The characters from The Endless Empty mostly represent abstract concepts or thoughts. A colorful cast of characters can be found in each of the five realms of the mind, trying to find a suitable answer to the catastrophe of Death.
Warning: Major spoilers ahead, and all of them are unmarked. Playing the game is highly recommended before going any further.
Party members
"The last fragments of identity within a dying mind".
An unclear thought in the desolated mind, Static is an avatar of whatever is left of the person's being. Static's shape is influenced by its experiences and its body suffers amazing transformations from one chapter to the other. Static equips guns as weapons, the very type of weapon that unleashed the disaster, and its skills have to do with attacking, debuffing enemies and buffing allies, making it a very balanced character.
- The Faceless: Inverted and played straight at once. Like most other thoughts, Static is indeed faceless. However, lacking a literal face is the rule in this game, not the exception. Static's appearance is completely unique as well, and it tends to change according to its decisions from one chapter to another.
- Silent Protagonist: Static only seems to speak when answering someone's question, like at the interview with the Boss. However, it's not entirely clear these are Static's words at all. Outside of this, Static never speaks even to the other party members. The various memory recollections through the game are probably Static's thoughts.
"A kind neuron carrying a heavy burden".
The neuron responsible for pulling the trigger, putting the bullet into the person's skull and throwing the mind into complete chaos. With immense guilt for what he's done, Trigger Finger is determined to find a way to fix the situation or, at the very least, find the best way out. Friendly, responsible and teamwork oriented, Trigger Finger is the first party member that joins Static. Besides the basic Attack command, Trigger Finger has no offensive skills, instead being The Medic: his main skills lie in healing, removing harmful status and buffing defense.
- The Atoner: Trigger Finger volunteers to join Static in his travel through the dead and distorted parts of the mind hoping he can redeem itself at least a bit.
- The Heart: The most optimistic of the talking party members, Trigger Finger convinces the other characters to join the expedition, constantly makes the effort of keeping the team together and even offers itself as bait to attract Death during Logic's plan, prompting the rest of the party to run to its help.
- It's All My Fault: Practically said verbatim upon meeting Static for the first time, Trigger Finger is initially consumed by guilt, thinking it deserves to be "consumed" by Static. Until meeting Static, this motor neuron has been "forced" to think about its last actions over and over again.
- Squishy Wizard: It's a good thing Trigger Finger is the white mage of the party, because its health and defense levels are much inferior to those of the other party members at the same level.
The first boss fought in its own ream of the mind and the first new party member after Trigger Finger, Anxiety is a being of pure frustration, fear and, well, anxiety, stressed out by the tortures of existence. A gnarled mesh of teeth and eyes, it has been driven to despair by the frustration its own creations have given it, no longer willing to put up with the whole "money, bussiness, consummerism" model it has given to its realm. However, it has tried every other model it could conceive of and there's always a fatal flaw, always someone who abuses their power, always someone who is forced to bear the abuse of the mighty, always someone who corrupts the whole system. Anxiety is convinced there's no way of making anything work anymore and its due time to destroy everything again, asking Death to take it once and for all... until the arrival of Static and Trigger Finger.
- Death Seeker: Though the arrival of Static and Trigger Finger scares Anxiety (like almost everything else), due to it believing they are Death coming to take it, it asks them to do it already. After being defeated and told by TF they are not, in fact, Death, Anxiety still believes it would be best for him to dissapear because he "makes everything worse".
- The Eeyore: Anxiety is not exactly an optimist. It believes all of its attempts at creating a stable society are doomed to fail, thinks Static and Trigger Finger are actually Death finally catching up to it and when it is defeated in combat, believeing it's about to dissapear, he laments that "there was so much left to worry about". This attitude lasts until the very end of the game, since Anxiety has extremely low self-esteem.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: Two or three pairs stare from behind Anxiety's teeth, not counting the bright dots at the sides that might be its actual eyes.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Its most distinguishing feature might be its teeth, emphasized by how often it opens and closes its jaws, particularly in his role as the "monster". One of Anxiety's attack animations even involves dentures chomping down the enemy.
Others
- Driven to Suicide: They have already killed themselves before the game starts, having shot themselves in the head.
- Fisher King: Seeing as that the Mind is theirs, the Dying Person's mental deterioration mirrors the setting doing the same. Even if Death is inevitable for the Person, the characters are trying their hardest to prevent total destruction, somehow.
- Plot-Triggering Death: It's their suicide that's throwing the Mind out of whack, and the fallout of it has affected some of the party members emotionally.
- Posthumous Character: Not entirely; they're dying now, but the game still treats them as if they are.
Death. The Grim Reaper. The inevitable end of life and existence. Death makes itself known to our heroes near the start of the game and casually tells them all hope is lost. However, he urges them to try and find a way out of the mess anyways, since it believes some stray thoughts can create something unexpectedly beautiful.
Quickly expanding through the brain, Death has claimed vast regions of the mind as "dead zones" and its toxic presence has driven myriads of thoughts insane with despair.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: While it could be said Death is the game's main antagonist, it is genial enough to let the stray thoughts try to make something interesting out of their last moments.
The girl who changed the dying person's life forever. The protagonist knew from the moment they first saw her that she was more than pretty face: she was a real star full of talent. They composed many songs and toured the country for years with great success, until she grows tired of the protagonist, goes independent and exits their life. Starr's actions are the main force behind the plot and also the min focus of the memory recollections.
- The Diva
- The Rock Star
- Singer-Songwriter: Besides putting a pretty face and voice to the protagonist's songs so they would sell, she wrote many songs of her own, which were much more successful than the protagonist's.
The profit-obsessed leader of Paradise's successful Bussiness, The Boss proudly preeches the virtues of his realm: mindless consummerism, corruption and manipulation of the ignorant masses for profit and fun. The Boss has a talent to recognize special beings as soon as he gets to see them and doesn't lose one second before trying to recruit them as one of his employees. He constantly keeps a jolly, yet bussiness-like, way of speaking. A low, ominous sound of laughter accompanies his dialogues.
