10 Great Game Characters Of The 2020s
The 2020s are off to a good start with video game characters and main characters that are really well made.
As time goes on and story-based games become more popular, more and more great characters are brought to life. Throughout the history of video games, iconic characters like Mario, Lara Croft, Master Chief, and Arthur Morgan have been around at different times. But the 2020s have made a lot of their own already.
Those memorable, well-written character acts across many video game genres are made possible by the talented creative writing and voice acting. And these are a few of the best things about the 2020s.
Selene Vassos – Returnal
Returnal, a PS5-only game, added a new space traveler character in 2021. Selene Vassos’s journey on the uncharted world Atropos was one of a kind. She is a trained astronaut who works for the Astra Corporation. When she crash-lands on the planet, she gets stuck in a time loop, and strange links to her past start to show up.
It’s a roguelike game, so every time Selene dies, she starts over from the crash landing, and she finds new sounds that prove she’s been through these places before. Her character is a mystery that’s fun to figure out, and she’s a good shooter against Atropos’s alien enemies who fight in a bullet-hell way.
Colt Vahn – Deathloop
Colt Vahn from Deathloop is a video game character who is even more fun in a time loop. When you first meet his character, his enemy Julianna stabs him to death, but he wakes up on the beach of Blackreef Island, so the loop starts over.
From the beginning of the game and all the way through, he has some of the best lines ever written for a Black main character. And Jason E. Kelley’s delivery of it is great and funny in all the right places.
The time loop started because of the AEON project on Blackreef, which was a science experiment in the 1960s during the Cold War. Colt used to be in charge of security for the project. He now thinks that the only way to break the loop is to kill all of the people who started it.
The One – Immortality
In the found-footage FMV game Immortality, Manon Gage did a great job as Marissa Marcel. However, Charlotta Mohlin’s act as The One was haunting and scary. One shocking moment shows that Mohlin’s character is a parasite that goes on through art and is probably as old as Adam and Eve. She said that Marissa Marcel was her target so that she could be the main character in three movies, including Ambrosio, Minsky, and Two of Everything.
When The One talks directly to you, it’s intense and creepy, and when you carefully flip the video clips, Marissa and other characters change into different people. This is a character you won’t forget for a long time, especially since the game ends in a very scary way.
Abby Anderson – The Last Of Us Part 2
Abby Anderson, the secondary protagonist (and possibly antagonist) of The Last of Us Part 2, was not well accepted when the game first came out. However, she is one of the best-developed and most important new characters of the 2020s. In the sequel to one of gaming’s most famous stories, Naughty Dog does a great job developing her character along with Ellie’s. Unfortunately, Joel Miller dies because of this.
Dr. Jerry Anderson, whose daughter Abby is, was killed by Joel in the Firefly hospital before he could operate on Ellie and find a cure. Her journey begins when she gets her payback on Joel, who was her enemy but was also a member of Ellie’s family. But then you get a glimpse into her life and see how taking care of Lev changes her and how it affects her relationship with her father.
Cidolfus “Cid” Telamon – Final Fantasy 16
Ralph Ineson is known for his parts in movies like “Game of Thrones” and “The Witch” by Robert Eggers. In 2023, he played two great characters in video games: Lorath in “Diablo 4” and Cid in “Final Fantasy 16.” His voice acting for both characters is strong and different, but fans quickly picked Cid as their favorite character in this Final Fantasy episode.
After Final Fantasy 16’s long opening, Cid comes to help Clive and Jill from the Ironblood. He has a cute wolf friend named Torgal that you can pet. You find out that he is a charismatic outlaw and a loyal friend in the fight against the empire. You also learn that he is a Dominant who uses the power of the Eikon Ramuh.
Chai – Hi-Fi Rush
Tango Gameworks is known for making scary games like The Evil Within and Tunnel Rush, but Chai from the cyberpunk rhythm game Hi-Fi Rush has by far the best character design of any of its games. Vandelay Technologies, the company that made Chai’s special cybernetics of an MP3 Player heart and a robotic arm, is after him. To stop them, you’ll use a guitar-like weapon to hack and slash to the beat.
Chai is an easy-to-like and funny character whose attitude reminds me a little bit of Peter Parker. And that’s possibly because his voice is done by Robbie Daymond, who has voiced the Marvel Comics hero in animated shows and video games like Disney XD’s Spider-Man and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
Zagreus – Hades
Even though Hades started out as an early access game on Epic and then Steam in 2019, the full game didn’t come out until 2020, and it didn’t make it to consoles until 2021. Kratos was the best video game character in the Greek Mythology world for a long time, but since he moved to the Norse world in the 2018 game God of War, Zagreus is now the best.
No one in the Underworld knows the area or the enemies better than Zagreus, the son of Hades, the ruler of the Underworld, and a character whose personality is the full opposite of his father. Your goal is to help Zagreus get out of the Underworld and find his mother, Persephone. This is done through exciting roguelite action in beautiful hand-drawn settings.
Cat – Stray
What could be better than a person or a god as the main character in a video game? How about the cute tabby cat from the game Stray, who you play as in a dark cyberpunk setting? From the way it moves to the way it acts, this cat is probably one of the cutest platforming characters you can play as in a video game from the 2020s.
Stray’s story, on the other hand, is not the easiest for this cat. Its trip into a dystopian city full of robots and enemies that look like bugs, called Zurks, can be scary and upsetting at times, especially since the cat is split from its family and goes alone.
May And Cody – It Takes Two
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Not only are these two the best video game characters of the 2020s, but they also make a great team that you can play with a friend. Cody and May’s story was made by Hazelight Studios in a way that was like a fairy tale for kids. They are parents who are ready to get a divorce because their marriage isn’t going well until their daughter fuses their souls into her dolls by accident.
Cody and May will have to try to work together if they ever want to see their daughter in human form again. Puzzles and platforming will put their relationship to some of its toughest tests yet. The way they talk to each other and how Cody and May change over the course of It Takes Two is amazing.
Alex Chen – Life Is Strange: True Colors
Life is Strange is the most emotionally driven story-driven series there is, and the main characters keep getting better and better, just like their supernatural skills. In the third entry, you meet Alex Chen, who lost her parents when she was young and was separated from her brother by the foster care system. Over time, she has developed the ability to see people’s feelings as colors around them.
Alex’s story picks up eight years later when she moves from her group home, Helping Hands, to the town of Haven Springs to live with her brother Gabe. As usual, Haven Springs sounds like a friendly place, but there are also hints of something bad about it.
