What is a non-player character (NPC)?

Whether in sports games, first-person shooters or sandbox games like Minecraft and popular Minecraft al­ter­na­tives, NPCs can be found in a wide variety of games. These types of char­ac­ters are not con­trolled by a player and can often be seen in the back­ground. Some of them can even interact with players.

What does NPC mean?

The ab­bre­vi­a­tion NPC stands for “non-player character” and refers to a character that can’t be con­trolled by someone playing the game. While the term NPC orig­i­nal­ly comes from pen-and-paper games, it’s now also used outside of gaming contexts.

What defines an NPC?

NPCs are game char­ac­ters that you as a player cannot control. Instead, their actions are directed by software and are often a reaction to the behavior of playable char­ac­ters.

In role-playing games, NPCs are important for two reasons. First, they help to advance the actual plot. They do this by in­ter­act­ing with players, providing useful tips, and sending the main character on new missions. Secondly, NPCs add at­mos­phere. They bring the game to life, making it sig­nif­i­cant­ly more exciting.

NPCs can also exist without in­ter­act­ing with the main character. In some games, you can even discover little messages, secrets or special features (referred to as Easter eggs) by looking more closely at the back­ground char­ac­ters. In large open-world scenarios, this lets you dive even deeper into that world while you carry out the game’s main mission. In some games, NPCs take up arms and support the main character in their ad­ven­tures. In other instances, they must be rescued for the plot to progress. Aside from such moments, they tend not to exert much influence over the course of the game.

What is the dif­fer­ence between NPCs and bots?

NPCs don’t have the same char­ac­ter­is­tics as bots, making a com­par­i­son between them somewhat difficult. While non-player char­ac­ters are part of the plot and often interact with the main character, bots take on the role of a human player. Bots are es­pe­cial­ly common in mul­ti­play­er games and have all the same abilities as human players.

What role do NPCs have in analog games?

NPCs were already around before modern computers and video games came on the scene. In classic pen-and-paper role-playing games, they were and still are invented by a game master, sometimes equipped with a fictional back­ground story or certain abilities. These char­ac­ters can massively influence the game’s events depending on how things progress. NPCs have similar functions in both analog and virtual en­vi­ron­ments.

How are NPCs used outside of gaming?

Although NPCs roots are in gaming, they’re also important in other settings. In computer sim­u­la­tions, virtual agents are used who have char­ac­ter­is­tics, abilities and actions that closely mirror those of NPCs in games. The char­ac­ters are assigned certain behaviors, which they then exhibit within the sim­u­la­tion. The more realistic the actions of the virtual agents, the more ac­cu­rate­ly con­clu­sions can be drawn about human behavior. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly important when in­ves­ti­gat­ing crowd behavior and helps, for example, to prevent possible cat­a­stro­phes or to better prepare for such events should they occur.

NPCs in popular culture

NPCs have long since ceased to be just game char­ac­ters. Let’s take a look at the broader role that non-player char­ac­ters play in popular culture:

Monkey Island

The adventure game series Monkey Island is famous for its NPCs. The first game was released in 1990 and quickly gained a huge following. The series, which is known for its funny, absurd and unique wordplay now has six in­stall­ments. In the game, the player controls the pirate pro­tag­o­nist Guybrush Three­p­wood who wins all his battles not through violence but through words. But the word battles wouldn’t be possible without the NPCs, who are there to counter every absurd insult.

Free Guy

In 2021, the American action-comedy Free Guy answered the question of what would happen if an NPC were to suddenly develop con­scious­ness. In the film, Guy, played by Ryan Reynolds, goes about his daily routine, which consists, among other things, of repet­i­tive robberies at his workplace in a bank. However, when he falls in love, he begins to see himself and his sur­round­ings with new eyes. The film was a financial success and received numerous nom­i­na­tions and awards.

NPC Wojak

In 2018, 4chan and Reddit users began using the term NPC to discredit (po­lit­i­cal­ly) dis­sent­ing in­di­vid­u­als, specif­i­cal­ly liberals and other people who identify with left-wing politics. In this context, NPC is used to imply that a person is incapable of forming their own opinions. In addition to con­ser­v­a­tive media, ultra-right circles also soon took up this new meaning of NPC. Its use became more widely known through the meme NPC Wojak, which is now also used in many other contexts.