The world of Overlord is pretty populated with NPCs (Non-Playable Characters). But aside from himself, Ainz Ooal Gown really hasn’t encountered any other humans so far. Which has got to be a really sad situation. Imagine being the sole carrier of memories of a world forgotten, of guild mates and friends alike that are lost forever. But we, the readers, already know that he wasn’t the only human transported into the game from the real world. Question is, would Momonga ever get to meet these other human players?
So far, we have not seen Ainz Ooal Gown come across any other player in the popular DMMORPG (Full-Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), despite knowing that he was only the 19th person to get Isekai’d there. So, clearly, he should’ve met someone by now. And yet, while his new world is too wide and uncharted for him to go on that route for long, it still doesn’t mean those humans have survived as long as Ainz did. And that’s really the crux of the issue, isn’t it?
The problem isn’t whether Ainz will get to meet any more players aside from him, because there already were at least 18 humans in YGGDRASIL before him. No, the problem is whether any of that persisted for as long as Ainz did and lived to tell the tale. Because unlike in a video game, a game over here literally means game over. AKA you’re dead and not coming back. And with how cutthroat Nazarick is alone, let alone the rest of the world we haven’t explored? Well, it’s not hard to imagine that likely no human survived for long enough to encounter Ainz. And likely, he’s the only one left.
But could there be hope? Could fans have picked up on some foreshadowing that shows that Ainz might not have such a lonely existence after all? That’s exactly what we are here to find out in another section of Lore Analysis – where we pick apart stories from across the Animesphere and see where certain plots might be taking us. So, let’s dive right in!
Is Ainz Ooal Gown Just A Lonely God In His Lonely Realm?
So, Ainz is already kind of an undead god. Or, well, a Lich King to be precise. When the YGGDRASIL shutdown happened, it wasn’t like his human player was living it up in real life. In reality, Momonga was a social recluse with nothing going for him aside from the game.
So, when he gets stuck in the world, he already devoted so much of his time to, it wasn’t all that bad. Here he was, a new beginning, a new path he could choose. And when it became apparent that there was no other player that had a similar experience, Momonga took up the name of his old Guild and became Ainz Ooal Gown. He had a second chance now, in a world he was comfortable with.
But of course, it wasn’t without its limitations. In the game, the NPCs were just that – characters he could tweak until they were just how he wanted them. Now, they were stuck with the settings he had already put them through and were just as real as he was. Navigating that was something out of his comfort zone and, eventually, he did make a place for himself. But at what cost?
People That Came Before Ainz Ooal Gown
So, it isn’t surprising that there were other players that got stuck in YGGDRASIL alongside Ainz. Yet, for some reason, he was the only one to survive and thrive.
Apparently, players have entered the game with a gap of 100 to 200 years in between. The first group of players comprised of six God-like figures who arrived 600 years before the start of the current timeline. They were all guildmates, at level 100 and ended up creating a country called the Sloane Theocracy.
Only one, Surashana, ended up surviving long enough to meet the second group of players who came in 500 years before. They were known as the Eight Greed Kings (EGS). However, they ended up slaughtering each other over infighting, and, well, there wasn’t much left of them afterward.
So really, human characters just don’t seem to fare well in Overlord.
Will Ainz Find Similar Players?
It’s likely that Ainz will never come across another player because, well, they simply didn’t make it very far. Ainz was a special case. He had intimate knowledge of the world he was inhabiting, working hard to expand his skill set and become as strong as possible. It also helped that he really leaned into the whole ‘Undead Immortal’ thing.
But considering how he seems to find the artifacts his fellow guildmates of old used to equip, but neve the players themselves? Yeah, it doesn’t look very promising. And it’s definitely sad but hey, Ainz has carved a space for himself here, and maybe, that’s enough for now.
