Comments 3

Re: Random: BAFTA's 'Iconic Game Characters' Poll Has Us Scratching Our Heads

Draelyn

The weirdest part here are the two Baldur's Gate 3 characters. Neither have been around for long enough nor are prominent enough outside of their own sphere.

Iconic characters tend to be those that are recognisable even to the people who don't play the games they are a part of.

A lot of iconic characters tend to represent a brand; For example, Master Chief is one of the most iconic characters for Xbox, Mario on Nintendo systems etc. Back in the day I'd say stuff like Ratchet and Clank, Crash Bandicoot on Playstation etc.

Then you've franchises that are so large their characters are naturally iconic, such as Pikachu from the Pokemon Company.

Personally, I wouldn't put characters such as Ellie/Nathan Drake on these sorts of lists, because quite simply they're too generic. It's like that brand recognition test where you remove the text and see if you're still able to recognise the brand. If you plucked these characters out of their games, would the average person still recognise them?