Sometimes you play as a superhero, other times a grizzled war veteran. But what about the games where the protagonist is just like you, a normal person? Although it can be a rarity, sometimes there are games where the experience is much better with a character who is much more relatable than a super soldier.
Although video games are first and foremost a fantasy to get away from our regular lives, there are times when perhaps the opposite is needed. Here are a few video game protagonists who are just normal people like you.
10 Ethan Winters - Resident Evil
By the point of Resident Evil 7, most of the main cast of characters had already battled with mutant zombies and knew just how to deal with them.
They had skills when it came to defeating another supervillainous scientist unleashing something undead on the world. That's where Ethan Winters comes in.
A systems engineer from Los Angeles, Ethan was a completely average man who had no experience with mutations prior to his first appearance in Resident Evil 7. He spends much of the game reacting in shock and fear like any average person would at the events around him and if it wasn't for the fact he gets mutated himself, it's evident he wouldn't have survived the events of the game he debuts in.
9 Max Caufield - Life Is Strange
Max Caufield is presented as a typical American teenager, shy, bashful, and a little reserved with her unique trait being her talent for photography. However, things change when she suddenly develops the power to reverse time.
Despite this power, Max is presented as a very average hero who doesn't go about saving the world or stopping crime but just tries to deal with situations at hand and uses the powers in realistic ways, often to help her friends and sometimes herself.
8 Alan Wake - Alan Wake
Despite the mind-boggling events that he goes through, Alan Wake is a crime novelist whose biggest challenge at the beginning is writer's block. Throughout the game, he comes across supernatural happenings and suffers hallucinations as he suffers through the plot of his latest novel.
Alan isn't a trained fighter or has any powers, instead, he must find his wife and defeat shadowy figures known as Taken as a completely average man whose notoriety comes from a writing career, not a grand conquest or great war.
7 Henry Townsend - Silent Hill 4
It's well known that most of the protagonists of Silent Hill are just average people, but that's especially true for Henry Townsend. Designed to be very normal, Henry is an introverted twenty-something with no prior connection to the world of Silent Hill.
Despite it all, this completely normal man has to grapple with his apartment being possessed by the spirit of a serial killer who is trying to kill him as part of a ritual. Needless to say, Henry deals with it as best as he can and almost dies numerous times due to his inexperience to handle the situation.
6 Estelle - Season: A Letter To The Future
Season: A Letter To The Future is a human game with a very human protagonist. The game follows Estelle, a young woman who takes it upon herself to travel the world and document her findings before a mysterious cataclysm wipes everything away.
Estelle doesn't try to save the world or battle some great evil. She is simply a normal woman from a secluded community with a curious mind and a desire to note down parts of the world that will be lost in the near future.
5 Henry - Kingdom Come: Deliverance
If there was ever a game that played up how average the protagonist is then it would be Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
Players take control of Henry, a young man from 1403 in the medieval kingdom of Bohemia. He is the son of a blacksmith, can't read, isn't trained as a knight, and has to develop his skills when it comes to archery and sword fighting.
Henry is a nobody and the game boasts realism through its environment and the way Henry is treated. Although he goes on to have great character development and gets better at what he does, his low status still has a big impact on the gameplay and story by making encounters with trained knights much more difficult and Henry's ability to navigate through the world tougher too.
4 The Farmer - Stardew Valley
The fun thing about Stardew Valley is that despite the ungodly amount of energy the farmer has to plant crops, water them, feed animals, and still interact with people is how normal everything is. There is magic and other races, but at the end of the day, the cute farming simulator has your self-insert be a normal person who inherits their grandfather's farm.
There are some tough enemies and cool things to do, but the farmer is always portrayed as an average person who is a green thumb that tends to their plants, and just tries to relax at their new home.
3 Stanley - The Stanley Parable
Oh Stanley, besides the bigger story at play, you are more or less entirely average. At least that's something the narrator of the game would say about its faceless hero Stanley. Stanley is an office worker or perhaps is insane or perhaps is anything you want him to be, but they are mostly as average as their name.
Stanley is presented as an average office worker who has been mind controlled to do his job and is now at the behest of a narrator as to whether he frees himself from the shackles of his controlled life or elects to choose something else. Not much is known about Stanley and not much has to be known as their personality comes from the player's actions rather than the story alone.
2 Henry M. - Firewatch
Henry from Firewatch isn't your typical video game protagonist kind of. But instead of being a fit and athletic soldier of some sort, Henry is actually a tubby man in his forties who is reeling from his wife's early-onset dementia.
He doesn't ever use a gun or fight some bad guys. Instead, Henry is a contemplative man who enjoys nature and acts just like any normal person would during the events of Firewatch. His story isn't one of saving the day, but one where he just tries to get through each day as best he can.
1 The Survivors - This War Of Mine
Imagine a game that's about war. You usually think of something like Call of Duty, a game where you're the heroic soldier shooting the enemy in each level and action-packed set piece.
But imagine a game where you don't play as the soldiers, but as the survivors, the citizens left to pick up the pieces.
The protagonists of This War of Mine are just that, survivors who are everyday people caught in a war and whose only goal is to just survive. At best, they have talents like being a good chef or a great scavenger to aid themselves and others.
But ultimately they aren't here to quell a rebellion, but just to hopefully survive and make it out of the war unscathed, a story that is unfortunately so true for many throughout history and today.