Even an overall great game can disappoint if its villains are lame. Whether it’s the big bad of the whole franchise, or the devious force behind the events of a single side-quest, the satisfaction of disrupting their evil schemes is that much greater if the villain turns out to be truly memorable and their motivations are well fleshed-out. Welcome to G2A.COM – for today’s list we will take a look at various awesome video game villains and choose the ones we love to hate the most. A quick reminder before we begin – if you enjoy our content, make sure to subscribe to our channel for a regular dose of gaming inspiration – and make sure to leave a comment below to let us know which video game villain is your favourite. And one more thing – this list is not spoiler free. Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Number 10 – Shao Kahn – Mortal Kombat The Emperor of the Outworld is the kind of conqueror who likes to toy with his enemies before vanquishing or subjugating them. This is why he offers humanity the chance to avert the incoming doom at the hands and blades of his otherworldly army by organizing a series of Mortal Kombat tournaments. Should an Earthrealm hero manage to defeat Shao Kahn’s champions, they might face the Emperor himself in an one-on-one battle and secure peace for Earth.
Though it’s worth noting that Shao Kahn’s power challenges the strength of gods themselves. To make him even worse, Shao Kahn loves nothing more than to make his former enemies grovel before him. He chooses his commanders from races he had conquered, and forces the former Queen of Edenia, another realm he subjugated, to become his wife, raising her daughter Kitana as his heir. He’s a real piece of work is what we’re saying. Number 9 – Atlas – Bioshock It’s been over ten years since BioShock has been released, and we still can’t get over the twist reveal. It’s one thing that your character, Jack, had been conditioned to be unable to resist the phrase “would you kindly” – a weakness masterfully exploited by the nefarious Atlas to bring down Andrew Jackson, the creator of Rapture.
Realizing that you, the player, had been obediently following Atlas’ commands and *kindly* working towards his objectives cuts right through the fourth wall. That makes Atlas a truly memorable foe, who played not just your character, but yourself as well. Number 8 – Dormin – Shadow of the Colossus In order to resurrect Mono, a young woman sacrificed to avert a dark prophecy, the protagonist of the game, Wander, travels to a remote temple inhabited by an ominous being named Dormin. The shadowy entity has but one request – to secure its favour, Wander has to destroy a bunch of titanic monsters roaming the lands around the temple. It turns out that in doing so, our hero helps the evil being escape from its prison, and becomes more and more corrupted in the process.
In the end, Dormin regains its power, Wander ends up more or less dead, but hey! Mono *is* resurrected in the end. The things we do for love, right?
Number 7 – Sargeras – Warcraft If you’ve player Warcraft games, you might be familiar with the Burning Legion. You know, the flaming mass of demons and destroyers continuously assaulting the world of Azeroth, trying to bring it to ruin. As it happens, the legion is ruled by the fallen titan Sargeras. Sargeras was once a mighty warrior, protecting the various planets against the demon which would plague them. Eventually, however, seeing the futility of his endeavours he became mad, and decided to scour the galaxy of all life to halt the encroaching Void corrupting everything in its path. Eventually his sight fell on Azeroth, and everything that has happened since was in some part Sargeras’ bid to raze the galaxy to the figurative ground, including Azeroth, where a new potential titan lies.
Number 6 – Albert Wesker – Resident Evil Albert Wesker might seem to play on your team at the beginning of Resident Evil, but during the game you will find that your commanding officer is in fact a power-hungry, cunning villain affiliated with the Umbrella Corporation responsible for the events in Racoon City. Wesker’s plan is to gain control over all humans with the help of biological weapons he helped develop. He continues to be the force of evil in future games, where it is revealed that he managed to stage his own death at the hands of a mutant named Tyrant. It’s not surprising he managed to pull that off, seeing how he turns out to be biologically engineered to possess a superior intelligence and trained by Umbrella to be their elite agent. Number 5 – The Illusive Man – Mass Effect 2 The Mass Effect Trilogy had a wide variety of villains to offer – from the geth, husks and collectors who served as cannon fodder during various missions, through the indoctrinated rogue Spectre, Saren Arterius and his equally indoctrinated team of former good guys, to the nefarious force pulling their strings and working to end life as we know it – the Reapers.
But despite all the competition, The Illusive Man remains the most memorable villain of the series. The head of Cerberus is *not* a clear-cut bad guy hellbent on destruction. When we first meet him, he uses his organizations’ funds to resurrect our hero, Shepard, and works with them to stop the Reaper threat from destroying life in the Milky Way. You see, The Illusive Man’s goal is to ensure the advancement of humanity – and if he saves the other races while working towards that goal, so be it. That doesn’t make him a good guy though – he’s an unabashed human supremacist, who wants to make humanity ascendant over all other races and will do anything to reach that goal.
Unfortunately for him, his dream of humanity becoming the most powerful race of the galaxy leads him to an attempt to assume control over the Reapers to use them as humanity’s weapon – a plan that backfires spectacularly and causes him to become an indoctrinated servant to the hostile species he tried to enslave. Number 4 – Fatebinder – Tyranny It depends on your choices as the player – but more likely than not, the character you play in Tyranny, the Fatebinder, will end up being the worst thing that has happened to realm of Tiers. Even though there are many other factions doing their best to be remembered as the worst. As an agent of law, you can easily become a cold and ruthless inquisitor-type working to uphold the rule of the land. Even before you start the game you are presented with a variety of choices that wouldmake many villains on the list blush. Of course, you can lead your character to a slightly more heroic behaviour – but even then your actions will result in a large-scale destruction and despair for the enemies.
And it’s all YOUR choice. Number 3 – Sarah Kerrigan – Starcraft Sarah Kerrigan was amongst humanity’s brightest soldiers – a highly accomplished and skilled scout with psychic powers trained during her times as a member of the Terran Ghost, and the second-in-command of the Sons of Korhal. Despite her accomplishments, she was deemed expendable and left for dead by her commanding officer during an onslaught of zerg. That decision came back to bite humanity in the posterior, when it turned out that Kerrigan had been captured by the enemy and turned into the ruthless and powerful Queen of Blades, first under the control of Zerg Overmind, and then assuming control over the swarm herself and leading them to seek dominance over the galaxy. All that while seeking revenge on those who betrayed her. Number 2 – Gaunter O’Dimm – The Witcher 3 When we first meet Gaunter O’Dimm, he seems like a helpful enough lad, who gives us some valuable intel.
In the Hearts of Stone expansion however we find out that the self-proclaimed mirror merchant is not what he seems to be. The nature of Master Mirror is not entirely clear, but his modus operandi is very similar to that of devils from various lores, most specifically Pan Twardowski from the polish legends. You see, he’s not going to simply take your soul. He will make you an offer, and you can choose yourself whether you want to take it or not. Of course it will be proposed in a way that makes it hard to say no – though it might turn out to have some unexpected side effects. Once a deal is made, it has to be honoured – Gaunter does not like to be cheated, and will use his power to hunt you down, whether it’s by striking a secondary pact with a Witcher or by using wordplay to his advantage.
And guys! Check out his initials! Number 1 – GladOS – Portal The passive-aggressive AI in charge of the Aperture Science facilities who supervises the tests of her own design is a delightful mix of helpful encouragement and homicidal tendencies. Her soothing voice, promises of cake, and quips about dead parents are a constant presence during the game and you could say that she forms a kind of a bond – abusive though it may be – with the test subject, Chell, during the course of the game. Of course in the end, GladOS decides to incinerate the insubordinate test subject, and ends up heavily damaged instead.
Don’t worry though, she’s not even angry. She’s being so sincere right now. So that’s it for our list! Do you agree with our choices? Or did we miss your favourite big bad?
Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for a regular dose of gaming inspiration!
