Niko

". . . .[Player]? What should I. . . do?"

Niko is the playable protagonist of OneShot. They are a child with blue hair with three "whiskers" jutting out from the sides, yellow catlike eyes, and tan skin. They wear a brown overcoat extending over their arms, a long light blue scarf, a brown hat with catlike ears, and grayish-purple bottoms that appear to be leggings. They are tasked with returning the Sun to the Tower and saving the World from dying out.

Niko contacts the Player throughout most of the game when in need of help or simply conversation about Niko's and the Player's origins.

In Oneshot: World Machine Edition, Niko's bio reads:

"The erstwhile protagonist and unfortunate victim of the forces set in motion by The World Machine. A bright-eyed child with a curious heart, Niko was summoned to play the role of the Sun-Bearer and Messiah to a broken world.

''Now that the machine has been healed and the cycle broken, Niko is finally free to return to their home. Niko can once again chase through golden fields of wheat under a warm sky, taste fluffy and syrupy pancakes, and most importantly: hug the mom that they've missed so much.''

Thank you."

Background
Before arriving in the World, Niko lived in a small village, with around fifty residents. The village is surrounded by a wheat field, which appears as the setting in most of Niko's dreams. The tallest building, a clock tower, is only two stories high. There is a well in the middle of the town. The village is not on Earth.

Niko first wakes up in a bedroom in a house in the Barrens. They encounter the "Entity" from inside a computer in the room, who tells them that the World isn't worth saving and asks them if they still want to try to save it. Niko soon finds a lightbulb and brings it with them upon exiting the house. They encounter the Prophetbot and ask him about the World, the lightbulb, the Player, and for directions on how to return home. After receiving answers, Niko continues on their quest.

Personality
Niko is a very kind and caring kid. Being the messiah that the prophecy had foretold, they became determined to reach the Tower and bring the sun back to it in order to save the World, even despite various other people stating that the sun won't stop the World from dying. Niko is also helpful, which is shown when they repair the Rowbot at the dock in the Barrens, and volunteer to find Alula and return her to Calamus in the Glen.

Upon reaching the Refuge, they begin to express indecisiveness, as seen where they have trouble choosing whether to bring back the World's sun but lose their only chance to return home, or to shatter the lightbulb, destroying the World instantly and have them return home. Niko also tends to be curious. They often turn to the Player to ask questions, most of them regarding information about the Player.

Trivia

 * Niko has been stated by Eliza to have an ambiguous gender, and Nightmargin an unknown gender.
 * There are instances in The World Machine version of OneShot (as well as certain trailers for the game) where Niko is referred to using singular they/them pronouns.
 * When playing the game in Japanese, Niko refers to themselves in the first-person ミー mii (katakana "me"), forgoing the usually gender-specific first-person pronouns common in Japanese, such as 私 watashi (informal female, formal ambiguous) and 僕 boku (informal male).
 * ミー also doubles as a pun, being a type of onomatopoeia imitating the meow of a cat.
 * According to Nightmargin, Niko comes from Nico, a gender-neutral name.
 * Nightmargin also said that Nico was changed to Niko as a reference to Nikola Tesla and his work on lightbulbs.
 * The name is also a reference to the Japanese word 日光 nikko, meaning sunlight.
 * As a running joke, Niko consistently and repeatedly denies being a cat, despite having many features and similarities to one. These similarities include pointy ears on their hat, whiskers extending from their hair, and large yellow eyes.
 * Niko's name is also very similar to 猫 neko, meaning cat in Japanese.
 * At one point during a Solstice run, Niko makes "confused cat noises".
 * One of the tracks in the OST is titled "On Little Cat Feet", referencing the thumping noises made when Niko walks on the catwalks of the Refuge.
 * In the Solstice anniversary stream, Nightmargin confirmed that Niko is not a cat or a person, but rather, a cat-person.
 * During another livestream, Nightmargin referred to what seems to be their skin as fur.
 * It is seen through dream sequences and dialogue that Niko's favorite food is pancakes. Their favorite pancakes are made by their mother, who grinds hazelnuts into the batter.
 * In the game, they specify that their second favorite food is pancakes, while their first favorite food is the pancakes that their mom makes.
 * Nightmargin has stated during a livestream that a headcanon of hers is that Niko is actually really tiny and the seemingly huge lightbulb they carry is the size of a regular lightbulb.
 * She also made plenty of joking statements about Niko's canon along with the chat during said livestream, such as them actually having 100 ears, the game taking place in a coma, and Niko having a love for throwing Molotov cocktails.
 * She has also joked that Niko is "Ness", a combination of Niko and Tess during a livestream and in one of her posts, referencing the infamous Game Theory video "Sans's SECRET Identity!" that claimed that Sans from Undertale is Ness from EarthBound.
 * During the pancakes and chess cutscenes (and likely some others), there was a sprite error with Niko having human ears, like in the original game. This was changed in an update.
 * Niko's age in the game is more or less 8 years old (discounting the original RPG Maker 2003 game, which was released in late June of 2014).
 * Niko was made on December 28, though this may or may not be their actual birthday in-canon. Going by this information, Niko is as of the year 2024.
 * Nightmargin further confirms Niko's age as 8 in one of her tweets.
 * Upon interacting with Alula's fox plush more than once, Niko mentions that they have an owl plush back at their home. The owl is brown and yellow, and its name is Mr. Banana Bread.
 * Niko is afraid of ladders. They mention this more than once whenever Niko examines a ladder in the remake version of OneShot.
 * Niko's height is 4 feet (~1.2 meters).
 * Niko thinks that coffee is for grown-ups, and prefers to drink milk with syrup.