Link, Ico & Ellie: 5 of the most incredible child characters in gaming

I started this piece as a follow up to my previous character roundup (of female protagonists) thinking “how hard can this be?” This is primarily because it’s particularly difficult to write good, believable child characters. Too often they’re unnecessarily cutesy or by contrast they’re written as overtly “wise” in order to fulfil a certain role within the game — be it exposition or a relatable moral thermometer.

Either way, finding a really well written character under the age of 18 isn’t as easy as I thought, and took a great deal more research and trawling through my library of games than I anticipated.