10 Video Game NPCs With Awesome Details You Totally Missed
There's a lot you didn't N-P-see.
It's often good to judge the quality of a game’s world-building by how much you care for its NPCs.
Now, before we get any further, it’s important to note that though the term “NPC” normally applies to a non-player (or, alternatively, non-playable) character found in the game world, it can also be extended to the supporting cast in a general sense. You don’t play as Navi or Shenhua, do you?
Though some NPCs exist as nothing more than furniture, window-dressing, or exposition-dumps, the really good NPCs make you care about their existence, their preservation, their happiness, and that’s normally because of solid writing, design, art and animation.
Whether that’s a charismatic superstar like the cyber lizard birdman Garrus, from Mass Effect, or the determined and powerful Tess from The Last Of Us, a great NPC can, if they’re interesting enough, eclipse the main character in terms of charm (how often have you said, “why can’t we have a game about him/her instead?”).
Still - even those NPC superstars you couldn’t get enough of may still have been hiding a few interesting titbits of information that eluded you, and so it’s my job to detail some personal favourites.
10. The Second Pyramid Head Is Eddie’s - Silent Hill 2
This one is still open to debate, but since that’s Silent Hill’s disgusting, pulsing bread and butter, I feel it fits. Tinfoil hats on, folks!
James, the game’s protagonist, meets Eddie, a heavily-bullied and mentally-disturbed individual, near the start of Silent Hill 2. Vomiting in a room next-door to a mutilated corpse, James remarks that they died unlike all the other creatures he’s encountered, and it’s implied Eddie murdered them.
Pyramid Head is a creature which feeds on personal guilt. James has it in spades, and so does Eddie - his thinly-veiled apathy cracks several times during the game as he lashes out violently (not unlike James, himself), before returning to eating pizza.
During a puzzle in the prison, James notices there are actually two Pyramid Heads on the plaque (despite only one pursuing him, and Eddie being the only other person who has seen one) - part of a puzzle which includes plates depicting The Oppressor (James), with the other being The Glutton, and The Seductress.
Given that the only other people we meet are Eddie, a glutton, and Angela, a victim of sexual violence (someone who has already been punished), could the second Pyramid Head be there for Eddie?