Steam News6 March 20265mo ago

Meet Bob: The Immortal, Highly Irritated Testing Dummy

Bob Wasn’t Supposed to Exist During an early internal review of some creature concepts from one of our devs, the whole team instantly fell in love with them. The boblets were almost too cute to fight.

In this update9

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Full Fading Echo update

Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.

What changed

0 fixes0 additions13 changes1 removal

Events
Gameplay
UI and audio
Store

changed⚙️ The Bastion ProblemAround the same time, we were wrestling with a gameplay challenge.

removed📖 Bob in the EchoverseVellum eventually removed Bob’s ability to clone.

changed📖 Bob in the EchoverseImmortality sounds impressive.

changedHis body language leans into:Exaggeration

changedHis body language leans into:Defiance

changedHis body language leans into:Mild existential frustration

Fading Echo changes

changedAround the same time, we were wrestling with a gameplay challenge.

removedVellum eventually removed Bob’s ability to clone.

changedImmortality sounds impressive.

changedExaggeration

changedDefiance

Bob Wasn’t Supposed to Exist

During an early internal review of some creature concepts from one of our devs, the whole team instantly fell in love with them. The boblets were almost too cute to fight.

Someone joked: “It would be sad to kill those.”

Then the idea escalated.

What if one of them was unkillable? What if he always came back, no matter what you did?

His name would be Bob.

⚙️ The Bastion Problem

Around the same time, we were wrestling with a gameplay challenge.

We needed a way to test perks and abilities inside the Bastion.

Our early solutions involved dedicated rooms, basins, and structured testing environments. It was growing into a system of its own. Complex. Heavy. Starting to feel over-engineered.

Then one night, during a narrative call with one of our writers, everything clicked.

What if Bob wasn’t just a joke? What if he was the solution?

Instead of building complex systems, Bob could become the in-world answer. A living, persistent character players could use to test perks directly.

We pitched it back to the team.

It immediately made sense.

From Design Tool to Character

Bob stopped being a design workaround.

He became a presence.

We leaned into his personality:

The Parisian attitude
The slight arrogance
The “I can’t die, and I’m annoyed about it” energy

Little by little, he started taking more and more room in the game.

And that’s when Bob truly began.

📖 Bob in the Echoverse

Bob is classified as a Wonder, created by Vellum as part of an artistic experiment in shaping lifeforms with Aether.

Originally designed to clean the Bastion and assist the Kelevra in transporting Aether out of Corel, Bob proved… too efficient.

He began duplicating himself to make the work easier.

That quickly spiraled.

The population exploded. The boblets embedded themselves into Corel’s alien ecosystem, drawn instinctively to Aether and those who wield it.

Vellum eventually removed Bob’s ability to clone.

In the process, he accidentally made him immortal.

This is Bob’s only true power.

Immortality sounds impressive.

Bob disagrees.

🌀 Animation Spotlight

Once Bob became more than a system, his animation had to match his attitude.

His body language leans into:

Exaggeration
Defiance
Mild existential frustration

Even when he gets knocked down… he gets back up again.

Every time.

🎙 Giving Bob a Voice

When Bob evolved from design solution to character, we knew he needed a voice that could balance charm, theatrical irritation, and absurd immortality.

That’s where Sam Riegel came in.

His performance helped solidify Bob’s tone, pushing the Parisian attitude and bringing to life a character who technically cannot die… but very much complains about it.