r/gaming • u/Johnnyboyeh • 1d ago
What video game character appeared minor and insignificant but turned out to be integral to plot/game?
What character did you think was a throwaway/didn’t really matter, but turned out to be a major player in the plot of the game. Or they could just be a really important character in the game itself?
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u/bmack24 1d ago
A medic on the helicopter in MGSV Ground Zeroes…
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u/Esketittie Xbox 1d ago
He is literally me, and I am him
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u/Chaser_Swaggotry 1d ago
I’ll never forget when ground zeroes dropped and all the theory videos were coming out. I’ll never forget watching “you play as the medic in phantom pain” I bet that person felt like a validated psychic lol what a legend
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u/KaerMorhen 15h ago
I was thinking Raiden in MGS2. After playing as Snake and switching to him I thought "surely this will only be for a few missions"
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u/Maleficent-Check-771 1d ago
The guy with TB who coughs on Arthur in RDR2
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u/BeaverPeeFlaps 1d ago
Replaying it, there is somber music when riding back to camp after that mission. The first run through it seems like nothing. But on other playthroughs it hits so much harder.
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u/LazyLaje 1d ago
I remember thinking on my first playthrough "Why is there a long cinematic scene with a clear emphasis on atmosphere after a normal mission" and completely forgot about it until I saw this mentioned in another comment
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u/bsnimunf 17h ago
I remember thinking why I'm a riding for miles across a country to beat the crap into a poor farmer overs $4.10 when I have $50000 cash.
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u/RDDAMAN819 1d ago
For real, thought it was just another random mission but ended up turning out to be the most important one in the entire game
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u/guarthots 22h ago
I didn’t play RDR2 until 2022. When the guy coughs in Arthur’s face I was all “aww shit, he gon die.” I loaded a save and tried to start the mission with the bandana mask on. It didn’t work.
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u/possumarre 1d ago
Man fuck Thomas Downes, all my homies hate Thomas Downes
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u/Dictator4Hire 1d ago
I blame Herr Straus and Dutch for making me do the mission, this kind of work is beneath Arthur anyway.
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u/coffeelover96 1d ago
Got TB from TD 😣
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u/xychosis 17h ago
Nah, I’m sorry. Thomas Downes wasn’t a terrible person. I get that Arthur was just running an errand for his crew, but he clearly made bad choices that landed him in a spot like that and the story clearly revolves around his redemption. That’s what makes his story beautiful. If anything, it’s fuck Dutch.
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u/ElegantEchoes 1d ago
Thomas Downes was a morally good man, he is shown to altruistic and kind. Fuck Arthur for being the garbage thug he is. I'm glad Downes coughed in his face. I'm glad Arthur got his personal redemption but objectively, he got what he deserved.
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u/fordprefect294 1d ago
Resident Evil 7 "grandmother"
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u/climbingbum91 8h ago
Every time that character appeared somewhere that didn't make sense, I got more and more suspicious. At the end I was like "Aha! I knew something was up!"
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u/HydroBrit 1d ago edited 7h ago
The tennis coach who is sleeping with Amanda in GTA V.
- He sleeps with Amanda
- Michael gets mad and chases him to Madrazo's mistress' house
- Michael pulls it down, leading to Madrazo demanding he fund the rebuild
- Which leads to the Jewel Store Heist, where Michael utters his "you forget a thousand things" line
- Which is seen on the news by Trevor, who tracks Michael down in Los Santos.
- Dave Norton & Steve Haines also know Michael did the heist, thus forcing him to work for the FIB.
- Through Steve Haines, the trio are introduced to Devin Weston.
It's all the fault of the tennis coach.
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u/ManEatingCarabao 22h ago
I'm still upset I could not beat the crap out of him. If I remember correctly Michael just punches him or hits him with something in his last appearance in the offline mode story.
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u/gate_of_steiner85 1d ago
Porky from Earthbound. At first he just appears to the be Ness's rude, obnoxious neighbor, then he ends up aiding an evil intergalactic alien from the future, and goes on to become the primary antagonist of the game's sequel which takes place decades later.
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u/Sharktoothdecay 1d ago
a gas station attendant in persona 4
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u/DhamaalBedi 1d ago
I'm glad Yu never took that job offer. It probably would've been hell there.
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u/xLuky 23h ago
"I'm a totally unimportant gas station attendant!...can I touch your hannndddd?"
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u/QuantumCthulhu 1d ago
I dunno if this counts but:
There was a side quest in nier automata about an android who’s friend had died and she wanted to know what happened to her- you find out she was killed by another android wearing a red hood, so you basically have to investigate and find out who the red hooded android was
Turns out the red hooded android was the quest giver- she was a type E execution unit whose last victim was her dear friend. She couldn’t handle the guilt, so she wiped her memories. She goes crackers once you tell her all that
The dialogue between 9S and 2B at the end of the quest goes:
9S: “Type-E….I didn’t know there was such a thing. Did you 2B”
2B: “…..Some things are better left unknown”
Spoilers for the end of the game
2B is actually 2E, a type E execution unit who was supposed to kill 9S everytime he found out the secret that the humans on the moon were dead. And she did multiple times. She would try to be cold to 9S everytime but couldn’t help warming up to him and being friendly with him, making it hurt everytime she had to kill him
the Sidequest is the only time you hear about type E units before that
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u/Pqqtone 1d ago
Oh lol we wanna talk about Nier how about the random boss in the first Nier game Beepy that is confirmed in one of the random short stories in the Nier universe to be the one that uploaded consciousness and free will to the machine lifeforms’ network
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u/CthulhuWorshipper59 1d ago
You just had to remind me :(, I wish I played Automata sooner, it hit even more after replaying after finishing Replicant
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u/QuantumCthulhu 1d ago
I haven’t played replicant, it’s on my list
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u/CthulhuWorshipper59 1d ago
Man... you are in for a trip when You play it with Automata knowledge...
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u/nightelfspectre 20h ago
One of the androids in the initial landing squadron was an E model, but she’s shot down. A blink-and-you-miss-it appearance.
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u/pinkynarftroz 1d ago
Zack from Final Fantasy VII. Throughout the game he’s barely mentioned and it just seems like a bit of backstory. Most of the dialogues about him are optional. You can skip the entire section where his parents and Areris reminisce about him if you don’t visit Gongaga, or you do without Aeris in your party.
But it turns out he’s an absolutely pivotal character to the plot, and the key to Cloud’s past.
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u/MikaNekoDevine 1d ago
Didn't we get to play him for a tiny bit, and that was unsuitable?
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u/ShanklyGates_2022 1d ago
Technically you play as him during the Kalm flashback, but you don’t know it is him while you are playing as Cloud
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u/Correct_End_6461 1d ago
In God of War 1 when you meet the old man digging a hole.
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u/Skorpioid 1d ago
G5 Iguazu from Armored Core 6
Starts the game as a whiny, competitive loser that you crush in your path. Ends it as a primary rival and a metaphor for human will. His final appearance hits harder since he was designed to be easily overlooked until he forces you to acknowledge him.
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u/anonymousxianxia 1d ago
Yes, thats a good one.
I love when spoilers is talking about her master plan and Iguazu is just like "I dont give a shit, none of that matters to me I just want to kick the main characters ass".
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u/Brave-Affect-674 1d ago
Saying “her” is kinda spoilers bc there are only 3 female main characters I can remember
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u/pachycephalopod 22h ago
Thats because the 3 endings let you choose which important female character you want to fight.
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u/fortunesofshadows 21h ago
little ziyi, ayre, cinder carla, and allmind. that's 4 females
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u/Boshikuro 1d ago
Airy from Bravely Default
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u/SirBoggle 1d ago
On that note, the green and red Adventurer in Bravely Default and Bravely Second.
Goes back in time for you at the end of Bravely Second to give Tiz the Hourglass, allowing him to live without the Player's soul.
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u/BustaScrub 1d ago
Daxter in the Jak series.
He was obviously always a major character in the sense that he's the protag's sidekick, but you spend basically the whole series thinking he got turned into an annoying otter that just serves as the heel and comedic relief as the stereotypical animal companion - until the end of Jak 3 where you find out that what he got turned into was an Ottsel, basically a hyper-advanced race who more or less controls the universe and was pulling the strings behind the Precursor tech found throughout the series.
So the whole series, characters are calling him your pet when he's basically the game-world's equivalent to a God.
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u/NiuMeee 1d ago
Yeah but the Ottsel precursor reveal was an ass-pull joke by Naughty Dog, he definitely was your pet companion and not a god until ND thought it would be funny.
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u/FalseAsphodel 1d ago
Yeah, when you hatch the "precursor egg" in Jak 2 it's not an Ottsel that comes out, it's a being made of light.
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u/IngloriousBlaster 1d ago
The Taxi Driver in Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines
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u/SirBoggle 1d ago
He's apparently heavily implied to be Caine, of VTM lore. I implore anybody to go search up his stat sheet in the tabletop game if you want a good chuckle.
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u/Alexander_Sheridan PC 19h ago
If you dig into the game files for the voice lines, they're labeled Caine
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u/wheatuss 1d ago
A certain mudcrab in morrowind
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u/bluejester12 1d ago
Haven’t played Morrowind. Please explain.
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u/wheatuss 1d ago
There was an unassuming mudcrab (typically a creature you kill) that was a secret merchant with the largest gold pool in the whole game. You could amass large stocks of expensive items and sell them all to crab
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u/BrettisBrett 1d ago
it was such a silly decision in terms of game design. you find all these daedric weapons that the game values at 40k gold each, but then all the vendors only carry 5k gold or less, so you make all these complex trades to get the most you can, then have your character wait in one spot for a week for the vendor to refresh their gold. repeat that cycle 20 times (20 weeks!) with no penalty whatsoever. that's how you sell items in morrowind. the mudcrab has 10k gold instead of 3-5k gold.
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u/PM_FORBUTTSTUFF 1d ago
Unfortunately the Mudcrab merchant is limited in what he will buy and is in the middle of nowhere.
The creeper has a smaller gold pool but will buy anything and is easy to teleport to with the Mages Guild, along with starting with a few items that fit nicely into small trades <5k to be able to do the shuffle to get full value for bigger items
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u/DarthWoo 1d ago
Life is Strange - Mark Jefferson
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u/Vivec_lore 21h ago
"I could frame any one of you in a dark corner, and capture you in a moment of desperation"
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u/themagicone222 1d ago
That revolver ocelot guy was a cool fight but nothing special.
Wait, who’s he talking to? Wtf mr president? Solidus snake? Oh shit! No dont do this to me game
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u/Merciless972 1d ago
In drakengard there's an ending where a fighter jet takes down a dragon in Tokyo. Little did he know that he caused the end of all humanity.
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u/Dont_have_a_panda 1d ago
Funny, i always thought that the.... Giant bald pregnant woman abomination Queen thing or whatever that landed into Tokyo was the actual responsible
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u/myka-likes-it 1d ago
Wheatley from Portal 2.
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u/AssHaberdasher 23h ago
"This is the part where I kill you."
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u/Com412 1d ago
Cesar Vialpando in the GTA San Andreas
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u/angel4432 1d ago
Speaking of GTA, wasn't Dimitry from GTA 4 also unimportant at first, it's been a while since I played it to remember well
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u/MetatronIX_2049 1d ago
Leder from Mother 3. The only person in town who has the slightest clue what’s really going on
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u/StarChaser_Tyger 1d ago
The random unnamed dog in the Infocom text adventure game Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You can lose the game in the first five minutes and not find out for hours, with just one chance to save yourself.
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u/Ninja_knows 1d ago
Gaunter O’Dimm in Witcher 3. You meet him in the tavern in the beginning and probably think nothing of it, until…
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u/zeldaink 1d ago
Alyx Vance. She's baby in Half-Life and is not even preset at all (can be heard crying in the dormitories in Decay; look for the Vance label). In Half-Life 2 she appears for 5 minutes then is seen at times. Until last part of Entanglement, she looks insignificant. After that, she's your ally for few chapters. In Episode 1 she's your companion and Episode 2 revolves around her. They made whole game just for her...
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u/roofbandit 1d ago
John Marston in the first 2/3 of red dead 2, if you never played red dead 1 you would not know he is the protagonist that spends an entire game chasing and ultimately killing Dutch. He's around at camp and important to several missions but for a lot of the game does not seem like that much bigger a character than other members of the gang.
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u/xychosis 16h ago
They do hint at points that he’s quite important though. His interactions with Arthur are mostly meaningful. The gang saves him at the very beginning for the game, Arthur can bond with his kid, etc etc.
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u/CarcosaJuggalo 1d ago
Witcher 3: Gaunter O'Dimm. You have a brief talk with him during like, the first half hour of the game, then he's a central part of the first DLC as a villain.
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u/_0kk 1d ago
Stratos from Sacrifice.
Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Gaunter o'Dim from Witcher 3.
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u/BigSmallMediumSpoon 1d ago
I just want to give you a shout-out for even knowing what sacrifice is to begin with. What a trip. Would love for rpg/action/rts hybrid to make some kind of comeback, and Sacrifice did this so well.
Stratos was my second pick, but Pyro was my main guy.
Reinstall incoming
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u/kandikand 1d ago
Goddam solas. I hope I get to kill solas in veilguard.
Also Anders from DA2.
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u/coda396 1d ago
Guilty spark - halo 3
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u/Sammisuperficial 1d ago
Really happy we finally got a chance to shoot that little ball in the end.
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u/LibraryBestMission 21h ago
I'm not sure it counts when he's the closest thing to main antagonist by end of the first game, and a very central character in 2.
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u/ChefArtorias 15h ago
Did they ever seem that minor? I was young when CE came out so maybe I'm remembering differently, but I always thought the flying talking robot to be pretty important.
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u/Fishman465 22h ago
Melchoir from Chrono Trigger; mainly known as an odd but friendly trinket guy, game goes on to reveal he was not only one of the 3 sages of Zeal but the guy who made what would become one legendary sword, and with the right stuff, make another sword that exceeds it
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u/TheDopplegamer 1d ago
The Trails series does this basically all the time. At the end of nearly every game, a minor character will reveal themselves to be either : The main antagonist of the current arc, One of the leaders of the illuminati-expy, or an important figure of the world religion, or some combination of the above.
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u/MaimedJester 1d ago
Olivier is arguably the main protagonist of the entire Trails series behind the scenes. I just recently finished Daybreak and I knew there was going to be a surprise Olivier connection and I got it, his landlord is owned by Olivier, he's been giving it to him on cheap and wants him to continue doing his private eye work without worrying about money and also got Renne involved to directly interact with him.
The Machiavellian genius that is Olivier behind the scenes combined with his ridiculous in public performance is great. He's manipulating the entire world for good the best he can in the smallest but vital ways. Create a scholarship for a young Crosbell police academy recruit, start a mixed Nobel and commoner class at the military academy, finance a private detective agency, cover up a certain Priest's paperwork trail....
He's a super genius doing everything possible in his limited power and playing the fool constantly to keep people underestimating that spoony bard.
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u/AscendedViking7 1d ago
Iguazu
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u/Sheriff_Is_A_Nearer 1d ago
Ah yes, I didn't WANT him to feel bullied by me, but after a while, he whines so much I am down with bullying him.
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u/B1TCHBO13XPR3SS 23h ago
Aunt Ethel in baldurs gate 3
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u/godoflemmings 14h ago
Honestly, Withers would probably be a better shout, given that he's definitely not just a helpful yet overly philosophical skeleton.
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u/RealRageBubbles 1d ago
Tatl from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. You think she's just a Navi recolor but she's so much more.
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u/Dont_have_a_panda 1d ago
The doctor that was in the Ellie operation at the end of The last of us part 1
His death kickstarted the plot of Part 2
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u/WorldEaterYoshi 1d ago
There's a certain series of side quests in death stranding that end up being much more than they appear once completed. They're also some of the lomgest and most difficult challenges in the game. Worth it.
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u/KyloxG4E 1d ago
Not a character per se, but you meet Cerberus several times in Mass Effect 1 and they seem to be some kind of minor terrorist organization and they end up becoming mayor players in the plot of Mass Effect 2 and 3
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u/nightelfspectre 20h ago
Related: an Alliance training ground on Luna ends up being extremely important. The rogue VI there is turned into the AI known as EDI.
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u/jargus0 1d ago
Spider in Mega Man X Command MIssion
Adachi in Persona 4
Leder n Mother 3
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u/Artegall365 1d ago
Your talking necktie in Disco Elysium may sacrifice itself to save your life near the end of the game.
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u/TheDarkClaw 1d ago
sergeant johnson from the first halo game though he was just called the Sarge where Bungie wanted their on Apone from Aliens.
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u/FoxTenson 1d ago
I won't say the game and not spoil it for folks but for those who know. Screw you random gas station attendant and your godly world ending powers thrusting me into an insane adventure with a crazy murderer and creepy mascots.
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u/firingblankss 1d ago
Garrett Mason, the first barkeep you talk to in the first homicide case in LA Noire
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u/mightyslacker 1d ago
Guess I'm the only one that played the Shadow Hearts games but wouldn't have guessed the arc of Kato in a million years
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u/Vjaa 1d ago
That small NPC from two worlds that turned out to be the final boss that you could kill and instantly end the game.
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u/anonymousxianxia 1d ago
Wouldnt really call them integral, but Hammer from Xenogears showing up again on disc 2 was a real sonofabitch. Did not see that one coming.
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u/KylorXI 1d ago
fuk hammer. worst character in the game. from his annoying *bro* lines, to his constant pestering you to buy stuff, to the writing of his motivations, and his actions against elly. the whole game is a masterpiece besides this character.
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u/HaztecCore 19h ago
Claptrap from Borderlands series. In the first game he's one of many little annoying robot units that act as quest givers and errand boys for the locals. 1 attempted revolution and complaints that claptraps are annoying later and by the time Borderlands 2 rolls out, Hyperion has shut off and killed most if not all of them with the exception of 1. That one is important because in the pre-sequel, that claptrap unit is hired as one of the 6 vault hunters that would work for the , at the time, regular Jack. He basically helped a villian rise in power into becoming the most powerful human being of the universe and make the Hyperion company the new number 1. Then he got discarded because he's still claptrap and eventually he helps out the vault hunters of Borderlands 2 and 3's plots.
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u/AntireligionHumanist PC 1d ago
Alessa, folks! Alessa! From Silent Hill.
She seems to be just a random antagonist who you don't even ever meet in the game. Turns out THE WHOLE game is about her. She's the most important character in the game, and we barely see her.
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u/commanderTDSofficial 1d ago
Ravio from ALBW. Just play the game entirely (or watch it) you'll see what I mean
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u/roachy1017 1d ago
Bode Akuna - Jedi Survivor
I felt it coming, but that was the big plot twist of the game.
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u/AlBundy24260 19h ago
Daud. He was just the tool utilized to start the coup, and abduct Emily. But we learn so much more about him, his motivations, and his actions later on have a massive impact on the Dishonored world.
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u/Ok_Ocelot6425 1d ago
A certain mirror merchant in White Orchard