What is an NPC?

Gaming terminology is like general slang — it is constantly evolving and easy to get lost in, especially if you aren’t very tuned in to online gaming communities or a younger gamer. Gaming terms can also leak into the real world and take on new meanings in day-to-day conversations. You aren’t alone if you get a little lost keeping it straight sometimes.

NPC is a gaming term that’s been around for a long time, but it has recently taken on a new meaning and is being used more frequently by folks outside of gaming. Let us break it down for you.

What does NPC mean in gaming?

NPC stands for “non-playable character” in gaming. It’s a term used in video games and tabletop gaming to distinguish between characters in a game that are controlled by the player and characters controlled entirely by the game (or by “the computer”). NPCs can range from characters that exist solely to deliver exposition through dialogue in cutscenes to characters the players can interact with directly and even companion characters that play the game along with them.

Pictured above is the NPC Cortana from the Halo series. In the franchise, Cortana is an artificial intelligence that journeys along with Master Chief (the player character) throughout the game, furthering the story through dialogue mid-game and during cutscenes but never controllable by the player.

NPCs come in all shapes and forms — post-apocalyptic merchants and faction leaders in the RPG series Fallout, neighbors in the farming simulator Stardew Valley, or rival Nintendo characters in a round of Mario Party 8.

What does NPC mean outside of gaming?

Over the past couple of years, the term NPC has been used more and more outside of gaming. In online communities and in-person, some people have been using NPC as an insult to describe individuals perceived as lacking independent thought or blindly following trends. It can describe people who may be perceived as generic, without any special characteristics that make them stand out (unlike