Get your bad on: 10 video games that let you play as the worst villains imaginable
From Star Wars to Dungeon Keeper, these games give players a chance to indulge their villainous sides
Games Features Richard Ridings
As the saying goes, it’s good to be bad. At least, it is in video games, where you don’t just have to watch terrible, villainous things happen to the people on the screen: You can do them all yourself!
Games have been letting players exercise their ids as the bad guy for decades at this point, dating back at least to 1987’s Wizardry IV—which flipped typical computer RPG conventions by letting you take on the role of the evil wizard Werdna, so he could dish out retribution against all those dungeon-crawling do-gooders who kept foiling his plans in the first three games. Since then, the practice has only expanded, to the point that there are now whole sub-genres of video games where players can take on the part of iconic baddies like Jason, Leatherface, or the titular Evil Dead, and wreak havoc on their friends.
But which villains are the best to be? With the aim of helping all you would-be digital sociopaths out there, we’ve taken a look back at some of the great villain games of all time, highlighting here the ones that let you be truly, magnificently bad. Following your worst instincts in these 10 titles lets you do some truly awful stuff—of the sort that can give even a hardened player, with the blood of a thousand smooshed Goombas on their boots, pause.
And while a few of these games simply drop you into the spike-laden shoes of a typical baddie, we’ll admit to being more intrigued by the entries where you don’t have to be a paragon of utter digital cruelty. After all, villainy is really a matter of choice, and those games where you, the player, have to pick the option to do something manifestly vile are the ones that really make the evil land.
And now: To villainy!
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Chrono Cross lets you play as Lynx for a pretty good duration. It’s part of a body swap but still cool!
I love how Undertale’s “No Mercy” run, save some solid character beats and one of the toughest boss battles in the game, goes out of its way to make it feel lousy, joyless, and mechanistic. Most games barely bother changing the story much, often making important NPCs unkillable* so you can’t just murder the story as well. In Undertale, it becomes clear pretty soon that you aren’t just some asshole messing around in the game-world; instead, you are clearly the villain. And I hope you enjoy running about the same area for a long time, waiting to trigger enough random encounters to depopulate that area, because you will be doing increasing amounts of that activity as the game goes on. That is what I often imagine level-grinding in most RPGs is, anyway: “heroes” wiping out a sizable portion of the ecosystem just to get better at killing.*I will always appreciate TES: Morrowind’s approach: you can kill any of the plot-vital NPCs, but you will then get a game message telling you that your character is in a doomed timeline. You can still continue playing the game, but you won’t be able to finish the story (or *their* story, anyway) unless you restore a previous save or start a new game.
And, just to add onto the misery, of the two actual battles you fight (as opposed to your general slaughter), the first is exceptionally punishing in its intensity, but not actually anything new, so it’s designed to be both unfun in difficulty and boring in execution. (Or, if you make the bizarre choice to do a Genocide run first, exceptionally difficult given the complete lack of preparation offered.)
The second, on the other hand, is brutally, absurdly, maliciously unfair, in that it deliberately breaks all the conventions you’ve grown to expect – the boss opens by, after a long dialogue, taking the first turn and immediately attacking without warning. With his second-hardest attack. This attack goes on for long enough that there’s a very good chance an unexpecting player is killed by it, especially if they weren’t immediately ready to move. And, to make matters worse, the first time you survive it, he interrupts his pre-battle speech the next time, so you could get surprised again. He also makes a mockery of your stats – while you can easily have a defense, attack, and HP absurdly higher than on any other path, his attacks do 1 HP per frame, completely bypassing the invincibility period that you’re used to and your boosted stats. On offence, it’s no better story – he simply dodges any attack you make, something else no other enemy does. He even breaks the genre’s basic expectations – partway through the battle, he starts trying to attack you on the menu screen. He even offers you a chance to SPARE him – only to one-hit-kill you if you accept.All-in-all, both battles are a further continuation of the primary theme of the run being a generally miserable experience – boredom and frustration with basically no satisfaction beyond “I have gotten further”, the true essence of malicious DETERMINATION.
…but he does have one of the best tracks playing for his fight.
I know some people are cooler on Deltarune, or are just waiting for it to finish before playing it, but the stuff in its “No Mercy” equivalent is really interesting – in many ways, a lot uglier than what you do in Undertale, because it’s not just about dead-eyed violence.
Hey, ungrey my comment I wrote.
Morrowind has doubtless aged poorly mechanically (its combat was clunky at release), but it was also the last time Bethesda made anything truly, distinctively interesting. Nothing in the later games can touch in terms of a fantasy place that feels real—and distinctively alien to boot, rather than a warmed-over rendition of generic fantasy settings.
Wildcard entry: Borderlands 2.One of the things that makes Handsome Jack one of the great gaming antagonists is, like all well-written antagonists, you can see where he’s coming from. (Sorry, twitch streamers who felt seen in BL3 – you’re not that interesting. Or relevant.)He constantly derides you as being just mere bandits – the same as the raving, masked lunatics you’ve been offing by the thousands – and, well…he kinda has a point. You ARE just some randoms who are looking to pillage Pandora, you ARE breaking all the shit he’s trying to build, and you ARE engaging in acts of wanton violence. Sure, you’re probably quoting less Shakespeare, but still. one of the rare Grand Theft Auto playable characters who’s as violently crazy as Grand Theft Auto players themselves.This is by design; Rockstar based the three protagonists on the stages of player development players undergo in their games. Franklin is the noob just starting the game and learning how the world works. Michael is the guy who has figured out how it works, and knows how to act it in. Trevor’s the guy who’s finished the game and just wants to fuck shit up.
HK-47 is a god tier side kick. I wish we could see it in a movie or a cartoon.
…And special consideration should go to KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords, which not only allows you to be just as evil and sithy as the original but also makes you question the good choices you make.
I am a strong KOTOR 2 defender/proponent, the only reason I went with the first one is that the Mission-Zaalbar thing is my go-to thought for shit I did in a video game that made me feel genuinely awful for taking the option.
For what it’s worth, while HK-47 hasn’t appeared ‘on-screen’ as such, there’s a scene in Aftermath: Empire’s End that makes it clear that HK-47 still exists/existed somewhere in the current canon.(Also, the comics have had an evil protocol droid/astromech team who collectively take up a similar role.)
I’d like to throw Bioshock: Infinite into the mix. Spoiler alert for a ten year old game, but you are revealed to be an alternate history version of Comstock in the end.
I loved GTA V. It was fun playing as all three very different characters. In the end I chose to off Trevor and I still feel bad about it. He was a low-life asshole. But he was my low-life asshole.
spoilers for a 10 year old game but…you didn’t have to kill him.
I know. I felt bad as soon as I did it. Plus then I couldn’t play as Trevor anymore.
I don’t even know how GTA 6 can top Trevor, really. From a character standpoint, how do we go back to playing as someone relatively more ‘normal’?
No “Spec Ops: The Line”?
No, thank God.
CARRION???
How did Postal 2 not make the list?
I’m guessing it’s because only really juvenile people think Postal’s 90s morning cartoon style parody violence let’s you be actually “evil.”To everyone else the main character is just a psychotic asshole.In a sense Postal is lame and mild due to its parody exaggeration style.
One of my favourite things to do with Trevor was to find a mountain (or find yourself there!), pop his special (temporary invincibility), and then pitch myself off of the mountain, walking away afterwards. Good times.
I love Disco Elysium. Might be my favorite game ever.
It’s my favorite game. I remember coming across it shortly after launch and just having my jaw drop constantly at the level of writing and craft on display, over and over again. All the stuff that’s going on with its creators now is incredibly depressing.
I bounced off of it when it first came out, but I gave it another try when The Final Cut was released. I’m really glad I tried it again, because it’s great, and I probably had a better first-time experience because of it.
DE is the ultimate “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore” game. Playing it instantly transported me back to the CRPGs I played growing up in the late 90s/early 2000s. It’s so rare to see a game that trusts its audience so much these days. In general, I find video game writing to be… utilitarian at best, as someone coming from an English major (and former English teacher) background, but DE is one of the only games I’ve played that has legitimate literary bonafides. The only game I’ve personally played with writing quality that even comes close is Grim Fandango, which is definitely one of many clear inspirations on DE.
So many great games on this list. I loved Overlord and Overlord II. It was like Minion Pikmin, except for the frustrating habit of willingly wading into 3 feet of water to their mass deaths because you clicked a little too far. But it was fun playing the misunderstood anti-hero path. I also miss Dungeon Keeper, that was a fun one.
I was kind of with Trevor since he was killing bad people. That is until he murdered that lady in college. That was coldblooded. He barged his way into their home. She was in the right. She didn’t deserve that. I hated Trevor from then on.
Undertale is one of my favorite games, but I’ve never done a Genocide run. I’ve never been interested. I loved the game and the characters so much, I had no desire to go back and harm them.
But conceptually speaking, the Genocide Run is a fascinating thought experiment to me that plays on the compulsions most hardcore gamers have. The game tells you point blank that there is no reward for killing all the monsters. If anything, the game becomes less fun, significantly so. There are less people for you to talk to on your journey and less random encounters (because, surprise surprise, you killed everybody). The final boss openly cheats to make you so frustrated that you give up and quit. And yet there are still tons of people on YouTube who have attempted it, which I’m sure Toby Fox knew would happen.
San said it himself, the most challenging line of the game: “No matter what, you’ll just keep going. Not out of any desire for good or evil…but just because you think you can. And because you ‘can’…you ‘have to’.”
Dishonored should probably get a mention as while you can be a boring little beige goody-two-shoes and complete it without killing anyone, you can also elect to kill EVERYONE! High Society darlings, common street folk, you name it, and not only can you kill them, you can do so in the most fun, inventive and gruesome kinds of ways: have them devoured by swarms of rats. Mind control them into walking into a nest of deadly giant mosquitoes. Sedate them then teleport them to the top of a high object where there’s no possibility of rescue without jumping. not to mention the old standards of setting them on fire, dismemberment etc.
The ‘no-kill’ options for the main targets often seem a good deal more brutal than just sticking a knife in them. You basically send Lady Boyle off with a stalker/rapist, and the Pendleton twins are sent to a gulag.
Have honestly never done the dark side route in kotor. Tried once and it was just…. boring. The morality in that game just isn’t that interesting, it’s basically a choice between being a normal, decent human being or kicking sacks full of puppies.
The idea of being evil in Undertale and Disco Elysium genuinely nauseates me. I had to have a friend do the torture sequence in GTA V just because I found it pointlessly edgy, but I had no problem driving around and causing chaos and slaughter.
But both Undertale and Disco have levels of writing where pain comes off as something real and weighty—the ideal of choosing to put more of it into those worlds feels despicable.
Well, except for Alphys. Fuck Alphys. Undyne can do so much better than the Clint Stardew Valley of turn-based RPGs.
Clint is fine. He’s just an awkward lonely guy, but he’s harmless. At no point does Emily intimate she’s uncomfortable with him or doesn’t regard him as a friend.
Now Alphys, meanwhile, is an actual war criminal.
Ultima VI. In which you play the Avatar – the world of Britannia’s one true hero and paragon of virtue, general do-gooder and probable saviour of kittens and puppies everywhere.Except… turns out the evil demons spilling out of the underworld, who you spend half the game slaughtering to drive them back? Well they have a fairly reasonable grievance, you personally stomped down into their world, killed a bunch of their priests and stole their holy relic 2 games back, setting in motion the destruction of their home world.Oh, and you get access to the armageddon spell which if you choose to use it kills everyone and everything in both worlds. Which the king of Britannia (who is impervious as he’s a secret robot), ruefully admits does sort of end the war.
None of the games allow you to play as the most vile and disposable villains in the world. The ones responsible for the most deaths, destruction and hatred on the planet. The ones that kill hundreds of thousands of people with a simple yea or nay. Politicians.
I can’t name a franchise I want to see revivied more than Dungeon Keeper. What a blast.
Prototype has me thinking of the other game that overshadowed it that year- InFamous. If the name isn’t a spoiler, yes, you can choose the villainous path.
I remember playing both games back to back, and they’re such wildly interesting mirrors of one another. Infamous had half-decent writing and really, really strong design elements – their level and encounter designers, their storyboarders, just every element really felt beautiful and crafted and lovely.
Which is so wild because Prototype, a game that frequently seems slap-dash in-comparison, with janky encounter design, wild difficulty swings, a boring and textureless open world – somehow feels so much more fun in the moment-to-moment gameplay. Prototype feels smooth and effortless, while Infamous feels clunky in-comparison. Infamous I finished and look fondly on, Prototype I never got past the half-way mark. But Infamous I don’t remember any meaningful gameplay moments at all (from the first one, at least) while Prototype I will 100% always remember swinging down to the ground level, grabbing an old lady, king-kong carrying her up to the top of a building, tossing her into the air, gliding to catch her, absorbing her in mid-air, then continuing on gliding while wearing a granny disguise, all while my roommates just stared stunned at what the game was letting me do.
Braid!
I’m still yearning for something like Sonic Adventure 2’s “Dark” campaign. I can’t believe there are no more games that let you play out a full cartoon supervillain story. Getting your evil crew assembled, doing heists, foiling a team of good guys, blowing up the moon! Most of the examples here are games in which you choose between being good, and being a total asshole, but cartoon villains are fun without being irredeemable I think.
PSI OPS the mindgate conspiracy on ps2/xbox let you do some evil stuff; you mind controlled enemy soldiers to kill themselves, etc. It was a great game it is too bad it didn’t make it past the ps2/xbox era (no backwards compatibility on 360, etc)…