you can find it on Nexus Mods.

Modders have been hard at work adding new features and changes to Starfield ever since it launched. It took very little time for us to get a mod that replaces the flashlight’s rays with a projection of game director Todd Howard’s face, for example. Official modding tools are on the way to Starfield at some point next year, too, at which point we can probably expect even more fan-made tweaks and changes to become available.

If you love Starfield, you can find some fantastic game recommendations on our lists of the best RPGs, as well as the best open-world games on PC.