"HEY, LISTEN!": A TRAUMA-FUELED LOOK BACK AT ESCORT MISSIONS AND THE AI WE WERE FORCED TO PROTECT

Say the words "escort mission" to any gamer over the age of 20 and watch their eyes glaze over. You'll see a flicker of a long-suppressed trauma, a flashback to a time of rage-quits and shattered controllers. For a solid decade, it felt like every other game was determined to saddle you with the world's most incompetent, suicidal AI companion and call it "gameplay." it was a babysitting job from hell, and the pay was shit.

The Cardinal Sins of Escort Design

The classic, infuriating escort mission was built on a foundation of pure, uncut agony. It wasn't just one thing that made them bad; it was a symphony of terrible design choices that came together to create something truly special in its awfulness.

The Lemming with a Death Wish

First, you had the AI companions who were basically lemmings with a death wish. These weren't characters; they were sentient meat shields programmed to find the nearest bullet. They'd wander out from behind cover, stand directly in the line of fire, or develop a sudden fascination with an exploding barrel. Your job wasn't just to kill the enemies; it was to stop your charge from enthusiastically killing themselves. We all remember you, Natalya from GoldenEye. We all remember screaming at the screen as you ran directly into a hail of gunfire for the fifth time.

The Molasses-Paced Marathon

If the AI wasn't trying to die, it was trying to bore you to death. These NPCs moved at one of two speeds: "glacial drift" or "slightly slower than your own walking speed, but much slower than your run." This turned what should have been a tense journey into a tedious, stop-and-start commute. You'd run ahead, wait, let them catch up, and repeat for twenty agonizing minutes, like a parent trying to get a toddler through a grocery store.

The Damsel in Constant Distress

Then, there was the professional victim. This NPC wasn't actively suicidal, but they were a magnet for trouble. Every thirty seconds, they'd get snatched up by an enemy, forcing you to drop everything you were doing to rescue them. I'm looking at you, Ashley Graham from the original Resident Evil 4. The constant cries of "LEON, HELP!" are burned into the collective consciousness of a generation.

The Pathfinding Disaster

And let's not forget the AI who would be defeated not by enemy bullets, but by a doorway. Or a small rock. Or a gentle incline. You'd spend minutes clearing a path only to turn around and find your charge stuck on a piece of geometry, walking endlessly into a wall, completely breaking the game until you nudged them free.

The rare, Mythical "Good" Escort Mission

Now, I have to be fair. In the vast, dark history of this trope, a few glimmers of hope emerged. Occasionally, a developer would create a companion who wasn't a complete fucking liability. Think Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite, who stayed out of your way, threw you ammo and money, and was literally invincible. Or Ellie in The Last of Us, who was a crucial part of the story and could actually hold her own in a fight. These were the rare exceptions that proved the rule: an escort mission can be good, but only if the person you're escorting isn't a brain-dead, walking "Game Over" screen.

Why Did They Do This To Us?

So why did developers put us through this torment for so many years? The charitable answer is that it was a simple way to create tension and raise the stakes. The real answer is that it was a lazy, cheap way to pad out a game's runtime. It's far easier to program a stupid AI you have to protect than it is to design a complex, interesting level. It was the game design equivalent of a TV show's clip episode: low effort, maximum filler.

Have We Been Saved?

Thankfully, it seems developers have slowly, finally gotten the message. The truly soul-crushing escort mission is a dying breed. Modern games have largely evolved past the trope. Companions are now often invincible badasses who actually help you, or the missions are designed with smarter AI and better mechanics. We still see echoes of it, but the era of the truly awful escort mission is mostly behind us. We've been freed from our digital shackles.

So let's pour one out for the escort missions of yesteryear. They were a blight on game design, a source of untold rage, and the reason many of us have trust issues with AI. We hated them. We despised them. But in a weird, masochistic way, we survived them. And for that, we should all be proud.