What an… interesting list. What are we thinking?
Personally I’m stunned Lara Croft made the top five and Agent 47 seems like an odd choice. Small sample size?
**The full list: **
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Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
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Mario, Super Mario
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Agent 47, Hitman
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Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog
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Sackboy, LittleBigPlanet
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Pac-Man, Pac-Man
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Link, The Legend of Zelda
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Master Chief, Halo
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Kratos, God of War
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Shadowheart, Baldur’s Gate 3
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Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption 2
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Pikachu, Pokémon
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Steve, Minecraft
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Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid
15.Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot
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Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII
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Astarion, Baldur’s Gate 3
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Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza
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Ellie Williams, The Last of Us
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Nathan Drake, Uncharted
Putting Lara Croft above Mario is insane. Hell, I’d put Luigi above Lara Croft.
Yup, this list is biased as hell. It was trying to determine iconic characters. Put Mario and Lara Croft in front of a 90 year old person. They’ll recognize Mario immediately, but almost certainly won’t recognize Croft. Hell, I’d put Bowser, Peach, and Luigi over Croft.
Shots fired.
Shadowheart? Astarion? Don’t get me wrong, I love BG3, it’s my favourite game at the moment. But any character my mom wouldn’t recognise shouldn’t be on that list.
Granted, Lara Croft fits that bill, but how did they determine that she should be above Mario or Pac-Man?
I couldn’t ask my mom, she has too much work today but I could ask my father and thus can present you with the 100 % super scientific and objective list of most iconic video game characters:
- Mario
- Pac-Man
- Pikachu
- Lara Croft
Okay so for context I’ve not played BG3. However I do consider myself pretty upto date with my gaming stuff (I run a videogame community afterall). I couldn’t tell you which of the characters on the front of the BG3 box-art is Shadowheart; not the foggiest.
As for Croft. I wonder if they’d ‘commissioned’ this poll before the release of the recent game if she’d have even made the top 10. For the most part, her star has fallen pretty significantly from where she was in the 90’s.
Agent 47 over Sonic? Pikachu not even in the top 10? Yeah, this list is wack.
I think it could be successfully argued that Pikachu is only top 10 if we include presence in non-gaming media.
Sackboy being on the list though is wild
I’m interested to see if they provided a list or if they asked people to submit their own choices. Sackboy and Arthur Morgan are…I mean I’d argue Arthur isn’t even the most iconic character in his own game. Surely that honour goes to John Marston?
They polled gamers, for sure. Non gamers are only gonna recognize part of this list, and thats what makes them truly iconic - being known by people who dont even care about video games.
Thats gonna be mario, sonic, pikachu, pacman, and maybe Zelda (but probably not Link). The average person will know those but would have no clue who Lara Croft, Nathan Drake, or Solid Snake is. Kazuma Kiryu?? I’m an avid gamer and wouldn’t recognize that name.
and maybe Zelda (but probably not Link).
It would be a picture of Link under the title Zelda…
And they’d say “Oh, Peter Pan!”
I thought the same thing. The only thing I’ll disagree with is Lara Croft being unknown. She was huge in the '90s and '00s. She was even featured in Playboy and once the first Angelina Jolie movie came out she was a part of the general consciousness. Probably not more recognizable than Mario, though.
Fair enough, its not that she’s unknown, just not as popular as the others. I actually forgot about those movies! Man they were not great…
They polled game publishers. The list is more like “which game publisher is paying us the most.”
the poll was engaged with by over 4,000 players from all over the world
So gamers, and a non-trivial but not even remotely representative group size
Wasn’t link only the official in-game name starting with botw? Not saying it wasn’t link before, but previously they asked for your name first and only used Link if you didn’t give one, so many casual players wouldn’t have known it’s Link.
Did they publish the poll itself? Curious how they defined “iconic.” These results are baffling. I’m most surprised by Shadowheart, who is a great character but…functions as part of an ensemble and is arguably not even the most “iconic” character within her own game. And BG3 itself, despite being one of the most culturally impactful video games in recent memory, still is just too young to qualify for iconic status.
Over Mario, Sonic, and Pac-Man? No fucking way.
Too late for April fools!
who the heck is agent 47, sackboy, arthur morgan. some of these don’t make sense. even some I recognize I can’t say are more iconic than pacman. I guess those with a the knowledge of qbert are dying out.
As much as I love the LoZ games, is say Mario is more recognizable. Certainly moreso than Lara Croft.
The definition of iconic video game character that was used here must be interesting.
… well that’s just stupid. Have these people ever played a game?
Being a gamer is maybe what lead to this list. I would say a character is the most recognizable if it can be named by the most people. Mario/Sonic/ Pikachu/pacman very recognizable shadowheart/asterian probably not as much.
Not just Gamers though. Dishonest or misguided gamers it must be.
