Fallout 4 fans will surely remember Dogmeat, the faithful four-legged companion in the dark apocalypse. Its real role model has now joined its ancestors.
As Joel Burgess, Senior Designer of Fallout 4 announced on Twitter, the team has a bereavement to report. River, the German shepherd that inspired Dogmeat from Fallout 4, has passed away.
I said goodbye today to River, who most of you know as Fallout 4’s Dogmeat.
Heartbroken doesn’t cover it, but I won’t eulogize her here. For twitter, I thought it’d be appropriate to look back at her impact on that game.
(plus, writing about game dev hurts less than grieving) pic.twitter.com/ayN1Vd6oqQ
— Joel Burgess (@JoelBurgess) June 27, 2021
In a long, emotional Twitter thread with lots of photos, Burgess tells the story of how River became Dogmeat. Among other things, he describes the long search for a suitable German Shepherd, because you didn’t just want to integrate a four-legged fighting machine, but a comrade and friend for the main character of the game.
The bitch was not only characterized by her behavior, but above all her diverse facial expressions. River even won an award for Top Video Game Dog of 2015 at CW’s World Dog Awards. Even River’s movements served as a model for Dogmeat and the audio recordings were also made by her.
