Ride or Die? Ranking Video Game Companions From 'Literal Savior' to 'Please Stay Behind Me'
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There is a very specific kind of rage that only video games can produce. It's not the rage of losing a match, or dying to a cheap boss, or accidentally selling your best gear. No, this rage is quieter, more personal. It's the rage of watching your AI companion — the character the game told you to protect — sprint headfirst into a wall of enemies while you are actively in the middle of a stealth section.
Video game companions are one of gaming's greatest gambles. When they work, they elevate the whole experience. When they don't, they become cautionary tales passed down through gaming generations like folklore. We've assembled the definitive tier list — from the companions who genuinely carried entire missions to the ones who should have stayed home.
S-Tier: The Real MVPs (You Owe Them Everything)
Elizabeth — BioShock Infinite
Let's get this one out of the way immediately. Elizabeth is what every escort-mission character aspires to be when it grows up. She throws you ammo, salts, and money mid-fight without being asked. She opens tears in reality to summon cover and turrets. She never needs rescuing. She is, essentially, a perfect video game companion wrapped in a lighthouse metaphor. The fact that players spent an entire game protecting someone who never actually needed protecting is one of BioShock Infinite's best jokes.
Yennefer/Triss — The Witcher 3
Okay, they're not traditional combat companions in the escort sense, but their narrative utility is S-tier. They give Geralt actual direction, actual stakes, and actual character development. Without them, you're just a grumpy man with swords wandering a swamp. With them, you're a grumpy man with swords who has feelings about it.
Clank — Ratchet & Clank series
A literal backpack that also happens to be your best friend, your helicopter, and your conscience. Clank has been quietly carrying the Ratchet & Clank franchise since 2002. He solves puzzles. He flies. He gives you upgrades. He's the reason Ratchet survives anything. Clank is proof that the best companion is one who never complains, never wanders off, and occasionally lets you glide across a canyon.
A-Tier: Solid Backup, Occasionally Annoying
Garrus Vakarian — Mass Effect series
Garrus is what happens when a companion is written so well that players will actively restructure their entire squad composition just to keep him around. Is he always the optimal tactical choice? Debatable. Does anyone care? Absolutely not. Garrus is loyal, funny, and his calibrations arc is one of the most beloved running jokes in all of gaming. A-tier because the games occasionally put him in situations where his AI decisions are... questionable, but his vibe compensates for everything.
Atreus — God of War (2018)
Here's a hot take: Atreus is actually a great companion, and people who complain about him are mostly just projecting their daddy issues onto Kratos. He translates runes, he shoots arrows on command, and he grows meaningfully across the game. His AI is competent. His combat contributions are real. He is, frankly, more useful than most adult NPCs in other games. Docked to A-tier only because there's a stretch in the middle where his personality becomes insufferable on purpose, and the game earns it but that doesn't mean we have to enjoy it.
B-Tier: Present, Accounted For, Mostly Harmless
Tails — Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Tails in single-player mode is the original chaos agent. He tries his best. He really does. He will fly into a bottomless pit on your behalf with the energy of a golden retriever chasing a frisbee off a cliff. In co-op, he's a delight. Alone, he's a background noise machine that occasionally dies and respawns like nothing happened. Solid B-tier: enthusiastic, well-meaning, structurally irrelevant.
Dogmeat — Fallout 4
Dogmeat is emotionally S-tier and functionally B-tier, and that gap is the entire Fallout 4 experience in one sentence. He finds items. He distracts enemies. He sometimes wanders directly into your sniper shot. You will reload a save to make sure he's okay and then send him home because you can't handle the anxiety. He's a good boy who belongs in a safer game.
C-Tier: More Trouble Than They're Worth
Ashley Graham — Resident Evil 4 (Original)
Ashley is the patron saint of escort mission suffering. She cannot defend herself. She cannot stay still. She has a supernatural ability to position herself directly between you and the enemy you're trying to shoot. The original RE4 is a masterpiece in spite of Ashley, not because of her. (The remake addressed this. She's still not fun to protect, but she's at least less catastrophically helpless. Progress.)
Navi — The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
"Hey! Listen!" is the most famous two words in gaming history, and not in a good way. Navi provides hints that are either blindingly obvious or uselessly vague. She exists to remind you that you are, in fact, playing a video game and should probably do a video game thing. She is not useful. She is not harmful. She is just there, like a notification you can't turn off.
F-Tier: Active Liabilities to Human Civilization
The Follower in Any Stealth Game (Generic)
You know who they are. The NPC who is allegedly sneaking with you but walks upright through a lit hallway. The one who bumps into a guard and stands there while the alert meter fills. The one who, somehow, teleports directly in front of a camera you just disabled. They exist in every stealth game, they have different names, and they are all the same person: a chaos agent wearing a friendly icon.
Roman Bellic — GTA IV
"Cousin! Let's go bowling!" Roman Bellic is not a combat companion. He is not a mission asset. He is a man who calls you at 11 PM in-game time to ask if you want to play darts while you are actively fleeing the police. He is F-tier not because he's bad at fighting — he's not even in fights — but because he is a psychological burden that the game never lets you escape. He is the companion equivalent of a text you can't ignore.
Final Verdict
The difference between an S-tier and an F-tier companion isn't really about combat stats or puzzle utility. It's about intention. Elizabeth works because she was designed to make the player feel capable. Ashley doesn't work because she was designed to create tension, and that tension is just stress with a different font.
The best companions make you feel like a team. The worst ones make you feel like a babysitter. And somewhere in the middle, Tails is flying into a pit with a smile on his face, and honestly? Respect.
