that would be awesome.

edited to add:
different animation skeleton than player characters and existing Companions does sadly mean this is very unlikely to happen.
Currently all Companions are able to use
- the same animations as any humanoid character.
These animations are hundreds of animations used in Combat abilities, idling, movement.
- our Costumes.
- our Outfit Styles.
- our mounts.
- the same assets we have access to as appearance collectibles.


i imagine we might possibly eventually get different kind of Companion with limited customisation and combat animations compared to existing Companions,
as Wolves, Senche-raht, Minotaur and other kinds of non humanoid Companions have been requested a lot.

Senche-raht diversity is currently just a few mounts and a few specific characters like Caska.
There are animations for movement and talking, but the combat is i believe closer to Warden's Feral Guardian


adding the still relevant quote from the 2023 Companions Q&A:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7937639/#Comment_7937639

Q: I know early on when the Companion system was announced that one of the devs claimed they'd be fully new characters instead of old characters from sidequests. Are there any thoughts on diverting from this?Secondly, has a non-humanoid companion ever been thought of? Perhaps a non-humanoid Daedra, or a wild animal (dual wielding Warden bears anyone?) or even just a doggo! It'd be interesting to see ESO writers come up with interesting stories for taming an animal, or binding/"befriending" a Daedra!

PD: We are very interested in exploring and expanding the types of companions we introduce over time but there are a number of thematic and technical challenges associated with certain directions. Making companions of existing characters runs into situations where you can have an active companion on a quest involving another version of themselves. This gets even trickier as we often have characters reappearing in new content (and sometimes meeting a final end), all of which complicates companion use further. Having companions be newly introduced characters gives an opportunity for both us and the players to form a new relationship without preconceptions or past experiences coloring or limiting the dynamic.
Non-humanoid companions are an interesting avenue to explore, but in many cases would radically limit the amount of customization and combat options available, so it’s something that will take more investigation and potentially even expansion of the system to fully realize.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The way the Companion system currently functions, it is not possible to have a Companion that does not use the humanoid skeleton.

In order to keep the general skills useable by all companions (guild and weapon), each Companion would need to use those animations. Any skeleton that does not have those set up would need to be added in later.

Revamping the entire Companion system to make one single Companion work is a huge ask, and is indicative of dev time that could go elsewhere. Frankly, I’d rather use that time to make something players could use (like a new Class or weapon line), rather than just another entire rework of the Companion system when not all players use it in the first place and we already have eight choices thereof. Future Companions just using the existing system would be significantly less dev time and bring just as much as any other Companion.

you could always just give that one companion a unique set of skills you can choose from (so more options within is unique skill line but nothing outside of it)... not everything has to be the same

On the other end of the spectrum, I want an Alfiq companion Tiny claws and magicy tail.

I'd settle for Alfiq in cute outfits for Deconstruction and Armory assistants though.

I'd like to get a Werewolf Companion. A character who is a werewolf during their questline and has access to a Companion version of the player's Werewolf skill line, but still uses the humanoid rig outside of form so they can still have a Class, use Weapon/Guild skills, and wear an Outfit that the player picks for them. Unfortunately, Tanlorin set the precedent that World skills are Class skills, so we'll see how this is implemented.

As stated by others above, a Senche-raht (or other non-humanoid characters, such as an actual wolf akin to Pack Leader's direwolves) could not work as a Companion given these conditions it fails to meet. Companions are more than just combat pets. I can't imagine wanting a Companion who is locked out of several Companion features because they're incompatible.