It goes way further back than Wikipedia claims (2019). Hell, CoD: Ghosts made a huge deal about your canine companion’s interaction when they announced it, and I remember petting the dog was a meme back then (2013).
It’s on the timeline around amusing 4th wall breaking idle animations and attacking a neutral character invoking a deadly/game-ending response tropes. I’m sure there were even text based games where animals just served as a way to waste a player’s turn. The main one I remember is Black & White because it actually had some learning algorithms that trained your pet to be good or evil. Interesting game for the time.
Maybe because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_You_Pet_the_Dog%3F
It goes way further back than Wikipedia claims (2019). Hell, CoD: Ghosts made a huge deal about your canine companion’s interaction when they announced it, and I remember petting the dog was a meme back then (2013).
It’s on the timeline around amusing 4th wall breaking idle animations and attacking a neutral character invoking a deadly/game-ending response tropes. I’m sure there were even text based games where animals just served as a way to waste a player’s turn. The main one I remember is Black & White because it actually had some learning algorithms that trained your pet to be good or evil. Interesting game for the time.