The ambitiously named RWBY: Grimm Eclipse – Definitive Edition has launched today on the Nintendo Switch with little fanfare. Of course, Rooster Teeth and the game’s publisher Aspyr did not have to invest much into the marketing of the game, considering it’s RWBY and it’s bound to sell a 7 million copies anyway. Still, the game’s release was shrouded in mystery, and many fans had important questions in their minds: “Will the local co-op be split-screen or will the second player awkwardly only see what the first player is looking at?”, “Will JNPR get Volume 7 or Power Armor costumes?”, “Will there be a physical release of the game?” and, of course, “Can you pet the catgirl in the game?”
After extensive research we have come to a definitive answer to all of these questions. The local multiplayer in the game isn’t split-screen and has the second player stumbling about, hoping the first player will graciously move the camera towards them. Sure, they can “steal” the camera for themselves for a bit, but insolence like that is bound to anger the almighty first player, with all of their camera moving power. And no, JNPR gets no new costumes (they still have the four costume packs from the bundled-in DLC). No so far to the physical release as well, but Aspyr has partnered with physical-game distributor Limited Run Games before, so there is a chance. As for the petting the catgirl… It’s complicated…
Successfully petting the dog in the videogame has been a long-running effort by video game players for a long while, but it exploded in popularity after the launch of Twitter’s CanYouPetTheDog account in March 2019. Even now, the account researches and looks into whether it is possible to pet or otherwise interact with dogs or, rarely, dog-adjacent creatures. To our knowledge, however, the account has not yet attempted to research the pettability of catgirls. It is our duty, then, to find it out for the sake of the entire community.
The obvious question some of you may have is: “What about dogs in the game? Can you pet the dog in RWBY:GE-DE?” Unfortunately, the show’s beloved dog Zwei is nowhere present in the game, so his pettability can only be hypothesized. Since the game is severely lacking in dogs (and no, Beowulf don’t count), we’re finding out if you’re able to pet Blake, the catgirl, in the game. And the answer? Eh… yes, if you put in some effort.
Going by the strict rules of CanYouPetTheDog’s Twitter account, “manual input resulting in visual representation of petting is required for affirmation.” If you flex that definition just right, you can press a combination of buttons to have a visual representation that’s similar to a pet, if you squint and use your imagination. Here’s how to do it.
Using local multiplayer, pick Weiss and Blake using whichever costumes. Have both of them move close to the camera, with Blake standing two steps from the left of Weiss. Blake has to look towards Weiss while Weiss has to give her the cold shoulder and should be looking straight ahead, 90 degrees away from Blake. Press the taunt button for Weiss, then exactly 0.69 seconds later press the taunt button for Blake. The result will be a crouching Blake and a Weiss that elegantly puts her hand on top of the catgirls head. There you go, a pet.
Can other characters replicate it? Pyrrha, given sufficient elevation, can taunt 0.8 seconds after Blake does, also giving a similar illusion of a pat on the head from the right angle. Yang can’t pet Blake, but if she’s standing right next to her, she can hug her with her taunt, which is absolutely adorable and totally in character for both her and this website. The others… Aren’t as lucky. Jaune could try taunting to pet Blake but he’s fumbling with his sword during his taunt and could accidentally hurt her. The Grimm also don’t really pet Blake as much as hit her on the head with the intent to dramatically lower her life expectancy.
There you have it! You kind of can pet the catgirl in the game! Did you try petting Blake in this or any other medium?
