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I married a blacksmith orc in Skyrim and his pathing or whatever must've been all fucked up bc he never went to bed. He had a bed in the corner but just made swords and ate bread. Never slept. Had to download a patch in order for my man to get some well-deserved shuteye. This is barely related to the video sorry.

Imagine you're going shopping at your local Winn Dixie, you've just accidentally run your cart into a wall, you're super embarrassed and quickly look around to make sure nobody saw and just as you look behind you, Austin's head pops back behind the end of the aisle and you hear the distant sound of pencil on paper

To anyone still wondering about the last NPC, she was scripted to be put into an unending "flee" state. If you've ever seen a highway man in Oblivion, a raider in Fallout 3, or a bandit in Skyrim either "surrender," "yield" or otherwise "flee" from the player, then that NPC has been placed into the "flee" state. He wasn't just following the NPC, the NPC was fleeing from every other creature in the game, including him. So in a way, cursed forever to exist only to run, until either caught, or finally out of sight.

I'm glad you actually went the extra mile to watch them walk places, but this has actually been known and implemented since Morrowind, albeit in much more simple form. However there are a few fun things the engine does that you didn't cover here.
At the base core of how characters move in the embryo engine are two system, a dynamic movement mode that can freely move around the (currently loaded) area, and a navigation mesh (usually called nav mesh) for less dynamic but guided movement. Think of the nav mesh as system of invisible roads that cross the entire game map, plus all interior areas, and have been placed by the developers to help the game calculate routes for NPCs to take. That nav mesh usually follows the geography of the area, so it has specific "roads" that follow actual roads and paths. This is what NPCs usually use to move between any given points, both close and distant. They will generally only stop using that when either of two things happen: They follow another actor (usually the player character or their AI tells them to directly interact with another NPC right NOW), or they're in combat. In both those cases they switch to dynamic movement which is basically just trying to take the direct route to the target.

However, all of this only happens when the NPC is actually loaded, and thus near the PC. If the NPC is unloaded, but still gets simulated to be moving somewhere, two tricks are applied to reduce the amount of calculations needed:
1: The NPC is now clamped to the nav mesh only and will follow it perfectly. If the player gets close enough to load them in, they will be somewhere on the nav mesh.
2: The nav mesh has a time information applied to it that tells the game how long it takes for a character to travel along those roads. This ensures NPCs don't teleport across the map, but are more realistically pushed along like a train on rail roads. And allows them to be encountered in the wild.

The latter is what is used for all NPCs that tell you they're going to meet somewhere with you, and usually the movement across the nav mesh while unloaded is faster than actual movement across the map, for both player and NPCs. Also while an NPC is on the nav mesh while unloaded they're safe from all dangers, as enemies only spawn when the player is near, and thus they don't encounter any threats, unlike if you stick around to watch them walk to their destination.
This also means in order for NPCs to die during travel you have to stick around, that's the only way they can naturally die. Though occasionally that's what kills them on accident, as they can become loaded in near raiders that only spawn because you entered the area at the same time, and suddenly they're in the middle of a raider stronghold getting massacred and you're getting a notification that your quest failed. Well done.

Edit: The nav mesh is also used to move the player character during fast travel sections, and is what calculates how long the travel will take.

The irony is that by following her you were actually stressing her out, or at least her code. Think of her like a Meseeks. Her job was to be untied by the player then run far enough away to no longer be rendered (finally rest), and by following her you prevented her from resting, you literally terrorized her (again or at least her code). Until, inevitably, she succumbed to the wasteland.

9:08 Fun fact, in BotW Beedle doesn't actually go anywhere. There is a unique "beedle" placed at each stable to give him the illusion of travelling. If you actually follow him as he leaves the stable, he will start to walk away but eventually he just turns around like 20 feet away from the stable.

Did not expect for this quirky "following NPCs" video to include "very gentle" and "not weird" real life stalking of randos in a supermarket or existential cogitations regarding the functionality of the perceivable universe based on it being literally perceivable in that moment or not.

I’ve never seen Dogmeat’s doggie paddle animation before. Cutest thing in the game.

5:05 it’s because the simulation we live in is actually just a Bethesda game

You should make a video about games that have "RUN!" sequences, but don't actually punish you for not immediately leaving the area.  Compare how well or how poorly they fake action or background noise.

With that last NPC, it's probably a good guess that her destination was to keep running so far that she got past your line of sight and despawn

The first time I played Fallout New Vegas I was really curious what that bright city in the distance had to offer but the way there was way too dangerous, so I spent 45 real life minutes following a caravan that was roughly heading that direction thinking surely all caravans would go there, and indeed they did. The armed caravan guards did really well killing off any threat that came our way, and they seemed to know a certain path that is relatively safe staying mostly undiscovered. It felt very rewarding to accomplish my goal in this very immersive approach, because previously I had been trying to just get there on my own and was failing and dying there all the time (and I dont like to savescum). It taught me something about how approaching RPGs in a very immersive way and less "gamy" "minmaxy" way can be really fun.:face-blue-star-eyes:

When I was a kid playing this game for the first time, I tried to follow Dad all the way from the garage back to Rivet City instead of just letting time pass and warping there since I didn't know I could do that. He kept aggroing radscorpions from 100 meters away, diverting from his path to charge at them minding their own business in a field somewhere. The best part is, he would always say "didn't want to have to do this" while charging them with nothing but a fucking lead pipe. No gun or nothing. Crazy man

I love it when an NPC asks if you want to head to a new location together or just meet up there later. I ALWAYS say let's go together, not just because I want to get all the story content I can out of a game, but because I love imagining I'm inconveniencing them by not letting them fast travel like they would have otherwise.

That clip of little Timmy throwing hands with the Creature from the Black Lagoon is emblematic of why I love Bethesda games.
You could never intentionally make something that funny.

One of my favorite NPC quirks in Skyrim was from my scaly husband.

I married Derkeethus who lives in Darkwater Pass and mines in the small mine there. After marrying he moved into my home in Whiterun and I didn't think anything of it. But one time when I was exiting a dungeon between Darkwater Pass and Whiterun I saw someone sprinting by. Ran over to see who it was and low and behold it was Derkeethus. Turns out each day in the morning he'd leave Whiterun to run all the way to Darkwater Pass so he could work the mine.

It's scary to think about NPC's as prisoners. They are trapped in a deadly game and their only options are to...
1) Cease living by entering a door.
2) Run endlessly until they die.

14:48 this gave off a “do you think god stays in heaven because he to is afraid of what he created” vibe.

I think the NPC was speaking directly to you when she screamed "this is hopeless", Austin. She was telling you that following her is a struggle against entropy, that her painful existence will only come to an end if you allow her to run off and cease to be.