NPCs That Suffered A Terrible Fate

Being a non-playable character in a video game can be a very cruel business. You’re just living your normal life, when all of a sudden, the main characters wander in and completely screw everything up for you. They break your pots, loot your crafting materials, or worse.

Sometimes, those NPCs have it coming, whether because they’re a detestable villain or just have a personality that begs to be suplexed. But there are plenty of video game NPCs that didn’t have their fate coming. Whether from player freedom or doomed by the narrative, they didn’t deserve this fate.

10 Literally Every Pedestrian – Grand Theft Auto

Splat

Look, we’re all guilty of it. Lamar or Lester or whoever else has an urgent mission or heist for us to complete, and in our rush to get to the next objective quicker, we start disobeying the rules of the road in order to dodge traffic. Usually, that means mounting the curb, forcing any pedestrian not quick enough to dodge roll to bounce off your front bumper like a fleshy pinwheel.

Committing vehicular manslaughter in GTA, or in any other urban old-world game, is basically a shared gaming experience at this point, but if we’re to be judged in heaven for our crimes, video game or otherwise, we’re all going to hell.

9 Carley (Or The Other Guy) – Telltale’s The Walking Dead Season 1

This One Still Stings

Telltale really decided to make us suffer with the first season of The Walking Dead. The choose-your-own-adventure games typically let us pick what happens to a lot of the characters, but sometimes, you have no control over what happens. No matter what you do, Season 1’s Carley is getting whacked.

One of the last choices of Episode 1 is to save either Carley or some other guy pretty much everyone else leaves to die. Carley’s smart, funny, and has strong chemistry with Lee, so we’re going to see the two go all the way, right? Nah, Carley gets shot in the head by Lily, dumped on the side of the road, and left to rot, and we only get a chance at proper comeuppance for Lily three seasons later.

Apparently, the other guy’s name was Doug. He was based on a Telltale developer, and there was a Facebook campaign called Save Doug dedicated to people who made the wrong choice.

8 Cutie – It Takes Two

An Elephant Never Forgets

Cody and May, the dual protagonists for Hazelight’s co-op adventure It Takes Two, deserve to be tried in The Hague for what they did to poor innocent Cutie during the course of the game. After arguing for the umpteenth time, Cody and May’s souls are put into doll-like figures due to an unintentional wish from their daughter, Rose, with the two parents resolving that tears from their daughter would reverse the spell.

Cut to Cody and May meeting Cutie, an elephant princess and Rose’s favorite toy. Like two rational adults who definitely consider the consequences their actions might have on a child, Cody and May dismember Cutie and throw her off the top of her castle. The sight of Cutie’s “corpse” did make Rose cry though, so mission accomplished?

7 Meat Shield Guy – Yakuza Kiwami

Bad Day At Work For This Lad

It’s a popular meme in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon fandom that Kazuma Kiryu has never killed anyone, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In Yakuza Zero alone, Kiryu’s body count is pretty large, between the guy he dropkicks out of a window or the helicopter he forces to explode in the highway chase.

None of these NPCs really bite the bullet (pun intended) harder than the guy from Yakuza 1/Yakuza Kiwami’s ninth chapter, The Rescue. Kiryu is ambushed at the front door of Snake Flower Triad HQ, with Kiryu using a waiter as a human shield to protect himself from gunfire. Not content with that ignoble end, Kiryu then flings the now-dead waiter across the room to take out the guy shooting at him. Dying is bad enough, but Kiryu just stacks the disrespect even further.

6 Bonus Stage Car Man – Final Fight

There Goes The “No Claims” Bonus

Living in Metro City must be like the video game equivalent of living in Gotham City, as you’re always about two seconds away from something kicking off. In Metro City, it’s usually the Mad Gear gang stirring up trouble or causing anarchy on the streets. For one unfortunate soul, his gripes are with the so-called heroes of the city.

You see, whenever Cody, Guy, and Haggar make their skull-cracking quest to save the city, they always stop at a gas station partway through to trash some poor guy’s car. Who is this guy? Is he the Mad Gear’s PR agent or accountant? We’ll never know, but his screams of “oh, my car” will keep us up at night with guilt. Maybe. Probably not.

Capcom brought the bonus stage back in Street Fighter 4, complete with a distraught dude. Our head canon is that it’s the same guy, honestly.

5 Guard Who Just Got The All Clear – Hitman: Absolution

Enjoy Your Trip

Being a professional “Silent Assassin” is a grim business. Sometimes, you’re given contracts to take out corrupt CEOs looking to do harm to the world. Other times, it’s political rivals whose only crime was opposing someone who had more money. As for the one guard in the opening level of Hitman: Absolution, though, we have to imagine that was pleasure over business for Agent 47.

Towards the end of the level, Agent 47 is forced to shimmy around the outside of a building to enter the target’s holiday home. His progress is halted by a guard at the window, presumably talking to his doctor about how he’s been given the all-clear from a cancer scan and how the results have given him a new lease on life. The only way forward is by yanking the poor guy out of his window to his death, which just seems cruel even for 47.

While the poor guard’s plight clearly didn’t affect Agent 47, the Hitman community collectively refers to this one NPC as The Cancer Guy, so at least he’s remembered.

4 Aunt May – Marvel’s Spider-Man

“I Wanna See My Nephew”

Usually, being close to Peter Parker/Spider-Man is just asking for trouble, as the wallcrawler is a bit of a disaster magnet. Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacey, even that one time he accidentally killed Mary Jane; life has been tough for Parker and anyone close to him, but Aunt May’s death in Marvel’s Spider-Man seems the most tragic.

In an act of defiance and revenge against Norman Osborn, Doc Ock decides to unleash a bioweapon in New York, with Aunt May on the frontlines trying to save the citizens as much as possible. Unfortunately, she becomes infected, too. While Parker manages to obtain the antidote, May encourages Peter to surrender the only sample so a proper vaccine can be developed for everyone, sacrificing herself to do it. Heart-wrenching stuff.

3 Jin Sakai’s Horse – Ghost Of Tsushima

Why The Long Face?

Jin Sakai is forced into a corner during the events of Ghost of Tsushima. The Mongols have invaded, and their brutal tactics have forced the honourable samurai on the isle of Tsushima to hide, but Jin switches tact. Embracing stealth and a little bit of ultra-violence, Jin becomes the Ghost, terrifying the Mongols while abandoning the very code of honor he swore to uphold.

While you could make the case that the Mongols are within reason to have beef with Jin, and vice versa, what did Jin’s horse do? At the end of Act 2, heading into Act 3, Jin is forced to flee from both the Mongols and the samurai by heading north, but in the process, his horse is riddled with arrows and killed. Just a poor innocent horse, murdered for the crime of association. Justice for Little Sebastian, or whatever you named him.

2 Hosea – Red Dead Redemption 2

The Implosion Of Dutch’s Gang

The Red Dead games, particularly Red Dead Redemption 2, have you playing as outlaws and gunslingers in the Wild West, so you could easily say that anyone from Dutch’s gang who dies kind of deserves it. You live by the gun, you die by the gun. That’s true to an extent, sure, but poor old Hosea, the lynchpin of the entire group, definitely deserved a better end than what he got.

The more rational and intelligent leader of the group, compared to the hot-headed faux intellect of Dutch, Hosea ends up captured by the Pinkertons during a botched heist. In order to prove a point and intimidate the group into surrender, the Pinkertons execute Hosea like a dog; because nothing says civilized or better than the “savages” like mercilessly gunning a prisoner down in the street.

1 Lizzie Carmine – Gears 5

Another Carmine For The Pile

Fate is a weird thing to describe when talking about the Carmine family from the Gears of War series, as each one seems fated to die in the most outlandish or disgusting ways possible. Anthony had his head blasted off by a sniper, Benjamin was dissolved by giant worm parasites, and Gray Carmine was squished by a robot drop pod. At least Clayton survived, thanks to a fan poll, but the worst death is Lizzie’s in Gears 5.

A skilled COG driver, Lizzie was helping evacuate the civilians of Settlement 2 during a Swarm attack. Facing overwhelming odds, JD Fenix makes the decision to launch a Hammer of Dawn strike, which manages to take out the Swarm. However, the satellite malfunctions, continuing to strike towards the civilian convoy. The civilians manage to escape, but Lizzie dies in the ensuing chaos, with the event having a profound effect on JD and his friendship with Kait Diaz.

Lizzie Carmine did technically become playable in the multiplayer of Gears 5, but she wasn’t playable in the campaign, so this point still stands.