In gaming, NPC might stand for non-player characters, but the truth is, they are just as important as the player characters themselves. After all, it's NPCs who, through their writing, behaviors, and stories, make questlines, narratives, and experiences unforgettable. They lend credence to game worlds, giving our stories weight and personality, and sometimes, it just so happens that they end up stealing the spotlight, cementing themselves in our brains forever.

NPCs are a powerful narrative tool in gaming, because they can make us laugh and cry, or help us become better players in general. Heck, some are written so well that they feel real, and become so iconic that they remain in our hearts forever, becoming bigger than their games themselves.

Solaire of Astora – Dark Souls

A beacon of light in one of the darkest worlds ever

I could count on one hand the number of NPCs in the entire Dark Souls franchise I've encountered that were pleasant to be around, and actually had pleasant personalities. That's why Solaire of Astora is definitely one of the most memorable NPCs ever created in recent gaming memory. Dark Souls is a game (and universe) that drips with cruelty and despair, and yet Solaire of Astora stands out as a beacon of warmth, true to his very name. A knight with a ridiculous fascination for the sun, he becomes our one true friend in a world dead-set on hating, killing, and maiming us at every turn.

Seeing him do his "praise the sun" gesture and summoning him to a fight genuinely felt like you were calling upon hope itself, and that's why his memory burns as bright as the sun in the minds of players, even fourteen years later. Solaire's fate can be heartbreakingly grim depending on your choices, but I'd like to believe that his canon fate was the brighter one where he triumphed alongside us. This guy was living and walking proof that even in Lordran, light could always shine through if you wanted it to.

The Bloody Baron – Witcher 3

Nobody ever walked away from the Baron's story with a clear head

Oh, we love a morally gray character we can always have a discourse around, and The Witcher 3's Bloody Baron is written with such humanity, tragedy, and moral grayness that we could talk about him for ten hours, twice over. The game primes you to dislike him from the start, showing him as a drunk, abusive warlord, and yet, by the time his arc is completed, we not only sympathize with his broken family life and personal demons, but also get to experience one of the greatest side quests in all of gaming.

In his desperation to reconcile with his wife and daughter, the Baron becomes humanized for the players, and in a world full of monsters, that's a rarity. No matter what choice you might have made in The Bloody Baron's questline, his story never ends neatly, and that's the point.

Brok and Sindri – God of War (Norse saga)

If Kratos was everyone's dad, they were the uncles

I could definitely have talked about both Brok and Sindri individually and both of them would still have deserved a place on this list equally, but the two brothers from the Norse God of War saga come as a pair, and they sure as Helheim will be remembered as one. In the first game, we meet Brok and Sindri as the blacksmith duo who help Kratos wield his weapons better, but by God of War Ragnarök, they were family. Brok was the loudmouthed, crass blue uncle that our collective dad Kratos got along with more, and Sindri was the more sensitive one who always looked out for the family's best interests.

Even in separation, the two continued to remain such endearing characters individually, and that is where the strength of their writing lies. It's no wonder that the true ending of 2022's Ragnarök and the Norse saga as a whole revolved around Brok and Sindri, and not the war of the realms itself.

Elizabeth – Bioshock Infinite

One of the greatest companion NPCs ever created

For a painstaking number of years, one of the biggest pain points of every gamer was the speed at which NPCs were either slower or faster than your walking speed, and definitely slower when you ran. Plus, they would also keep getting in the damned way, all the time. That's why Elizabeth was such a breath of fresh air for anyone who played BioShock Infinite. A fantastic companion character with a vibrant personality, Elizabeth ran alongside you but never got in the way.

She found resources for you and tossed them to you mid-fight, and her vibrant personality only made it even more impossible not to fawn over her. As the player, you get to see, firsthand, Elizabeth go from a timid and naive girl to a strong woman who comes into her own, and that experience gets doubly rewarding when all the cards are revealed towards the end of the game.

Iron Fist Alexander – Elden Ring

Until we meet again, old friend

Alexander the Warrior Jar is one of the most endearing and respectable NPCs in the entire Soulsborne series of games, and for good reason. A hulking warrior jar with the vibrant personality of a British aristocrat and the aggressive temperament of a Viking, Alexander lived for the fight, always seeking the next battle to improve his skills so he could one day become the greatest warrior in all the realms.

Whether he was helping you fight General Radahn or simply aura-farming while standing in the volcanic lava streams of Mount Gelmir, it was always such a pleasure to run into him and see him be one of the only NPCs who treated us, the Tarnished, with respect for our capabilities. Inarguably (and understandably) an absolute fan-favorite from Elden Ring, Alexander went out in glory, doing what he loved most — sharing the arena with a great warrior, even if that meant crossing swords with someone he had learned to lean on.

Gaunter O'Dimm – The Witcher 3

Peter Littlefinger if he had godly powers

The "Man of Glass" in The Witcher 3 appears harmless at first in the game. He's just a mysterious, slightly unsettling stranger, and, well, there's no shortage of those on The Continent. But as you peel back the layers to him, and the more he reveals himself, you realize that Gaunter O'Dimm is one of the most terrifying NPCs in all the Witcher games. He's a trickster, a devil, and an all-powerful master manipulator who bends mortals to his whims with a smile.

In fact, I do believe that it's O'Dimm's restraint of his power rather than the power itself that makes him so chilling and dangerous. He doesn't scream or rage, or even gloat like other villains. This man speaks next to a fireplace, and you can feel the weight of eternity behind every word. Whether or not your Geralt managed to outwit him, what remains fact is that Gaunter O'Dimm is one of the creepiest and most unforgettable NPCs we've seen in the past decade.

Paarthurnax – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

A wise dragon who breathes philosophy instead of fire

It takes a special kind of game to make you hesitate before slaying a dragon, and Skyrim does exactly that with Paarthurnax. The ancient dragon perched atop the Throat of the World isn't a mindless, fire-breathing beast. Instead, he's a mentor and a philosopher, and he becomes the voice of reason in a world at war. Some of his musings on the balance of power and control of one's nature were so well-written that I even quoted them in my college presentation on Kant.

As such, the dilemma he put us through, about whether we'd slay him because of the Blades' demand, or let him live knowing he once committed horrible atrocities, is an incredibly tough choice to make. At the same time, however, Paarthurnax is the embodiment of the exact moral complexity that makes Skyrim such a timeless game.

Cortana – Halo

I might have had an unrelenting crush on her

It's not an overstatement to say that Halo's legacy rests on two pillars: Master Chief, and Cortana. The AI companion we all met and definitely fell in love with, Cortana is the very soul of the series. She is witty, she is brilliant, and, above all, she is fiercely loyal. Hers was the voice that carried us through lonely corridors and endless firefights, and hers were the posters that lined our bedroom walls (or was that just me?).

Over the course of the Halo games, Cortana's arc develops her from a helper to a hero, and eventually, a tragic friend to look back on and remember. We struggled to see her going out of control, losing her sense of self, and then pulling herself for one last act of self-sacrifice out of her love for Master Chief. NPCs can carry the emotional heart of an entire franchise, and Cortana is irrefutable and unforgettable proof of that.

The Merchant – Resident Evil 4

How does a shopkeeper become so iconic?

While most of the iconic NPCs on this list may have gotten that status through tragedy, grandeur, or deep philosophy, sometimes, what it takes instead is just a gravelly-voiced stranger in a trench coat going, "What are ya buying?" Resident Evil 4 changed the gaming world for better, and its groundbreaking over-the-shoulder third-person shooting wasn't the only unforgettable aspect about it. It also gave us The Merchant — the strange man with a slight hunch who helped Leon keep his head above the water with weapons, upgrades, and that infectious charm, pun intended.

The suffocating tension of the game is broken by the Merchant's charm time and again, which is why running into him in every new area feels like meeting a friend you didn't know you'd begun missing.

Sans the Skeleton – Undertale

All the charm in the world, sans the villainy

It's only befitting for one of the greatest indie games of all time to also have given us one of the most iconic and endearing NPCs of all time in Sans the Skeleton. As Frisk, you fall into the underworld, where you meet some of the most iconic, unforgettable, and quirky characters, and chief among them, of course, is Sans the Skeleton. His goal is to find and capture you, but no matter how many times you run into him, he seems dead-set on giving you an easy way out.

Whether it's his terrible puns that work because of how bad they are (or how hard he winks after saying them), or his heartwarming camaraderie with his brother Papyrus, Sans is impossible to dislike. Heck, if you play your cards right (or really, really wrong), he even goes from being a friendly face to one of the toughest boss fights of all time.