Elegg

In the 2022 video game Goddess of Victory: Nikke, a gacha game developed by Shift Up, the player takes the role of a Commander trying to repel an alien invasion of Earth. To this end, he commands several manufactured robots called "Nikkes", each of which have distinct personalities, appearances and behaviors.^[2] In the game's setting, Nikkes are gynoid soldiers developed by three major companies with their personalities influenced by their manufacturer's traits,^[3] and while their bodies are robotic, they have organic human brains.^[2] The Nikke Elegg was designed by Shift Up's development in response to how development had changed since the game's launch, with director Yoo Hyung-seok stating that the mindset was to create a character with distinct appeal.^[4] According to producer Lee Reed, she was one of two characters that became far more popular with players than they expected, the other being D's "Killer Wife" version.^[5]

Elegg is a pale skin woman with bright blonde hair in a mekakure hairstyle. Her hair frames the sides of her head with an ahoge poking from the top, while her blue eyes are typically hidden behind her bangs. She additionally has a snaggletooth on the right side of her mouth that pokes out when she smiles.^[6] Her outfit consists of a white crop top and hot pants, with a black undershirt beneath it.

A summer version of Elegg, called "Elegg: Boom and Shock", was added in a later update for the game.^[7]

In Goddess of Victory: Nikke's setting, Elegg is manufactured by the company Missilis Industry, and is personified as a gamer who is skilled at adjusting energy efficiency, and assists with maintaining the infrastructure at the player's Ark base. She has an obsession with the in-universe retro game "Boom", and tries to install it on every system she can.^[8] She was introduced in the game's "Boom's Day" event, which revolved around a game show occurring in the Ark.^[9] She is voiced by Abby Espiritu in English, Kim Hyeon-ji in Korean, and Ayasa Ito in Japanese.^[1]

Elegg was later featured in the game's "Boom! The Ghost!" event, in which the cast investigated an abandoned ship.^[7] Serving as the introduction of her swimsuit version, she develops a gun called the "BFG" to help capture the ghosts lurking on the ship.^[10] Later, she was also featured as part of the "Memories Teller" event, which introduced guest characters Eve and others from Shift Up's other title, Stellar Blade.^[11] Outside of Nikke, she has also been featured in the tie-in trading card game,^[12] as well as the Weiss Schwarz card game.^[13]

Elegg's swimsuit design received significant reception, and was seen as heavily boosting her popularity.^[14][6] Several aspects of the character and her design referencing the Doom franchise via her obsession with the "Boom" video game were also praised.^[15][16]

Elegg was one of several characters featured in Shift Up's presentation for the game at the 2025 Tokyo Game Show.^[17] To promote the addition of her swimsuit version to the game, Shift Up released a pair of ASMR videos of the character in English, Korean, and Japanese, with her voice actors for each region providing the audio.^[1] Meanwhile, cosplayers portrayed Elegg as part of Shift Up's "Doro Family Summer Tour" which promoted the game in five cities worldwide,^[18] and the 2025 Summer Comiket.^[19] Several figures have also been produced of her by company Hobby Sakura,^[20][6] as well as Bandai Spirits.^[21] Other promotional items have included key chains,^[22] cushions,^[23] desk mats,^[24] mobile phone batteries,^[25] and food.^[26]

Elegg has been cited as an example of a character that can be seen as example of a plus-sized character in Nikke,^[27] with eSports.gg writer Lawrence Phillips describing her as "relatively unpopular".^[28] Gil Yong-chan of Gameple stated that the character had received mixed reception from Korean audiences. While he described her as having a "lively and playful vibe" due to her voice acting and animations, she bore a close resemblance to the game's existing "mob" characters, a mass-produced type of Nikke found in-game. Players noticed this aspect too, and while some felt she was unique and cute, others felt the similarity reduced her overall charm. However, he noticed a very different response from Western audiences, describing the response as explosive in how she eclipsed the popularity of previous characters and the amount of fan generated content she received.^[29] He attributed some of this response to her character design, which he felt was a "nerdy concept emphasizing health and vitality", and further felt the game's diversity in body shapes helped Nikke popularity overall.^[30]

Taiwanese magazine Cool Style praised her design, stating that just looking at images of the characters piques one's interest and that the developers understood their audience. Further praise went towards her "airhead" appearance and how her hair covered her eyes, as well as the shape of her midsection and "honey-shaped thighs", which they felt caused significant discussion around the character.^[15] Japanese website Hobby Watch meanwhile praised how her bangs coupled with her ahoge created a unique appearance, and felt her expressions coupled with her snaggletooth gave her a devilish aspect. However, at the same time they expressed that while her swimsuit had a unique style, it could barely be called swimwear due to its level of exposure.^[6]

The staff of Japanese website Inside Games praised her personality, stating that while she was shown to get frequently excited, she retained her pride as an engineer. Additionally, while she has otaku temperament, instead of being overbearing she is highly communicative, with her interests acting as a social lubricant with others. They further stated that while characters in Nikke tended to be beautiful or cute in varying degrees, Elegg was instead visually "quirky". This was illustrated by her face, which outside of one eye sometimes peeking out of her bangs left much of it up to the player's imagination. Her figure also analyzed for its appeal, specifically her bust size but also how the shape of her stomach and legs augmented by the tightness of her clothes portrayed "a perfect flow of contours, creating a unique curve that can't be captured by just having a good figure". They felt it suggested a mix of both body fat and muscle in her physique, and stated Elegg's indirect approach to cuteness represented Nikke's "unique and distinctive visual and style, making it a niche yet irreplaceable charm".^[31]

In regards to her swimsuit, Inside Games described it as captivating due its bold design, particularly in how the chest piece doubled as a monitor and provided "a daunting presence in many ways". They further praised how it emphasized her figure, while also stating that the character never seemed to overtly try to be sexy, giving her an irresistible charm.^[10] In another article, they observed that fan reaction to this design was particularly strong, drawing in more than double the social media interactions of other characters. They attributed it significantly to her character's charm, but also in how her animations helped emphasize her bright personality. While they pointed out that Nikke had effectively overshadowed her plus-size niche with the more voluptuous character Bready, this implementation helped her stand apart while also introducing her to new players who took a similar liking to her.^[14]

Cool Style also enjoyed how the "Boom" references in her character were a nod id Software's Doom series, down to her gun bearing similarities to the 2005 film adaptation's rendition of the BFG 9000, and how her obsession with installing Boom on everything possible mimicked real-life player's efforts do to the same with the original Doom title.^[15] Udn in their own coverage of the character pointed to these references as well, but also illustrated how her hairstyle heavily obscured her face in a manner similar to faceless protagonists in entertainment media, a trope they felt commonly reserved for male characters, and gave her a resemblance to the character Yanagi Uzaki from the anime Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!.^[16] Another point of interest they found was that her Japanese voice actress also voiced the character Elfuda in the anime Plus-Sized Elf, a similarly chubby character.^[16]