10 Iconic Video Game Characters Created By Fans
4. Giant Death Robots - Civilization V
Giant Death Robots were introduced in Civilization V as an elite unit and by far the toughest in the entire game - an extremely powerful and fast-moving melee machine equipped with missiles, Gatling Gun arms, and laser eyes that more than lives up to its imposing namesake.
But Giant Death Robots weren't the mere creation of developers Firaxis Games - they were first dreamt up by "Perfection," a member of the CivFanatics message board, who in 2004 made a now-legendary 1000-word essay post where he outlined his desire for the murderous machines to join the fray.
Though Firaxis ultimately toned his vision down somewhat - there's no sign of Power Rangers anywhere - the broader strokes are all there, and a revised, Pacific Rim-style variant was subsequently introduced for the sixth game.
For a glorified joke/possibly-drunk message board post to snowball into an actual video game character many years later is nothing if not a testament to the wish-fulfilling potential of video games.