10 Video Game NPCs With Awesome Details You Totally Missed

It’s common for gamers to sing the praises of Portal (and its sequel), but usually, that’s for a fantastic concept (with spectacular execution) and a cracking sense of humour.

Though GlaDOS’ voice actor, Ellen McLain, gave us a superb and rightly respected performance, Stephen Merchant’s Wheatley doesn’t get nearly as much attention, despite being (in my opinion) on par with McLain’s offering.

I say this because... though Wheatley’s constant prattling in Portal 2 makes you laugh and gurn with frustration in equal measure... it plays perfectly into his designated purpose - he’s the Intelligence Dampening Sphere.

In a few easily missable mentions, we discover that Wheatley’s entire purpose was to “generate a constant stream of terrible ideas” to inhibit GlaDOS’ intelligence; to stupefy and neuter her ever-growing cleverness, before he was replaced by a “Morality Core”. Assumedly, the less torturous option.

So, though the protagonist, Chell, is eager to escape and has no real option but to work alongside the babbling little orb even if his plans were a bit naff, you can’t be too hard on the lad - they were never ever going to work out... his ideas are rubbish by design.