These are the characters of Hyper Light Drifter. They are characterized solely through their behavior; even when they speak, Story Breadcrumbs are revealed as images instead of words. Because of this, they are all open to Alternative Character Interpretation and this list cannot be taken as definitive.
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Main and secondary characters:
The Drifter
- "A searcher, aspiring to find a cure."
- Alien Blood: A shimmering magenta fluid that evaporates quickly.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Has very distinctive cyan skin, and his eyes are black.
- Ambiguous Gender: Does not seem particularly masculine or feminine.
- Ambiguously Human: Most of the setting's inhabitants are Beast Men. In contrast, the Drifter looks mostly human, but with a few differences: pale blue skin and fuschia blood.
- Artificial Human: A plausible interpretation.
- Badass Cape: The Drifter starts with a red one (or black, on New Game Plus) and can find various alternatives via exploration and unlocking. Most of them do something cool or useful (doubling stamina, increasing speed, making that all normal melee attacks cause extreme deaths on the enemies...), on top of looking pretty slick.
- Blood from the Mouth: A symptom of his illness is coughing up blood.
- The Chosen Many: The Drifter is not the first to seek the Modules, the Immortal Cell, or to suffer the affliction.
- Colorful Contrails / Speed Echoes: A dash move leaves afterimages and a red streak in the Drifter's wake.
- The Drifter: As the title suggests, this character seems to be an unattached wanderer. Near the starting campsite is a storm-battered boat in which he presumably came to the land.
- Dying Dream: Implied as the Drifter sits down to rest under a familiar statue. The game ends with a vision of the Jackal leaving through the same door seen in the intro. The Drifter gets a beautiful view of the surface world, a wound seems to open in his abdomen, and he slumps to one knee.
- The Dying Walk: When the Drifter falls off the defeated Immortal Cell, he leaves his Laser Blade impaled in it. He can walk out of the Boss Room but cannot heal, dash, or attack. He leaves a Trail of Blood where he walks, and clearly will not make it out of the collapsing ruin.
- Fragile Speedster: Compared to tough enemies, the Drifter cannot take many hits. He can only win with speed and judicious use of Healing Potion.
- Glass Cannon: The Drifter becomes this over the course of the game; you can dodge quickly and gain several devastating attacks, but you're stuck with the modest HP pool you begin the game with, even as enemies become capable of dealing more damage. At best, you can don part of the ochre outfit to gain one additional hit point.
- New Game Plus mode takes this and cranks it up a notch, since the pure black robe you start with reduces your Max HP to 2 (and since many enemies deal 2 damage per hit, this effectively turns the Drifter into a One-Hit-Point Wonder). While you can still swap out your sword and drone to gain the perks of other gear sets, you can't remove the black cape itself or increase your maximum health with any of the ochre outfit's accessories.
- The Hero Dies: Implied by the regular ending. All but confirmed by the special image you can view after beating the game on NG+: the Drifter's corpse is near the bonfire, except there is no fire now, his clothes are ragged, and his body appears covered with cobwebs.
- Laser Blade: The Drifter's primary weapon of choice is a sword made of Hard Light. There are several different designs and colors available, conferring the perk of the gear set they hail from.
- Lightning Bruiser: Fast and deadly in combat.
- Plagued by Nightmares: Starting from the nightmare he has at the game's beginning, the dreams and visions only get worse.
- Robot Buddy: The Drifter is accompanied by a small companion drone, which is capable of interfacing with machines to activate switches, doors, and other devices. Alternative drone designs are part of the beneficial outfits you can collect, allowing the drone to serve as a perk slot.
- Master of Unlocking: The Drifter does not seem to press buttons on Holographic Terminals; The drone seems to activate most of them.
- Non-Player Companion: It is not much of a character, but it is the Drifter's only company in desolate places.
- The Musketeer: Though primarily a user of blades, the Drifter is no stranger to the use of sidearms and long-arms. He may use a sword and carry two ranged weapons, fluidly switching between all three as the situation demands. Only a basic pistol is available initially, but the Drifter can find five other weapons.
- Tragic Keepsake: The Guardian's outfit, once they succumb to the sickness, is an item Drifter can take and equip.
- Victory Pose: For someone that never speaks, the Drifter still manages to show off; after clearing any challenging battle (whether a small arena, or a full-on Boss Battle), the Drifter will do a dramatic sword-flourish and slam it point-first into the ground.
- Walking Armory: Aside from a Laser Blade, the Drifter has a choice of several other Energy Weapons:
- BFG: The sixth and final ranged weapon received is, plain and simple, a BFG. It fires a beam shot that deals 7 damage (most others dealing only 1-2), but it takes a moment to charge before firing and has very low ammo capacity.
- Hand Cannon: A trophy from the Hanged Man, the Hand Cannon is slightly more powerful than the basic pistol, but has less ammo and forces the Drifter to stand in place for a moment when firing.
- Handguns: The first ranged weapon received is a basic semi-automatic, found during the tutorial sequence. Modest damage and capacity, fires quickly, but accuracy isn't stellar at longer ranges.
- Magnetic Weapons: Found after defeating the Hierophant, the railgun provides modest damage and can hit multiple enemies with a single Hitscan shot. It can also activate certain switches that cannot be activated by other weapons.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Two varieties: a basic shotgun that deals very high damage up close, and a sort of 'shard' gun that fires a spread of projectiles that then home in on a target after a short delay. Both have fairly limited capacity.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Unlocked via a store in town, the Drifter can carry up to two regenerating explosive devices that deal moderate damage over a wide area. Very effective for clearing out swarms of weaker enemies.
- The Nintendo Switch version also added two new weapons:
- Taken for Granite: A gun that encases an opponent in a crystal upon hit. Great for intercepting enemy attacks and mixing up your melee combat to push your offensive power to new heights.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The throwing sword, which is obtained after beating the Tower mini dungeon (only available in the ultimate edition). A second Laser Sword that is thrown like a javelin at an opponent before returning like a boomerang to the Drifter, hitting whatever gets in the way of its return arc.
The Guardian
Although they are given no name in-game, in promotional materials, or by Word of God (devs may refer to them as "Pink Drifter" or "Badass Drifter"), quite early on, the fandom came to a consensus of calling them The Guardian.
- Adopted to the House: The Guardian brings the Drifter back to their house after the latter passes out, and evidently lets the Drifter live with them as a no-strings roommate.
- Bait-and-Switch: Appears just after the Jackal in the first three areas, and shares a pink color scheme, which can lead players to assume that the Guardian is the Jackal in human form. However, they die in the South Zone, while the Jackal is unrelated. Attentive players can also see the Jackal with the Guardian after they rescue the Drifter at the beginning of the game, though it's partially hidden by foliage and easy to miss.
- Crusading Widower: As they reveal in the South zone, the loss of their partner and child to the sickness led them to start following the Jackal.
- Hates Small Talk: When an NPC in town relates the tale of when the Guardian saved them and another townsperson, the Guardian seems to walk away without talking afterward. They also don't wait around for the Drifter to wake up in their home.
- Incurable Cough of Death: They suffer from the affliction, much like the Drifter, and occasionally cough up blood in the same way. By the time you reach the south zone after having interacted with them three times, the Guardian has succumbed entirely to the illness, and expires after their final words to the Drifter.
- Nice Guy: All but stated: they move the Drifter to their house after he passes out from his sickness, some NPC dialogue shows that they saved several citizens of the Central zone from certain death, and whenever they are first talked to in a new zone, they give the Drifter the map location of all modules within it.
- Old Master: They could be older than the Drifter — a well-rounded, experienced badass. Maybe age catching up with them leaves them vulnerable to sickness.
- One-Man Army: As cutscenes and NPC dialogue show, they are more than capable of defending themself against great numbers. Unfortunately, even the mightiest of warriors is no match for the mysterious sickness, and they die to it.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Their gear is mainly pink-colored with a bit of blue and brown here and there. They're also the bulkiest-looking NPC in the game, and they have the deepest, um, "voice". Also, you really can't deny that their Spartan-esque helmet and furry cape, despite being pink, look hella manly.
- Rescue Introduction: The Drifter has a coughing fit and passes out. The Guardian picks him up and brings him to their house to recover.
- One NPC in town seems to recount a similar story of a time when the Guardian protected them by slaying a horde of monsters.
- Retired Badass: Not exactly, since they are still a professional badass warrior. However, unlike the Player Character, they are no drifter — they had put down roots, made a home, and started a family.
The Alt-Drifter
- Difficult, but Awesome: Her attack is faster than the main Drifter's, with a longer range that can cross some chasms if with a moderately reduced width, and she is faster than the Drifter and can dash farther than him. With this moveset, she can wipe the floor with her enemies and kill some bosses within seconds. However, she has two fewer hit points than the main Drifter on standard difficulty — though one more than him in New Game Plus — so there is a bit less room for error when playing as her.
Enemies and bosses:
The Hanged Man
- "Twisted, broken, a creature filled with anger and deep, wretched pain."
- BFS: His weapon of choice.
- Body to Jewel: He seems to be turning into crystal, just like the landscape around him. When defeated, he becomes fully crystallized, then falls apart from a Clean Cut.
- Fallen Hero: Implied. He wields a sword and gun like the Drifter, and when he dies, he emits a shadowy aura like other corpses. This suggests he could be one of The Chosen Many like the protagonist.
- Flunky Boss: Will occasionally free minions from the crystals in the arena. Alternatively, you can trick him into smashing them.
- Hand Cannon: Secondary weapon of choice. The Drifter can take it from him after defeating him.
- Lightning Bruiser: He may be large, but he moves fast and his leaping attacks are quite powerful. Like the Hierophant below, also quite large.
- Taken for Granite: Partially-petrified, with green crystals rising from his back and coating an entire arm.
- Turns Red: No change in appearance, but the Hanged Man's aggressive, leaping combos increase in speed and number of attacks (requiring more dodging, and more precision) as his health decreases.
The Hierophant
- "A mad, power hungry ruler. A false prophet."
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Absolutely the case here: he's the leader of the north cultists and a powerful foe.
- Cowardly Mooks: The Boss Room is surrounded by a balcony, and throughout the fight the Hierophant's followers crowd around watching and cheering. When he is slain, they quickly vacate the area.
- Flunky Boss: Summons weak swooping birdmen to harass the Drifter during the fight.
- Human Resources: The first time the Drifter confronts him, the Hierophant seems to magically absorb the body of a smaller figure, possibly an underling who Outlived Their Usefulness.
- Large and in Charge: Bosses aregenerally large in this game, but the Hierophant is big; easily twice the height of the Drifter - and he's also the leader of the evil bird cultists.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Given the Science Fantasy setting, it's hard to say if the Hierophant's abilities are based on magic or science.
- Teleport Spam: The Hierophant teleports around the arena.
- Totem Pole Trench: As his death animation shows, he's actually a very tiny bird-man standing on the shoulders of a larger creature.
- Turns Red: Does not physically change color or appearance, but the Hierophant's attack patterns begin to vary as his health decreases; precise area blasts and snaking chains are gone in favor of saturating the rows and columns of the arena unevenly.
- Would Hurt a Child: According to one of the bird-people that don't follow him, his followers destroyed dozens of eggs and burned the hatchery down, and the attendants only managed to save a few.
The Hermit
- Big Eater: Upon introduction, it eats an otter-person before the fight.
- Body Horror: The right side of its body is covered in fungal growths. When the Drifter defeats it, its stomach bursts open.
- Flunky Boss: As with most others, the Hermit summons lesser minions to its side.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The minions that it spits up will explode when they die. If it gets caught in the blast, it’ll take damage and become stunned for a few seconds.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: One of its primary attacks is to throw glass jars full of pink fire — the same type seen throughout the city and its underground labs. These explode violently on impact.
The Sentients
- Chest Monster: One of the module containers is located in an open area that looks suspiciously like a Boss Room. When the Drifter opens the container, you get a brief glimpse of a shadowy monster where the module should be before the container explodes. He Was Right There All Along, and The Summoner emerges to fight you.
- The only sign that something is wrong is haptic: a sustained rumble instead of a brief one.
- Fireball: The Sorcerer summons balls of energy to throw with.
- Flunky Boss: The Summoner prefers to fight by summoning Attack Drones.
- Odd Name Out: They are the only major boss that doesn't follow the Tarot Motifs Theme Naming.
- Sinister Scythe: The Reaper fights with a massive scythe, alternating between melee and ranged attacks.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The scythe-wielding robot can throw its weapon at you for ranged attacks, either throwing it straight at you or in a spiral around itself. The scythe will then return to its hands like a boomerang.
- Title Theme Drop: After defeating them, the chilled-out tune from the start screen plays in each empty Boss Room.
- Turns Red: When it gets down to half health, the fireball-slinging robot will create large gaps in the floor to make avoiding its attacks more difficult. It will also start summoning four fireballs at a time instead of two.
Gods and other entities:
Judgement
- "Ever-present, always watching, inevitable."
- Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: While the Drifter always sees Judgement as a hulking, bipedal entity, the Guardian's account of one of their own Judgement hallucinations features a much more centipede-like Judgement, though it's unclear why.
- Big Bad: The Drifter's greatest enemy and probably the source of his struggles.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: When the Drifter finishes off Judgement, it's revealed that they stabbed not the monster, but the Immortal Cell. This throws into question if Judgement was ever materially real, or only a manifestation of the Drifter's fear.
- Brown Note Being: Maybe. It seems intimately connected to The Corruption that is afflicting the Drifter. Its appearance, even in visions, causes the Drifter to stagger and intensifies every Ominous Visual Glitch to its maximum.
- Bullet Hell: One of its attacks spews waves of projectiles across the Boss Room.
- Color Motifs: A garish magenta is the color of all its attacks. This is also the color of the fluid the Drifter coughs up in cutscenes, as well as mysterious pylons and containers that crackle in a way that's evocative of a Geiger counter. It is also the color of the Modules themselves, hinting at some unclear connection between them.
- The Corruption: It has connections to both the corruption of the Immortal Cell and the sickness that afflicts the Drifter, Guardian, and others. Whether it is the cause of both or only a result of them is unclear.
- Coup de Grâce Cutscene: Unlike most other bosses, Judgement does not immediately "die" when it is defeated. It sits there, breathing heavily, unable to move, attack, or defend itself. The Drifter must deliberately finish it off — with a non-standard flourish of strikes culminating in a leap and a Sword Plant, driving his Laser Blade deep into Judgement's body. Then, in an Ominous Visual Glitch, Judgement vanishes and it appears that the Drifter instead fatally stabbed the Immortal Cell. Torrents of Alien Blood gush out of the Cell as it dies.
- Cyclops: Insamuch as a glitched-out diamond resembles an eye. This is the closest thing it has to a face.
- Eldritch Abomination: It is implied to be not of this world.
- Flunky Boss: Summons packs of four drones that surround the Drifter for a few seconds, then explode.
- Game-Over Man: Whenever the Drifter dies, a warped howl may be faintly heard. It is Judgement's glitchy, distorted roar.
- Head Blast: In battle, it can emit a devastating blast of magenta fire.
- Horns of Villainy: Its "face" is a familiar diamond, but glitched and extended to form horns on either side.
- The Juggernaut: Absolutely huge and, until the Final Battle, absolutely unstoppable. It constantly follows the Drifter as he takes the Modules and will effortlessly destroy him in his visions.
- Lightning Bruiser: It not only boasts the power of a godlike entity, its speed is just as insane. It will knock the Drifter over if he is in the way of its Dash Attack.
- Load-Bearing Boss: When Judgement is defeated and the Immortal Cell destroyed, the Advanced Ancient Acropolis begins to collapse.
- Nightmare Sequence: It dominates the terrifying visions of the main character. It removes any doubt of its malevolence when it brutally kills the Drifter multiple times in these dreams. The Drifter never faces it "in person" until the very end, but it is obvious he knows of Judgement as early as the Dream Intro.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: When it is present, so are distorted graphics and crackling audio.
- Ominous Walk: In the Drifter's visions, it shuffles forward slowly. Its prey is doubled over coughing, in no condition to escape.
- Sigil Spam: Diamonds, the shape of the Immortal Cell. Judgement's own appearance seems to be based in the array the Cell is attached to, which has a light pattern shaped like its face.
- Teleport Spam: Teleports around the arena, of course.
- Tentacled Terror: Shadowy tendrils trail from its shapeless body.
- Volcanic Veins: during some of its attacks, glowing lines may be seen within Judgement's otherwise-inscrutable body. The Immortal Cell is overgrown with sickly magenta vein-like shapes.
The Titans
- Ambiguous Robots: They appear biomechanical, but it's unknown how or why they came to be.
- Dark Lord on Life Support: One Titan is still alive — or pieces of it are Not Quite Dead, at least. Immersed in titanic life-support tanks are its eyes and its biomechanical heart (or in other words, its Heart Machine).
- Expy: Of the God Warriors from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Aside from similar designs, they both are largely responsible for the apocalypses of their worlds, were nigh-unstoppable gods, and enigmas that just suddenly appeared one day. They also bear a striking resemblance to EVA-01 from the iconic scene at the end of the second Rebuild of Evangelion movie.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Judgement might be the Drifter's main threat, but the Titans are what nearly destroyed the area in the first place and their influence is still felt to this day.
- Outside-Context Problem: They're long dead by the time of the game, but there seems to be no explanation as to what they were or why they existed. Doesn't help that one of their acts was to destroy everything.
- Posthumous Character: They've been dead for a very long time.
- We All Die Someday: Their importance to one of the game's themes. On one hand, they pose no threat to the Drifter. On the other, they seem to weigh heavily on his thoughts: the Titans' decaying corpses loom over both the Drifter's nightmares and the waking world he walks. The Drifter is already acutely aware of his own mortality, and the colossal wrecks of the Titans are an overwhelming reminder that even the most powerful can die.
The Jackal
- Animalistic Abomination: It's not clear what the Jackal is, but for sure it's no ordinary canine.
- God's Hands Are Tied: Due to Judgement possibly stealing its powers, the Jackal is unable to defeat it and calls for outside help from various people. Outside of appearing in visions to guide people, it doesn't offer any more assistance.
- Holy Halo: A diamond-shaped one, signifying its divinity and connections to Judgement and the Immortal Cell.
- The Magic Goes Away: Suggested by the Bittersweet Ending. The shimmering light hanging above the land rises and dissipates, implying the Jackal is leaving. It gives a calm look through a closing door, as if bidding goodbye. However, this seems to be because it is finally free now that the Immortal Cell is destroyed.
- Mysterious Watcher: Appears to be watching the Drifter and the Guardian, as well as their progress, for some unknown reason. It might be doing so to determine their skill and worthiness, to see if they're fit to defeat Judgement.
The Librarian
This character is only seen in a faint holographic image each time the Drifter activates a monolith. Like the inscriptions themselves, the character's appearance is hidden and easy to miss. Like the Drifter, they wear a cloak and interface with the monolith through a drone.
- Apocalyptic Log: These seem to be the purpose of the monoliths. They claim responsibility for the events that led to the Immortal Cell and warn that it is still alive and dangerous.
- Cryptic Background Reference: The events preceding the game remain mostly shrouded in mystery, but this character provides tantalizing hints.
- Hologram Projection Imperfection: The recorded image flickers as it plays back.
- Posthumous Character: Presumably. They certainly never appear alive.
