When it comes to single-player games and characters, the sky is the limit. While multiplayer games often need smaller rosters to ensure the game remains balanced, that's not a problem for single-player games. Instead, the issue is often making sure they have enough time to add a bunch of characters while getting the game out on time.
In RPGs or games where characters have a limited number of attacks they can perform, rosters can often fill up pretty quickly. Of course, everyone is used to an RPG having a minimum of five or more characters, but some games have dozens, or even hundreds, available.
10 Final Fantasy Tactics Has 18 Named Characters Available, With A Catch
Square-Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics is a game that's passed into legend. While it doesn't have the fanbase that Final Fantasy VII does, the people who love Tactics often tout the game as the best of the Final Fantasy titles. Tactics doesn't rely on the traditional four-player system, and instead allows the player to bring a mini-army into battle.
Counting guest characters and everyone added in War of the Lions, there are 18 characters in the game. However, the player can also choose to recruit unnamed characters, meaning there is no limit to the number of soldiers that could join Ramza's cause.
9 Xenoblade Chronicles X Has Nearly 20 RPG Party Members Joining The Group
Part of the reason Xenoblade Chronicles has become Nintendo's best RPG series is that the franchise's games always have a lot of everything. Every game has plenty of meaty story, locales, and side missions, but Xenoblade Chronicles X added something new: an abundance of characters.
There are around 19 characters within X who are playable, and all of them have affinity missions that players can do once they've raised a character's affinity enough. Of course, this requires playing with each character for dozens of hours, so a player could lose hundreds of hours trying to see all the content in the game.
8 Legend of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel IV Has Nearly 40 Playable Party Members
The Legend of Heroes games are already known for having a massive world. The reason it's one of Falcom's best RPGs is because fans are addicted to the game's ever-growing, ever-changing world. They never set things so far in the past or the future that previous games' events are no longer relevant.
rails of Cold Steel IV goes to new levels with the number of characters stuffed in its roster. Featuring not just the Cold Steel 1 and 2's Class VII, but Cold Steel 3's Class VII and tons of side characters from this sub-series and other ones in the franchise, the player has around 39 characters that are playable at some point in time.
7 Chrono Cross Has 45 Characters That Can Join With The Player
Square-Enix has many beloved RPGs that aren't Final Fantasy, like Chrono Trigger. However, the sequel to Trigger, Chrono Cross, is a bit more divisive. One divisive decision about the game was the sheer number of characters in the game's story.
At a time when a game was lucky to have eight or nine characters, Chrono Cross offered no less than 45 different characters from start to finish. Each character had their own life and story to learn about, which is fantastic for people who want a more expansive universe. But to others, having this many characters can be exhausting.
6 Genshin Impact Has 50 Characters For Players To Spend All Their Money On
Genshin Impact technically only one character that players experience the story with, as the Traveler is typically on their own as they travel from continent to continent. However, there are plenty of playable characters that players can take into battle, many of whom have been introduced in the game's main story thus far.
Currently, miHoYo has introduced 50 playable characters that players can have access to – if they're lucky. Pulling those 5-Stars isn't quite so easy, and will often require people to hit pity twice to get who they want. Of course, some 4-Star characters are better than 5-Star characters.
5 Fire Emblem 12 Has Nearly 80 Soldiers For The Player To Take Into Battle
All the Fire Emblems are known for having massive rosters, as the game is meant to emulate what it's like to lead an entire army into battle. However, no Fire Emblem has ever had as many characters as the Japanese-only Fire Emblem 12: Heroes of Light and Shadow for the DS.
A remake of the third Fire Emblem game, players could recruit 77 characters throughout their campaign. This is an astounding number of characters, especially considering, most of the time, Fire Emblem games only allow players to take twelve to fifteen characters into a map.
4 Every Suikoden Has 108 Characters To Collect To Get The Good Ending
Suikoden games all have massive rosters by their very nature. Every game is about collecting the 108 Stars of Destiny, characters who are vital to the social and political change happening around the main character in the game. While a player could easily skip many of these characters, it's best if they don't.
Even if it requires a guide, Suikoden games have a habit of saving the best ending for players who were diligent enough to find everyone. This can lead to everything from broken relationships being fixed to sacrificed characters coming back to life.
3 Warriors Orochi 4 Features Over 170 Playable Characters
The Musou genre has become so popular that they now get to have crossover games that are entirely between Musou franchises. The Warriors Orochi franchise combines the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors franchise for a single game.
In the latest Warriors Orochi title, players can assemble three-person teams featuring characters from both franchises. The base Warriors Orochi 4 title includes 170 characters for players to access, including members of different pantheons like Zeus and Athena. Meanwhile, the Ultimate update adds more new characters for a total of 177 characters.
2 Radiata Stories Has Nearly 200 Recruitable Characters
In 2005, tri-Ace teamed up with Square-Enix to launch a new IP in Radiata Stories. While the game wasn't received so well, Radiata Stories has ideas that would take years to be included in other open-world games, like a dynamic Day/Night system and persistent schedules for all of its characters.
One of the points that helped the game stand out is the ability to recruit NPCs to join the player's party. In all, 176 NPCs can be recruited to the party, acquired through side quests, and reaching certain points in the game's story.
1 Watch Dogs: Legion Allows The Player To Take On Any Character In Its City Of Thousands
Ubisoft's Watch Dogs: Legion game went in the opposite direction of the popular Watch Dogs 2. The first game relied on the mostly unlikable Aiden Pearce for its story, while the second used DedSec, a group of likable twenty-somethings using their hacking ability to take down bad actors.
But while Watch Dogs 2 was loved for its characters, Watch Dogs: Legion sets the player loose in a world where they can recruit anyone in the City of London to become a member of DedSec. Each character has a procedurally-generated story, voice acting, and side quests to recruit them. While this isn't the best way to play the game, and it's probably better to use Aiden Pearce and Wrench from the DLC, it's certainly a novel concept.