NPC Design

Greetings, everyone! I'm trying to find examples of NPC design and how they immediately show signs of danger or neutrality. If you could post an image or reference to an NPC with a brief description on how the design reflects the NPC's hostile or passive nature, that would be great!

My NPC Examples

Hollow Knight - Elderbug (passive)

Although the game has some more exotic townies down the line, the first passive character in Hollow Knight bares a resemblance to the player. This is in contrast to how the starting NPCs encountered are spiky, crawling hostile creatures. The sudden introduction of a more familiar face is what alerts the player of passivity (or at least some new type of NPC). 

God of War 4 - General Enemies (hostile)

This happens with the majority of third person combat-based games, but God of War's inclusion of an enemy health bar typically gives away that the NPC can be damaged and is, in fact, a hostile NPC.

Zelda 2 - Townies (passive)

Passive NPCs are located in towns. Hostile NPCs are located outside of town. Easy to understand.

Minecraft - Zombie (hostile)

Simple example of hostility. People are aware that zombies are a threat. Details like the "burr" sounds and green skin immediately alerts the player of this.

Preferred Examples

It would be nice if you found...

-unique examples that don't involve graphical design (i.e., not just another spiky enemy)

-NPCs that may trick you into believing they're passive or hostile

-NPC design that reflects a level of hostility rather than a simple "hostile/passive" binary

Happy posting!

I've had to face this problem recently. Above is one of my NPCs, in Second Life, which is being used here for a game within Second Life, GTFO (Get the Freight Out). Players are moving freight from place to place in trucks, boats, and planes. Dacy is a security guard; her T-shrt reads “Hub Loss Protection”. But I don't want her coming on with a heavy cop trip. She's mostly there for ambience, and soon she'll be able to answer questions.

So she patrols the port and the mall, where you can buy trucks. Anyone who shows up gets greeted; she finds them and says “Hello”. To make this non-threatening, she walks at a pace of 2.5m/sec, rather than running up to people. She stops near a player, gets in front of them 1.5m in front of their face, and then says hello, from a hands-at-sides posture. (She can't talk back yet; that will come.) If she can't get in front of them, she stops about four meters away and says “Hello there”.

So that's subtle non-threatening behavior. If I wanted moderately threatening behavior, I could have her run up to someone at a dead run, stop, fold her arms, and say “What are you doing here?”