Boy and Beast Bonding
Right from the start, one of the things that Platinum Games and designer Hideki Kamiya made clear about Scalebound was that the bond between Drew and Thuban was the core of the game. This didn’t just extend to the simple stuff, wherein more abilities (both in terms of traversal and combat) would be unlocked as the two characters bonded throughout the course of the game. Their lives were quite literally tied to each other via the health bar; if Thuban fell in battle, then so would Drew, and vice versa. Even the simple act of being able to ride Thuban was planned to be locked off at the beginning, presented as something you would have to earn the right to do once the two of you understood each other.
It’s easy to think of How to Train Your Dragon when discussing how the bond between these two would’ve progressed. Thuban may lack Toothless’ adorable charm or clipped fin, but it makes up for that in being Trico levels of enormous. 2016 saw the release of The Last Guardian, which everyone knew would nail the bond between boy and beast. But the surprise hit to that established trope was Titanfall 2’s dynamic between Jack Cooper and BT-7274 in its single player campaign.
It wasn’t likely that Thuban was ever going to talk in Scalebound–or at least, not with the eloquence or deadpan delivery of BT–but The Last Guardian and Titanfall 2 could’ve served as glowing examples for how to handle the dynamic between Drew and his dragon. It’s the little touches that can make a game, whether that’d be petting Thuban after a well fought battle or pressing a button to unlock a short burst of dialogue between the two as Drew does his own thing.
