I consider myself a single-player-first gamer. I don’t dislike multiplayer games, I just like to progress at my own pace through a campaign. That said, there are some campaigns that you simply can’t get through all by your lonesome, and it’s for this reason that we have AI-controlled teammates, helpers, and companions. Even if they’re not real people, they’re there to be helpful, fighting alongside you, providing support like items and healing, and occasionally drawing aggro when you’re on the verge of death.
10 Most Unreliable Video Game Companions
Companion NPCs in video games are supposed to be helpful, but some end up being more of a hinderance than anything else.
Now, there are plenty of examples of AI companions that don’t quite cut the mustard, whether it be due to bad prioritizing or unhelpful skillsets. For every few lousy AI buddies, though, there are a couple that actually manage to do their jobs and be a consistently helpful presence in your adventures. These are the games where you’ll find AI companions that will actually do right by you.
This is not a ranked list; the following games are presented in no particular order.
10Final Fantasy 7 Remake
The Party’s Ready For You
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
The original Final Fantasy 7 was a traditional turn-based JRPG in which you controlled your entire party one at a time.Final Fantasy 7 Remake, on the other hand, is a real-time action JRPG, with only one character in your conscious command at a time. Of course, just like in the original, you can’t just have one character handle the whole fight, so there’s an AI to pick up the slack.
While the AI won’t use any fancy tactics or special techniques without your direct say-so, it’s usually competent enough to keep your party members out of trouble while you’re controlling a particular character. What’s nice is that, even if you’re not actively controlling a character, you can still use the command menu to issue orders to them, like having them use a specific skill or toss you a potion.
It’s nice when games have AI that is wholly self-sufficient, but I think this particular framework ties in better with what Final Fantasy 7 is going for. It’s still encouraging you to make use of the whole party’s abilities, but it’s also not throwing everyone to the proverbial (or literal) wolves when you’re not controlling them.
Surprisingly Competent For A Stand-In
Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2is definitely intended to be played with real friends, there’s no doubt about that. That said, not everyone can be online to play a game at the same time, and back when this game first came out, not everyone had good enough internet to facilitate seamless co-op. Unlike a lot of games these days, which lock you out if you don’t want to play online with randos, Left 4 Dead 2 opted to give you a gaggle of AI-controlled Survivors instead.
While these AI Survivors were never quite as competent as real players, they were quite good for what they needed to be, i.e. stand-ins for proper Survivors for when you just wanted a quick pick-up game on your own time. They prioritized targeting special infected, rescued you when you were downed or pinned, and could generally be relied upon to pick powerful weapons when they were available.
It makes sense; intelligent AI was one of the Left 4 Dead series’ big selling points, what with the AI Director controlling infected spawns and all that. Even if they’re not your first choice for companions, you could also do substantially worse than the AI Survivors, and I had my share of good times with the lot of them.
8BioShock Infinite
“Booker, Catch!”
BioShock Infinite
I remember when the word first went out that you would have a companion alongside you for the majority ofBioShock Infinite, I had some concerns.
Escort missions were already widely despised by this point in gaming history, thanks in part to that awful Little Sister mission in the first BioShock, and nobody wanted a repeat of that. Thankfully, pretty much as soon as you rescue Elizabeth in Infinite, the game makes clear that she’s here to help you, not the other way around.
Whenever you get into a firefight in Infinite, Elizabeth will dart about the arena, staying out of the line of fire while scavenging for useful supplies. At any given point, she’ll call out with something like health, ammo, or Salts for your Vigors, which allows you to temporarily pause the action and have her sling them over to you.
Elizabeth does not have a health bar and does not need to be protected, which puts herleagues above many other AI companionsby default. Even putting that aside, though, I just liked receiving stuff from her. She almost always had the right supplies for me right when I needed them, and I liked the little “whoosh” sound it made when she threw them.
7Metal Gear Solid 5
Quiet Sniper, Fierce Doggo
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
InMetal Gear Solid 5, you gradually unlock four AI-controlled buddies that can aid Snake on a mission. Technically, two of your companions, D-Horse and D-Walker, are more just vehicles than anything else. The other two, D-Dog and Quiet, swiftly prove themselves to be indispensable when they first join you in the field.
D-Dog’s canine senses allow him to tag nearby enemies, prisoners, and resources, even through walls, which you would normally need to do manually with your binoculars. He can also distract, stun, and even kill single troops if there’s an obnoxious straggler in the way, as well as sneakily slap a Fulton on troops if he’s got the right equipment.
Quiet, meanwhile, is a crackshot sniper and infiltration master. You can send her to scout out locales ahead of you, which gets you some basic intel to work with, and if any enemy troops spot you, she’ll automatically pop their heads to cancel the alert. It’s not just that D-Dog and Quiet are useful; it’s that they’reuseful without requiring direct commands, something not a lot of companions can say.
6Fallout: New Vegas
Gear ‘Em Up And They’re Ready For Action
Fallout: New Vegas
If there was one element that got people jazzed aboutFallout: New Vegasover Fallout 3, it was the greater emphasis on companions and their relevant mechanics.
Fallout 3 had companions, of course, but the way you managed their behaviors and gear and such was all handled through the basic talk menu, which was a little unwieldy. New Vegas, on the other hand, introduced an entire radial menu for companions, which gave you a much greater degree of control.
Using the companion wheel, you could order your companions to prioritize melee or ranged combat, stick close to you or hang back, automatically attacking versus waiting to be attacked first, and other helpful features. This allowed you to quickly and concisely tailor their behavior in combat without having to stop the action to get into dialogue with them.
All this, combined with the fact that each companion had their own combat specialties, allowed you to assemble a small, specialized party that could have your back in various situations. It was nice to have some company on the road, at least as long as they didn’t accidentally shoot you.
5NieR Replicant
Friends Forever
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…
Fextralife Wiki
ThroughoutNieR Replicant, our titular young hero makes two lifelong friends to accompany him on his journeys: Kaine and Emil. NieR Replicant is a combo-centric action-RPG first and foremost, not the kind of thing you’d expect you’d expect party mechanics in, but in typical Yoko Taro fashion, the game throws us a curveball by simplyhaving party memberswithoutparty member mechanics.
Both Kaine and Emil are strong enough on their own that they don’t need you to babysit them. Kaine’s indomitable will wouldn’t let her go down outside a cutscene, and Emil is literally a superweapon, so it makes sense even in context. In a fight, they both use their own unique special abilities and attacks to gradually whittle down enemy HP, not quite enough to finish foes on their own, but enough to make a dent.
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NieR is full of amazing and unique characters, but these are surely some of the best in the entire series.
Emil in particular, even before he assumes his little skeleton man form, is surprisingly hearty in a fight, using his eyes to petrify enemies for an instant kill. It only works on rank-and-file enemies, but hey, that means fewer enemies for you to deal with.
4Tales Of Vesperia
They’re Receptive To Input
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Every game in the Tales series places you in control of one of your four active party members, with the other three left to their own devices as AI. On paper, this sounds like a recipe for disaster, and in other RPG series, it is, but surprisingly, at least for me personally, I’ve had pretty consistently good experiences with companion AI in Tales games. They’re all good, except maybe Tales of Arise, but I think my best experience was withTales of Vesperia.
I would usually roll with a team of two frontline combatants like Yuri and Repede, backed by Estelle for heals and Rita for magic. I’d control Yuri, Repeade would do his own thing, and Estelle and Rita would support.
This approach almost always worked for me; Estelle would heal when someone was low on health, Rita would use weakness-appropriate magic, and Repede would help carry my attack combos, and none of them needed much in the way of prompting.
Granted, sometimes Rita would get a little carried away with low-level magic like Fireball, but you can toggle specific spells and Artes on and off in a character’s settings, so that’s an easy enough fix.
3Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy
It’s All About Teamwork
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Close-knit teamwork is a recurring theme of theGuardians of the Galaxyfranchise, both in the MCU movies and other facets like the game, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. In the game specifically, you only control Quill, but the rest of the Guardians are always in the middle of the fray with you.
Every individual Guardian, including Rocket, Groot, Gamora, and Drax, will go off to pick their own fights with whichever enemies look at them funny, and for the most part, they can hold their own. If it looks like they’re struggling, though, you’re able to jump in to help them out, or call for special abilities to damage enemies or support allies.
The game’s signature mechanic, the Huddle, also revolves around your AI-controlled companions, as giving the right response to their grievances gives the entire team an attack boost for the duration of the subsequent awesome mixtape song. The other Guardians may not be able to beat a boss on their own, but with that buff, they can tear up a stagger meter and open the way for you.
2Kingdom Hearts
More Valuable Than You Think
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX
Any longtime fan of theKingdom Heartsseries knows the old memes about how unhelpful your party members are in the midst of combat. What’s easy to forget, though, is that this is only mostly true in the later games, when Sora is proportionally much more powerful and competent. In the first Kingdom Hearts, Sora could barely do anything, leavingDonald, Goofy, and the gueststo pick up the slack.
At the very beginning of the game, you don’t know Cure magic, and your heals are limited to potions. Donald is your only non-potion means of health recovery, and memes aside, he generally does his job when he needs to, MP permitting. Goofy also does pretty consistent damage with his special attacks, keeping on the pressure on fast or airborne enemies when they’re out of your reach.
I’d particularly like to give ups to the Beast, who is absolutely indispensable during your brief solo stint at Hollow Bastion. The guy is built like a tank and stomps Heartless like a hydraulic press, and neither I nor anyone else would have survived that section without his help.
1Elden Ring
The Spirits Have Your Back
Elden Ring
Fextralife
In most of the Souls and Souls-adjacent games, NPC summoning is something you can only do for boss fights, and it’s not exactly reliable. This is technically true forElden Ringas well, though where that game differs is that you have a greater degree of control over what, exactly, you’re summoning thanks to Spirit Ashes.
While Spirit Ashes are also mostly limited to bosses or similarly large encounters, you may expend your own health or MP to summon them at will, at which point they’ll aid you for the remainder of the fight. What I like about summoned spirits is that they’re not all just humanoids like you; there are all kinds of freaks and monsters you can summon, either for their impressive DPS or just to be a moving target.
My favorite summons are the obvious ones like Mimic Tear and Black Knife Tiche, though I’d also like to highlight one in particular: the Skeletal Militiamen. This summon calls up two undead soldiers who, as long as their cores aren’t destroyed by multi-hit attacks, will always get back up to serve as helpful decoys. I called them Ace and Gary, and for like a third of the game, they were my boys.
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