MOVIE

They’re Programmed to Work, but What Happens If They Stop?

NPCs populate the gaming world as background extras. They simulate being alive, but their rhythm of life is controlled by looped activities — which they exercise tirelessly and repetitively into infinity.

In this short documentary, a laundress, a stablehand, a street sweeper and a carpenter are observed with ethnographic precision. They are nonplayer characters, or NPCs, in the blockbuster Wild West-themed video game Red Dead Redemption 2, and many of them are trapped in work.