10 Background Video Game Characters That Change EVERYTHING

In Gears of War 5, the frozen (and astonishingly well-preserved, let's be real here) body of Niles is a pretty morbid piece of set dressing in the New Hope Research facility. Having died during the initial Locust revolt at Mount Kadar, he quickly uploaded his essence into a computer, making himself the 180p antagonist for Gear of War 2.

However, as the story unfolds across the many installments of the game, his role becomes steadily more crucial. Initially tasked with studying pediatric-Rustlung in the children of Imulsion miners and, ideally, to find a cure, his work led him down a darker and darker rabbit hole that would eventually birth the entire Locust horde.

Being something of a mad scientist he'd begun using cross-species genetic manipulation and, when combined with a woman named Myrrah's natural immunity, accidentally created an entire race of subterranean mutants that destroyed civilisation as they knew it. Which, as a prop in a chair goes, is a pretty staggering legacy to have left.

Incidentally, the official Gears of War Wiki listing him as Weapons: None, Hair Colour: Bald, is the most savage epitath I think I've ever read.