Party Members With Baggage
A great video game companion can make a fake world feel weirdly personal. They cover your back, crack jokes at the worst possible time, and occasionally make you care more about the side quest than the main plot. The best ones feel like they would drag you out of a burning building, then complain about your technique afterward. The worst ones are not always bad characters; sometimes they are just loud, fragile, needy, or one escort mission away from ruining your whole evening. So here are 10 companions we would trust with our lives, followed by 10 who can stay by the fire and guard the supplies.
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1. Garrus Vakarian
Garrus is the kind of companion who makes impossible odds feel slightly rude for standing in your way. He has the sniper skills, the loyalty, and the dry humor of someone who has already accepted that the plan is probably terrible. If everything goes wrong, you want Garrus on the roof, in the comms, and watching the door.
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2. Elizabeth
Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite is not just useful; she is alert in a way most companions are not. She finds resources, opens tears, reads the room, and somehow keeps a human spark while the world around her keeps getting uglier. You trust her because she notices things before you do.
3. Ellie
Ellie is not safe in the comforting sense, but she is fiercely alive, sharp, and harder to shake than guilt. In The Last of Us, she grows from protected cargo into someone who can survive the room after everything polite has failed. You may not always feel calm beside her, but you would believe in her.
4. Kim Kitsuragi
Kim from Disco Elysium is the rare companion who makes competence feel like an act of mercy. He is patient, observant, and loyal without being foolish about it. When your brain is turning into a noisy apartment building, Kim is the person quietly writing down the facts.
5. Atreus
Atreus starts as a boy who needs protection and slowly becomes someone who can stand in the storm with you. His growth across the Norse God of War games gives him weight, because trust is not handed over all at once. It is earned in awkward conversations, hard fights, and the moments when he chooses better than he has to.
6. Alyx Vance
Alyx Vance has the confidence of someone who knows the world is broken and still bothers to be kind. She can fight, hack, improvise, and keep moving when the situation turns completely unfair. More than that, she feels present, like a partner instead of a walking objective marker.
7. Tali’Zorah
Tali has brains, nerve, and the kind of loyalty that survives politics, exile, and interstellar disaster. She is brilliant without being cold, idealistic without being naive, and brave in a way that feels deeply personal. If the ship is falling apart, Tali is exactly who you want near the systems panel.
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8. Dogmeat
Dogmeat does not need speeches, loyalty missions, or elaborate moral positioning. He is just there, trotting through radioactive misery with the steady optimism of a creature who believes you are worth following. Sometimes the most trustworthy companion is the one who would charge a mutant for you and then look proud about it.
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9. Minsc
Minsc is chaos wearing boots, but it is loyal chaos, and that counts for a lot. He may not always understand the subtleties of a situation, but he understands evil, friendship, and the importance of hitting the right thing very hard. Also, Boo seems to approve, and frankly, that matters.
10. BD-1
BD-1 from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor is tiny, brave, and absurdly helpful. He heals, scans, unlocks, projects maps, and still finds time to beep like he is emotionally invested in your choices. In a galaxy full of betrayal, a little droid with good timing starts to feel like a miracle.
Now, here are ten companions who may have charm, history, or meme value, but should absolutely remain at camp with a blanket, a snack, and no access to the mission plan.
1. The Adoring Fan
The Adoring Fan is funny for about twelve seconds, which is longer than most people expect. After that, his devotion starts to feel less like support and more like being followed by a compliment machine with no survival instincts. He can stay at camp and boost morale from a safe distance.
2. Claptrap
Claptrap is not useless, exactly, but he does make every crisis louder. He has the energy of a broken appliance that learned self-esteem from motivational posters. In a fight, you would spend half your time surviving enemies and the other half surviving his commentary.
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3. Lydia
Lydia from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is iconic, loyal, and somehow always standing in the doorway you need to use. She will carry your burdens, yes, but she will also block a hallway while a draugr rearranges your health bar. Respectfully, she can guard the horses.
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4. Natalya Simonova
Natalya in GoldenEye 007 created a whole generation of players with escort mission trauma. She is important to the story, but keeping her alive often feels like trying to protect a candle in a wind tunnel. Nobody wants to say it, but camp has walls.
5. Ashley Graham
Ashley from the original Resident Evil 4 is less a companion than a stress test with pigtails. To be fair, she is trapped in an absolute nightmare and behaving about as well as most people would. Still, when every room becomes a babysitting puzzle, it is hard not to dream of a secure cabin and a locked door.
6. Roman Bellic
Roman Bellic from Grand Theft Auto IV is family, and family has never been known for convenient timing. He means well, but he has a special gift for calling about bowling while your life is collapsing into crime, debt, and sirens. Love him, protect him, and maybe leave him at camp with snacks, a couch, and no phone.
7. Navi
Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is useful in theory and unforgettable in practice, mostly because she refuses to let silence live. “Hey! Listen!” may be helpful once, but by the fiftieth time, it starts to feel less like guidance and more like a test of character. Camp is peaceful, and Navi should experience that peace from very far away.
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8. Donald Duck
Donald Duck from Kingdom Hearts can heal you, which should make him feel like the safest possible companion. The problem is that he sometimes remembers his magical responsibilities only after you have already made peace with seeing the game over screen.
9. Preston Garvey
Preston Garvey from Fallout 4 is a decent man with the soul of an exhausted community organizer. The problem is not his heart; it is the endless parade of settlements that somehow need your help before you have even finished looting a desk fan.
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10. Cicero
Cicero from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is memorable, committed, and absolutely not the person you want handling anything delicate. His loyalty comes wrapped in giggles, knives, and the general vibe of a circus tent after midnight.
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