12 More Enjoyably Dumb Things Gamers Do We Can't Explain

5. Shooting NPCs To See What Happens

rainbow six siege hostage
Ubisoft

Gamers are curious and inquisitive by nature - as previously mentioned, they'll sacrifice their own body to make sure developers coded fire properly - and that extends to potential punishment they can deal out to NPCs.

Testing whether or not other characters in a game actually react to your actions, it's impossible to not hit, shoot or stab one of the friendly NPCs to see if the devs have turned friendly fire on, and if you'll get in trouble for making their life hell.

The beauty is, it's often a game of chance. Some studios attempt to make everything reactive to the player - for instance, hitting somebody in Red Dead Redemption 2 will usually result in them chasing you on horseback - while others don't care what you do with NPCs, and the characters will just stand there while you pelt them with eggs like nothing is actually happening.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.