Nighthawks
I’m one of those people that always try to get the “best” ending for every companion in games. Collecting my weird little band of friends/idiots/psychos, getting to know them, and invariably, helping with their problems, is a big part of what draws me into RPGs. The internet has made it abundantly clear I’m not alone in this sentiment. Look up any popular RPG, Baldur’s Gate or Mass Effect, and the characters people remember most frequently and fondly are invariably the friends you made along the way. Beyond the obvious reasons for this (companions are usually omnipresent throughout a game and thus get more screen time and character development) There’s clearly some psychological draw here that drives people to opine about the Kim Kitsuragis and HK-47s of the world.
Enter Nighthawks, a visual novel and RPG about vampires, running a nightclub, and the weird little found family you build in a city where the living and the dead are trying to work out how to co-exist. As the game progresses, you meet a cast of eccentric night owls, both living and undead, who can be invited to tag along on your adventures. They offer a boost to various stats and, of course, usually have opinions to offer about the current situation.
Check out Nighthawks here
Vampires are an enduring motif in fantasy and horror fiction. For over a century we haven’t been able to shake our collective fixation with them, and in that time they’ve branched out into countless permutations. There are scary vampires, sexy vampires, brooding goth vampires, and even one who tells you the number of the day. In other words, they’re the perfect sort of monster to build a cast of loveable rogues around, which Nighthawks does with gusto.
At first blush, Nighthawks doesn’t look like the sort of game to sport a cast of companions to drag along on your adventures. That’s generally considered the realm of 3D games with more extensive combat mechanics, not those of the more “visual novel” persuasion. However, to Nighthawks creator Richard Cobbett, their inclusion never felt out of place. “Games like Nighthawks can feel lonely, I think. The unifying feature of the Nighthawks’ companions is they’re all lonely. It fits this theme of building a little beacon of light in the city; you’re never alone.”
Beacon of light is an apt description of your in-game bar, the titular nighthawks, whose regulars serve as your recruitable companions. “Good companions feel like they have a life outside their relationship with the player,” says Cobbett. “They converse about things unrelated to the plot, and you run into them walking around town. ” Indeed, your associates don’t simply sit around the bar. They have their own schedules and may or may not be available to accompany you on your current adventure as faces come and go throughout the night. This creates a more organic approach to picking your tag-alongs. If the fast-talking conman Maze isn’t available to help you talk your way into a building, maybe you’ll have a fortuitous encounter with local street urchin Agatha, who can simply pick the lock on the back door. To further reinforce this framing of companions having lives outside the player, you’ll find they have just as much to say to each other as they do you.
Making companions feel “real”
While Nighthawks is hardly the first game to have party members banter with each other, the depth and verisimilitude on display is notable. NPCs in Nighthawks can have lengthy, involved interactions that can stretch over multiple nights (usually in the form of running gags) despite being relatively easy to miss. It’s effort that has clearly paid dividends. Players might forget a quick quip shouted before a fight, but they’ll always remember when they made sure to check in on Veronica nightly for a whole week to watch Agatha try to create a suitably embarrassing nickname for her.
Equally important to creating evocative and memorable companions are their individual stories and quests. “The stories should resonate with the characters themselves, not just the themes (of the game),” says Robert. “A companion quest doesn’t need to tie into the overall story at all, actually.” The storyline of local tough/fine art enthusiast Saoirse Kane exemplifies this attitude. According to Robert, she “didn’t really seem like she needed the player’s help with anything.” Instead, players climb the ranks of the local underground fight club and challenge Saoirse herself for the champion title in an arc that feels much more fitting for the hard-nosed Irish boxer than some contrived personal dilemma.
Ultimately, despite how long I’ve spent rambling, I think Robert summed up what makes the cast of Nighthawks so engaging pretty succinctly. “A great companion relationship should make you feel like you’ve had a positive effect on the character and sadness that you won’t see them again.” This melancholic final goodbye before the credits roll is the final piece of the puzzle. Nighthawks plays into this in the form of a roof party thrown by your companions before the game’s finale. The emotional power of this sequence is remarkable. In-universe, the characters are heading into an uncertain future and know they might never all meet like this again; simultaneously, the player knows the game is almost over and this will probably be their last chance to speak with these characters. All good things must come to an end, but all great things leave you wanting more.
Nighthawks shows us that good companions (and NPCs in general really) feel like people. They have lives and interests outside the player and the game’s overarching story. Not all of them have some dire circumstance the player needs to “save” them from; after all, positively influencing others is rarely so dramatic in reality. The goal should be to create someone the player will miss after they’re gone, because while friends come and go, the memories remain.
Special Thanks to Richard Cobbett for agreeing to be interviewed for this article. Nighthawks can be purchased Here