10 Video Game NPCs Who Could've Solved EVERYTHING (But Didn't)
These NPCs had all the power to fix everything. And they screwed it up.
Let’s be honest - the overwhelming majority of NPCs in video games are pretty damn useless. Or at least, their agency is often limited to pointing the player in the direction of the next quest and maybe, just maybe, offering some backup during combat.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, as proven by these NPCs who were all oh-so-much better equipped to fix things than the game was ever prepared to admit.
In short, these NPCs had the tools, the weapons, the knowledge, or perhaps even the sheer natural ability, to rectify major issues in these games in perhaps a matter of seconds.
But instead they didn’t offer their services when it mattered most, or just failed to appreciate how gosh-darn useful they could’ve been in saving the whole damn world.
Whether simply not doing something or actively trolling us by flat-out refusing, these 10 video game NPCs held some serious trump cards which they bafflingly didn’t bother playing.
The lesson here? Never count on a digital comrade to have your back when the chips are down…
10. Fawkes - Fallout 3
The original version of Fallout 3 climaxed on an absolute damp squib, popcorn fart of an ending, with players forced to choose who will enter the irradiated control room and activate a water purifier, saving the local populace albeit at the cost of their own life.
You're given two options - sacrifice yourself or send Sarah Lyons into the control room instead. And yet, this flatly ignores the fact that one of your close companions, Fawkes, is radiation-immune and could easily perform the task by himself without anyone having to die.
If you bring this up to him before making your decision, though, he'll fob you off with the obvious bulls**t excuse that he doesn't want to get in the way of your destiny or whatever, even if it means your death.
It's tough not to watch this play out and assume that Bethesda failed to account for Fawkes while devising this final dilemma, yet following the vocal and justified fan outcry, the Broken Steel DLC finally allowed players to let Fawkes and other radiation-immune companions get their hands dirty instead.