10 Harmless-Looking Video Game Enemies That Completely Wrecked You

There’s a bit of an in-joke among Half-Life players that involves the game’s scientists. These harmless NPCs somehow managed to annoy some fans so badly that they took it upon themselves to shoot the defenceless men of science in the face. There are even mods for Half-Life 2 that let you murder them in creative ways.

Now, what if the scientist whipped out a shotgun and blasted you back to your last auto-save. Would be quite the surprise, eh?

Well, this scenario isn’t imaginary. Video gaming is replete with regular mooks who don’t look threatening but are itching to make you pay for picking on the little guy.

Some take the form of hilarious easter eggs, some recurring series enemies, and some make you go ‘Oooh, pretty,’ only to rend you limb from limb. And some come down to good old fashioned developer pranking.

Whatever the method, these are ten of the finest examples of enemies that looked like weaksauce but were anything but, breathing new life into the old adage that you never judge a book by its cover.

Nothing could be less threatening than a wooden chest. It’s the dopamine factory of RPGs, reliably doling out loot for adventurers eager to find that perfect weapon, a fat stack of gold, or just a badly needed health potion. Developers know this and know that after putting you through hell the reward needs to be worth the effort.

Then some sadistic prankster at FromSoftware decided that it would be fun to pull a fast one and replace the promise of juicy loot with a face full of razor-sharp teeth.

And as a first class Gotcha! moment, mimics play their part to perfection. Leaping to horrifying life they chomp down on the Chosen Undead’s head, doing a ton of damage and handing unsuspecting players the fright of their life.

Spot the evil shape shifter early and it will get up on spindly legs and attack, and with significant hit points, unnerving speed and high damage they can easily wreck players.

Veteran players know the trick to tell a mimic from a chest and with that experience the chuckling impostor turns from terror to nuisance, but even so, any lapse in concentration and the Mimic can, and will, make you regret it.