Big Bad / Video Games I-Q

I

• Ib: The one responsible for trapping Ib and Garry in the Cursed Gallery is Mary, the little girl encountered in the gallery who tags along with them (and possibly the Cursed Gallery itself, depending on your viewpoint). Mary is actually the Mad Artist Guertena’s last creation, and acts as the boss to the others, but “A Painting’s Demise” heavily implies that the Gallery is making her do it to replace herself as the Gallery master before it will let her leave.
• Iconoclasts: Mother is the leader of the One Concern who is responsible for the despotic tyranny it is subjecting the world to. After her death, Emmet Darland takes over and tries to stop the heroes from reaching the moon; once they do, the Starworm becomes the final threat who tries to destroy the world for its Ivory.
• Immortals Fenyx Rising: Typhon, father of monsters, who took over the Golden Isles while stealing the essences of four of the Gods. His plan is to replace them, seeing them as horribly flawed.
• Imscared: White Face, also known as HER and Ivan Zanotti, is the mysterious entity that hijacks the game to torment the player. Given that the game is merely a completely empty walking simulator with no threat whatsoever, it can be said that White Face is responsible for literally everything in the game except the Player downloading it (which in itself is debatable, given that White Face claims the name of the developer as its own.)
• Inexistence Rebirth: Claos, the ruler of the Isle Of Hope, imprisons Hald's sister inside a crystal and puts her into an endless sleep at the start of the game. Hald hopes to defeat him to break the spell.
• InFamous: Kessler is the leader of the First Sons, creator of the Ray Sphere weapon, and responsible for just about all the events that happened in the game's past and present, in an effort to make sure Cole, his past self, is strong enough to defeat the Beast.
  • inFAMOUS 2: A Big Bad Ensemble between Joseph Bertrand III, the leader of the Militia and the source of the Corrupted monsters, and The Beast/John White, a powerful Conduit who aims to activate the powers of any remaining Conduits to help them survive, at the cost of dooming the rest of the human species.
  • inFAMOUS: Second Son: Brooke Augustine is the director of the DUP and the driving force behind the continued war against Conduits, having them imprisoned and experimented upon in a twisted attempt to protect them.
  • inFAMOUS: First Light: Shane Boomer is a drug lord that forces Fetch to work for him and build up his criminal empire by holding her brother hostage.
• Insanity: Dr. Shigeki Murai is the man stalking the kids in the mansion and trying to kill them so he can revive his loved ones.
• Inversion: Kiltehr, the leader of the Lutadores who seeks control over the Inversion spaceship.

J

• Jack French: The last episode reveals that Vince was the serial killer of that episode, and that he killed Nami from episode 1 as well.
• Jade Empire plays with this trope: Death's Hand first appears to be a bad guy acting on his own, but then it is revealed that he has been acting on Emperor Sun Hai's orders and the Emperor was the one who set up the death of the Water Dragon and the upsetting of the balance in the first place. However, it is widely rumored that Death’s Hand is corrupting the Emperor and the true power behind The Empire. This is untrue, as Sun Hai is in control. However, once you defeat the Emperor, your kindly old Master Li wanders in, reveals that this was all part of his Evil Plan to get vengeance on his brother Sun Hai, and kills you, and it turns out that he was actually the mastermind behind the massacre at Dirge, as well as the Final Boss of the game.
• Jet Force Gemini: Mizar, a.k.a. Tribal leader Jeff's long-lost brother Barry, the primary force behind the Bug War.
• Jonathan Kane: The Protector: Hakan Akbar, the founder of the terrorist group Scarlet Vengeance who's after the Aztec Mask that will allow him to impose his will on the earth.
• Jump Force: Prometheus, Galena and Kane's master responsible for the merging of the real world and Jump worlds. He manipulates both the Jump heroes and villains in order to gain enough power to permanently merge all realities and rule over all of them as a god.
• Just Cause: Each game has the villain be a dictator that Rico Rodriguez must defeat in order to liberate the country they're oppressing.
  • Just Cause has Sans Esperito's dictator, General Mendoza.
  • Just Cause 2 has Panau's dictator, Pandak "Baby" Panay.
  • Just Cause 3 has Sebastiano Di Ravello, dictator of Medici.
  • Just Cause 4 has Oscar Espinosa. He's not only the dictator of Solis, but the employer behind the Black Hand and the one responsible for the murder of Rico's father.

K

• KAIMA: Prince Vido is the murderer of his sister, Princess Ezel, to usurp the throne, and is the one destroying the world by sucking out all its energy. Except he is actually doing it to seal Ezel, who's been eating the world's subjects all along and wants to destroy the world herself. Upon being released, Ezel becomes the main threat.
• Kao the Kangaroo: In the first and second game, it's the Hunter who captures Kao's friends. In the third game, it's the Volcano God (or "the fiery guy") who unleashes lava monsters onto the island. In the 2022 reboot, it is the Eternal Warrior, otherwise known as Minkey. He and the Shaman's Hat work as one.
• The Karaoke: The basketball coach, a serial rapist who pursues Mira throughout the game.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising has Medusa, the Big Bad of the original Kid Icarus. At least for the first third of the game. Then it's revealed that she was just a pawn for Hades.
• kill.switch: Archer, a war profiteer who takes control of Nick Bishop and uses him to attempt to start a world war.
• Killing Time: Tess Conway, who put the curse on Matinicus Isle in her quest to gain immortality through the Water-Clock of Thoth.
• Kinder: Yuuichi Mizuoka is the cause of the town’s horrific transformation and the one who forces the other kids into the Friends Game.
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance: Istvan Toth, a Hungarian nobleman serving King Sigismund of Luxembourg who raises a bandit army to seize control of Sasau and the surrounding environs as his own personal domain.
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's Big Bad is Gadflow, leader of the Tuatha Deohn. Tirnoch is the Greater-Scope Villain and the actual final encounter of the game's main quest. The various factions also feature their own Big Bads of their respective questlines; the House of Ballads has the Maid of Windemere, the Warsworn have Niskaru Lord Khamazandu, the Scholia Arcana has the Dark Empyrean, the Travelers have the Hierophant/Argine of Sun Camp, the House of Sorrows has Saturnyn/King Bisarane, and the House of Valor has Tyr Magnus. The Big Bad of the first DLC, The Legend of Dead Kel, is of course Dead Kel himself, while the second, Teeth of Naros, features Primos Anokatos. Notably, more than a few of these Big Bads (the Maid, Khamazandu, and the Hierophant) can actually be sided with rather than being fought.
• The King of Fighters has many main villains in each new entry, but the saga villains are the most powerful and the most dangerous of them all.
  • The King of Fighters '94: Rugal Bernstein is the sponsor of the annual King of Fighters Tournament and the final opponent before anyone can be crowned as the champion. The truth though is that he's a notrious criminal mastermind who collects strong fighters like trophies so that he can encase them in liquid metal.
  • The Orochi Saga has Orochi, the ancient deity that seeks to wipe out humanity from the face of the earth, and he is also the one who started it all, starting a war against mankind. The only ones standing in his way are the three clans of Kusanagi, Yagami, and Yata clans, and their respective heirs Kyo, Iori, and Chizuru.
  • The NESTS Saga has Igniz, the second-in-command turned leader of NESTS and the man responsible for ruining the lives of K’, Kula, Maxima and others for his own amusement and using them for NESTS experiments.
  • The Tales of Ash Saga has Saiki, the leader of Those from the Past and acts as a direct Foil to Orochi. He and his followers lost a similar war against humanity and were forced to go into hiding until the time was right. Saiki also had descendants leading up to the protagonist of the Saga, Ash Crimson.
• Kingdom Rush:
  • First game has Vez'nan The Dark Lord, a powerful dark magic wielder that wants to take over Kingdom of Linirea with his Dark Army. He can halt your towers with powerful spells, summon demonic armies and tell bad jokes.
  • Frontiers has Lord Malagar, the most trusted pupil of Vez'nan. He seeks to avenge his master by using Hammer of Ages and his staff to unleash an ancient evil to absorb it's powers and destroy the kingdom. However, he ends up a Big Bad Wannabe as he's nowhere near said evil, Umbra the Shadow God, in power, and is killed by it as soon as it's freed. Umbra than takes the helm of the Big Bad, intending to consume the entire world and becoming a brutal Final Boss.
  • Origins features Malicia, the queen of TwilightElves, who wants to conquer the Elven Kingdom. She later forms a Big Bad Duumvirate with Mactans, the Ancient Spider Queen, in an effort to corrupt Tear of Elynie an ancient Elven artifact. They end up indirectly corrupting Vez'nan, soon-to-be Big Bad of the first game.
  • Vengeance sees the return of Vez'nan, but this time we are playing as his general, aiding him on a quest overtake Linirea. He succeeds, warping Denas to places unknown and beginning a new rule of the kingdom.
  • Legends has The Overseer, a strange entity from another reality that wants to enter this universe with the help of it's Apocalypse Cult.
• Kirby: King Dedede is touted as this for the series, but he's mostly only villainous in early games and eventually becomes one of Kirby's allies. Besides him, Dark Matter comes the closest, as they (or members of their kind) have popped up several times as antagonists. For the most part however each game has a new Big Bad.
  • Kirby's Dream Land: King Dedede, Dream Land's self-proclaimed ruler, is the one who stole all of the denizens' food for himself.
  • Kirby's Adventure: King Dedede again, who this time steals the Star Rod powering the Fountain of Dreams and breaks it into seven pieces. In reality, he's just trying to seal away Nightmare, the real antagonist who wants to turn Dreamland into a realm of nightmares.
  • Kirby's Dream Land 2: Dark Matter is an Eldritch Abomination who possesses King Dedede and attempts to transform Dream Land into a Dark World.
  • Kirby Super Star:
    • Spring Breeze has King Dedede, who, like in the first game, stole all of Dream Land's food.
    • Dyna Blade has the titular Dyna Blade, a giant bird who steals all of Dream Land's crops in order to feed her babies. She does make amends with Kirby by the end of the game, however.
    • Revenge of Meta Knight: Meta Knight uses his Halberd to launch a full-scale takeover of Dream Land, believing it would be better under his rule.
    • Milky Way Wishes: Marx, a supposed friend of Kirby, is the one who causes the Sun and Moon to fight. He manipulates Kirby into summoning Nova so he could stop them, only for Marx to hijack his wish and use it to attempt to conquer Popstar.
  • Kirby's Dream Land 3: Dark Matter's core, Zero, launches an invasion of Popstar, corrupting it and possessing the citizens.
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards: Dark Matter's core, Zero, now reincarnated as 0², has set their sites on invading worlds beyond Popstar, beginning with the peaceful land of Ripple Star.
  • Kirby & the Amazing Mirror: Dark Meta Knight is the one who seizes control of Mirror World and traps the real Meta Knight inside the Dimension Mirror. He turns out to be The Dragon to Dark Mind, the true mastermind behind the events of the game.
  • Kirby: Canvas Curse: Drawcia is a Wicked Witch who wants to transform Dream Land into a world made entirely out of paint.
  • Kirby: Squeak Squad: Daroach, the bandit leader of the titular Squeak Squad whom Kirby must get back his strawberry cake from. Daroach later ends up possessed by Dark Nebula, who's the game's Final Boss.
  • Kirby's Epic Yarn: Yin-Yarn is an evil yarn-themed wizard who turns Dream Land and its denizens into yarn and aims to rule over them.
  • Kirby Mass Attack: Necrodeus is the leader of the Skull Gang who wishes to kill Kirby so he may shroud the world in darkness.
  • Kirby's Return to Dream Land: Landia is a four-headed dragon from Halcandra and the one that crashed Magolor's ship to begin with. Only Landia was trying to stop Magolor, who manipulated Kirby and friends into repairing his ship and defeating Landia so he may obtain the Master Crown and conquer the universe. However, it turns out that the Master Crown itself is the true villain; having taken control of Magolor through its influence and later fusing with a Gem Apple Seed in the Deluxe-exclusive Magolor Epilogue to fight against Magolor itself.
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe: Queen Sectonia is the tyrannical queen of Floralia who kidnaps King Dedede after the oppressed People in the Sky attempt to get a legendary hero from Dream Land to save them. However, Dededetour instead has Dark Meta Knight. Not only is he the Final Boss, but it was the Dimension Mirror (under his influence) that corrupted Queen Sectonia to begin with.
  • Kirby and the Rainbow Curse: Claycia is a sorceress/artist and Elline's former friend who sucks all color and life out of Dream Land. However, she's revealed to have been possessed by Dark Crafter.
  • Kirby: Planet Robobot: President Max Profitt Haltmann is the head of Haltmann Works Company who intends to mechanize Pop Star while stripping of its Star Power. That is, before being betrayed by his own computer Star Dream, who assimilates Haltmann and goes out to annihilate all life in an attempt to meet the President's goal of infinite prosperity.
  • Team Kirby Clash Deluxe: Dark Taranza is instigating the monster rampages throughout the Dream Kingdom. He himself is actually The Dragon to King D-Mind.
  • Kirby's Blowout Blast and Kirby Battle Royale: King Dedede is the final boss, though his antagonistic role is unexplained.
  • Kirby Star Allies: Hyness is the insane leader of the cult of the Jamba Heart who seeks to use the power of the Jamba Heart to revive his "Dark Lord". The Final Boss is said dark lord, Void Termina, who's heavily implied to be the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire series.
  • Super Kirby Clash: Parallel Nightmare is an extradimensional version of the true final boss from Kirby's Adventure, spreading calamity across the Dream Kingdom throughout the game. During the endgame, Aeon Hero/Galacta Knight dispatches Parallel Nightmare and takes over the Big Bad position.
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Leongar is the leader of the Beast Pack who kidnaps Waddle Dees for his own amusement. It is later revealed that he is actually under the influence of Fecto Forgo, a malevolent creature who eventually fuses with Elfilin to become Fecto Elfilis, and uses Planet Popstar to collide with the Forgotten Land.
• Klonoa
  • Klonoa: Door to Phantomile: Ghadius, the dark spirit of Nightmares and Darkness who seeks to destroy Phantomile.
  • Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil: The King of Sorrow, the ruler of Hyuponia, the Kingdom of Sorrow, who manipulates Klonoa and Leorina into making it so Lunatea will remember and accept his kingdom. When his plans fail, he decides to simply destroy it all together.
  • Klonoa: Empire of Dreams: Bagoo, Emperor Jillius' advisor and secretly a being known as the King of Despair. He's the one responsible for the curse plaguing the empire and and intends on taking it over by turning it inhabitants into monsters.
• Knack: Gundahar, the goblin chief who wants to exterminate mankind so his race may reside in their cities. Once he's taken care of, the role's taken up by Viktor, a billionaire industrialist who uses Knack and his friends to get him the key to the Trogdo Mine so he can gain access to its relics.
  • The sequel initially has Gundahar return and attempt to destroy humanity again, this time with a robot army. However, his role as the villain is overtaken again, this time by Xander, the leader of the monks and a power-hungry maniac who wants to take over the world and destroy all technology.
• Knights of Ambrose: The overall villain of the series is Lilith's master, Zamas, who wants to destroy humanity for being too unpredictable and for gaining his sister Helena's love. He convinces Typhus, Morgoth, Phoenix, and Tiamat that humanity needs to be destroyed for the good of the world, and later takes control of Abbie to use her power against humanity. He also cursed the Vulcan Stone to turn its users into demons that serve his will.
• Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade: Lord Bishop, who kidnaps Adelle and uses her to gain access to the Gates of Hell in order to obtain limitless power.
• Krut: The Mythic Wings: Zurah the warlord, leader of the stone ogres who returned for a second stab at taking over Himmaphan.
• Kuon: Ashiya Doman, who uses the Kuon ritual as a way to regain status and respect and get even with Seimei, sacrificing countless innocents to his studies.
• Kya: Dark Lineage: Brazul, an alien conqueror who intends on conquering the world and destroying numerous dimensions using the power of the medallion.

L

• L.A. Noire: Big Bad Duumvirate of Dr. Harlan Fontaine and Leland Monroe, the masterminds behind the SRF.
• La Pucelle has Noir, who seeks the power of Calamity to create a world without humans and demons.
• Lakia Aged Through Blood: The Two-Beaked God, the leader of the birds who perpetuates the war ravaging the Wastelands with the goal of killing all non-birds.
• The Last of Us: In general, the Infected are the main enemy to the human survivors.
  • In Autumn and Winter, David turns out to be the leader of the cannibals that Joel and Ellie are fighting.
  • In the endgame, depending on your viewpoint, either Marlene, leader of the Fireflies who aims to kill Ellie to produce a vaccine for the infection, or Joel himself, who destroys humanity's last hope to save Ellie.
• Last Rites: Father Mordae, who unleashed the Mystical Plague that lead to the Zombie Apocalypse for the sake of obtaining immortality.
• The Last Story: Zangurak, the leader of the Gurak race who unites the Gurak against humanity.However, it's revealed that Dagran is the real villain, having masterminded the Garuk and Lazulis war and has been scheming to gain the power of the Outsider so he may reshape the world how he sees fit.
• The AI Director itself in Left 4 Dead is the big bad behind every possible bad thing that happens to the players, especially on Expert difficulty where all it does is punish players for doing badly and slaughtering them for trying to be good.
• Legacy duology:
  • Demon Legacy: Shadar, Proteus, Deimos, and Apollo all seek to control the world as its god for their own purposes:
    • Shadar the Malevolent Shadow is a wraith that is responsible for killing hundreds of people and seeks to become the god of the world in order to bring balance to the world and stop the tyranny of the gods.
    • Proteus is the original god who, after being driven mad by the betrayal of Apollo and Deimos, seeks to devour the entire world.
    • Arch Duke Deimos is the Mad Scientist current ruler of the human world who wants to eliminate all threats to his rule, and is the Wheel of Reincarnation who created humanity and turned them against the other gods in the first place.
    • Apollo of the Absolute Will is the leader of the Demi-Gods who aims to Kill All Humans and establish a 'utopia' with him as the ruler of a new, perfect race.
  • Phantom Legacy: Shadar, reprising his role from the original game, and Malakai, a human Mad Scientist, are the main antagonists competing to become the new god of the world, the former to balance it and save it, and the latter for his own entertainment.
• In the Legacy of Kain series, while the morality of all of the characters is somewhat difficult to determine, by the end of Defiance, it seems to be firmly established that the big bads of the series are the Hylden Lord (and his entire race in general) and the Elder God.
• Legacy of the Wizard features Keela, the evil King Dragon who was sealed away in the past by the hero's grandfather. However, there are signs of the dragon awakening, for which the entire Worzen family (the hero, his parents, sister and pet) decide venture into a vast subterranean dungeon in order to slay Keela for good.
• Legend of Legaia: Prince Cort, the original creator of the Mist Generator. He's also behind everything that starts Vahn, Noa, and Gala's journey, countless tragedies, and turning Legaia into an After the End planet.
• The Legend of Tian-ding has the main villain, General Shimada, who oversees the Japanese occupation over Taiwan in the 1900s and seeking a MacGuffin that allows him to rule over humanity.
• The Legend of Zelda King Ganon/Ganondorf, a Gerudo King turned Demon King, is the Arch-Enemy of Link and Princess Zelda who pursues their various incarnations and seeks the Triforce so he may conquer the Kingdom of Hyrule. Ganon is frequently incapable of not being the Big Bad. By game:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ganon kidnapped Princess Zelda and is searching for the Triforce of Wisdom to conquer Hyrule.
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: Averted; whilst there are remnants of Ganon's army that seek use his blood to revive Ganon, they are irrelevant to the main plot and have no leader. The bosses are guardians created/placed by the king to protect the crystals and test Link.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: Agahnim takes over Hyrule by killing the King and brainwashing his soldiers and kidnaps the Seven Maidens to revive Ganon. Except he actually is Ganon, either possessing Agahnim or using Agahnim as an alter ego.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: Nightmare/DethI plagues the Wind Fish and keeps him from waking up.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Ganondorf is the evil foreign king who seeks to use the mystical Triforce to reshape Hyrule in his own image, and actually does so in the Bad Future, where Link must overthrow him.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Skull Kid is the one using the titular mask to bring down the moon onto Termina, although the mask itself turns out to have been possessing him all along.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games:
    • Oracle of Seasons: Onox, General of Darkness, kidnaps Din and seeks to overturn the seasons of Holodrum, causing destruction throughout the land.
    • Oracle of Ages: Veran, Sorceress of Shadows, seeks to travel through time and change Labrynnna's past, possessing Naryu so she can manipulate Queen Ambi and rule over the land.
    • In a linked game,the true villains who Onox and Veran are working for are revealed to be the Twinrova sisters, Koume and Kotake, who seek to resurrect Ganon by casuing enough destruction to light the three flames needed for the ritual.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords: Vaati is the entity that kidnaps Zelda to force her to marry him.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: Vaati, here a Picori who turned on his people, shattered the Picori blade, turned Zelda to stone, and released monsters on the world, all as part of his plan to obtain the Light Force and become a god.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures: Vaati teams up with Shadow Link, who kidnapped Zelda, to get rid of Link once and for all, though it turns out both of them are pawns of a reincarnated Ganon.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Ganondorf is the reason that Hyrule was submerged in water and the reason why the Helmaroc King has been kidnapping young girls with pointy ears, and much of Link's quest is to undo Ganondorf's machinations and prevent the King of Evil from assembling the Triforce to resurrect Hyrule in his own image.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: King Zant is the leader of the Twili who desires to conquer Hyrule as well, though he is actually working for Ganondorf, who has returned and wants to take over Hyrule for real.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: Bellum, an evil demon of chaos, is the source for all the calamities that occur in the waters of the Ocean King.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Initially Chancellor Cole, as he desires to release Demon King Malladus, his master, who is sealed within the Tower of Spirits, and is destroying the titular Spirit Tracks for that purpose. Once Malladus is freed, he takes over as main villain and attempts to conquer Hyrule.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: For most of the game, Demon Lord Ghirahim is the ruler of the surface world who aims to free his master, The Imprisoned/Demon King Demise, and join him in destroying all who oppose him. Once Demise is freed, he takes over as main villain and resums his plan for world conquest, then casts the curse that enabled Link and Zelda to reincarnate, while Ganondorf would thus turn out to be the reincarnation of his hatred.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Yuga, a sorcerer from Lorule, is kidnapping the Seven Sages to revive Ganon and possess him so me may conquer both Lorule and Hyrule. He is actually the only villain to defy being Hijacked by Ganon, as immediately after he is revived, Yuga fuses with him, retaining his role as the Big Bad. He also betrays his boss, Princess Hilda, after she is supposedly revealed to be the true Big Bad- he then tell her that he was using her all along, and becomes the Final Boss.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes: Lady Maud cursed Princess Styla to wear a drab object out of jealousy for her fashion and must be defeated for the curse to be lifted.
  • Hyrule Warriors:
    • Main Story: Cia and Ganondorf both compete over control of Hyule. Cia cuses destruction over Hyrule out of jealousy at Link not being hers, while Ganondorf is the one who corrupted her and once again wants to unite the Triforce to conquer Hyrule.
    • The Wind Waker epilogue in Legends has Phantom Ganon as the one using Cia's lingering spirit to steal the Triforce of Power from Lana and invade the Hyrule Warriors dimension.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Calamity Ganon destroyed Hyrule in the long past and plans to finish off what's left once it escapes. Link has to defeat it before that happens.
  • Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: Taking place in an alternate timeline from Breath of the Wild before the Calamity occurs, the heroes face off against Astor, a seer assisting the Yuga Clan to bring about the Calamity, and Harbinger Ganon, a piece of Ganon's malice that possessed the Terrako of the new timeline and seeks to bring about the Calamity as foretold. While Astor mainly plots to stop the Champions from assembling through the Yiga Clan and maintaining enemy hold over Korok Forest, Harbinger Ganon travels across Hyrule to stir up monster attacks on countless villages, all to spread and tire out the Hyrulean forces before Calamity Ganon's big return.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Ganondorf, the source of the Calamity from Breath of the Wild, makes his return to power after being imprisoned deep under Hyrule Castle and builds his demon army to finish his conquest of Hyrule after being foiled in the distant past.
• A long slew of 'em in The Legend of Dragoon.
  • For the entirety of disc 1, it's the literal Disc-One Final Boss Emperor Doel, leader of Imperial Sandora. Afterwards, focus shifts to the platinum-haired Wingly Lloyd, but he explains that he's working for a mysterious Emperor Diaz, who supposedly died about 11,000 years ago. Cut to the end of disc 3, where it's revealed that Emperor Diaz is actually Dart's father, Zieg Feld, who supposedly died when the Black Monster attacked Neet. Cut to the very end of disc 4, where it's revealed that Zieg was possessed by Melbu Frahma, the leader of the Winglies from over 11,000 years ago, who was cut down by Zieg, who was, in turn, turned to stone. Turns out after all those years, Melbu's spirit was inhabiting Zieg's Red-Eye Dragoon spirit, waiting until the time was right to merge with the Virage Embryo to destroy all of Endiness.
  • The Black Monster seems like one of these, until it's revealed in disc 3 that the so-called "Black Monster" is actually your party member Rose, who's been going around murdering children for over 11,000 years to ensure that the Moon Child never reunites the God of Destruction's body with it's soul.
  • The Virage Embryo is this due to its nature of being the body of the god of destruction, whose primary goal is to exterminate all life on Endiness so Jerkass god Soa can remake the planet.
• Legendary (2008): Morgan LeFey, multi-billionaire and leader of the Black Order, who aims to use the Pandora's Box to take control of the entire world and of the monsters unleashed.
• LEGO
  • LEGO Adaptation Game:
    • LEGO Batman has a Big Bad Ensemble of The Penguin, The Riddler, and The Joker, each causing various crimes throughout Gotham while commanding other villains, leading Batman and Robin to try to stop them.
    • LEGO Batman 2 has a Big Bad Duumvirate of the Joker and Lex Luthor, working together to defeat their respective heroes and to ensure Lex becomes Man of the Year.
    • LEGO Batman 3 has Brainiac, who kidnaps individuals from each Lantern Corps to control all emotions.
    • LEGO DC Super-Villains has Darkseid, the mastermind behind the arrival of the Crime Syndicate to the main Earth, who seeks to acquire the Anti-Life Equation, causing the villains to band together with the heroes to stop him. Although the Anti-Monitor is revealed to be a Greater-Scope Villain.
    • LEGO Marvel Super Heroes has a Big Bad Triumvirate of Loki, Magneto, and Doctor Doom. However, Loki is the one behind the other villains teaming up and has the most plot significance out of all of them, due to Loki seeking to control Galactus to conquer Earth and Asgard.
    • LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 has Kang the Conqueror, who abducts various locations in the universe to create his Chronopolis.
  • LEGO City Undercover has Rex Fury, the criminal mastermind behind Lego City's crime wave. However, as it turns out, he's been working for Forrest Blackwell.
  • LEGO Dimensions: Lord Vortech, the mastermind behind the invasions of the various worlds of the multiverse, leading to Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle partnering up to stop him.
• LEGO Island: The Brickster, a criminal mastermind who plots to disassemble LEGO Island.
• Lies of P: Giuseppe Geppetto, who caused the Puppet Frenzy in order to resurrect his son, Carlo.
• Life Is Strange:
  • Life Is Strange: The kidnapper of Rachel Amber. The primary suspect is Nathan Prescott, popular honors student and son to the influential mogul, Sean Prescott, who kicks off the plot by murdering Chloe- prompting Max to discover her Time Travel powers to save her- and antagonizes Max throughout the story. The other two suspects are David Madsen, Chloe’s paranoid stepfather who serves as the school chief of security, and Francis "Frank" Bowers, an aggressive drug dealer who constantly tries to extort money from Chloe and seems to have a connection with Rachel. Episode 4 ultimately reveals that David and Frank are mostly innocent, while Nathan is the one drugging the girls at Vortex club parties and is responsible for Rachel's disappearance. However, Episode 5 reveals he was doing it under orders from the true mastermind- Mark Jefferson, Max’s beloved teacher and famous photographer, who wanted to satisfy his sick fetishes.
  • Life Is Strange: Before the Storm: Damon Merrick is the local gangster who seeks revenge on Chloe Price and Rachel Amber for burning down his mill, and to that end kidnaps her birth mother Sara. While he was hired to do so by James Amber, Rachel's father, he is using James for his own purposes.
  • The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit: Played with in regards to the two antagonists:
    • Charles Eriksen is Chris's abusive, alcoholic father who Chris is trying to get along with, but he is attempting to control himself and driven by the loss of his wife in a car accident.
    • An In-Universe example exists in Mantroid, a powerful alien that serves as Captain Spirit's Arch-Enemy. Chris's quests revolve around his battles against Mantroid and his minions.
  • Life Is Strange 2: The police as a whole are the main antagonistic force throughout the five episodes, pursuing Sean and Daniel Diaz to arrest them for Daniel's Accidental Murder of a racist cop (which happened when the cop shot their dad). The Diaz brothers' goal is to flee them by going to Puerto Lobos in Mexico.
  • Life Is Strange: True Colors: Jedediah "Jed" Lucan is one of the people responsible for Gabe Chen's death as it happened during a coverup of a mining accident he and the company Typhon were responsible for, and spends the game trying to stop Alex Chen from discovering the truth.
• Like a Dragon:
  • Yakuza: Akira Nishikiyama, the main threat after the missing yen, and Kyohei Jingu, whom the yen belonged to in the first place.
  • Yakuza 2: Ryuji Goda, Yukio Terada/Kim Daejin and Ryo Takashima, each of whom is exploiting the Mob War between the Tojo and Omi for their own ends.
  • Yakuza 3: Yoshitaka Mine, who is later revealed to be working with Andre Richardson, head of the Black Monday.
  • Yakuza 4: Isao Katsuragi at first, he turns out to really be a pawn of Seishiro Munakata, who turns out to have also had a hand in the events of the entire series up to this point, plotting to turn Japan into a Police State and make the Yakuza his controlled opposition.
  • Yakuza 5: Tsubasa Kurosawa, who orchestrated the events of the game as a long scheme to gain control of both the Tojo and Omi.
  • Yakuza 0: Sohei Dojima, his bid for the Empty Lot which would grant him full control of Kamurocho's real estate and likely raise him to the top of the Tojo Clan.
  • Yakuza 6: Tsuneo Iwami, who usurps control of the Yomei Alliance and plots to gain control of Japan's entire underworld.
• Lily's Well: Professor Antonio Tabacchi is keeping the person in the well captive and the leader of the College of Azoth cult who repeatedly lures Lily to her death to keep her from ever leaving him.
• LISA: Dr. Yado is this for the trilogy as a whole, being responsible for the apocalyptic event known as The Flash that turned the world into a hellhole. Each game has its own Big Bad in turn:
  • LISA: The First has Marty Armstrong, the titular Lisa's abusive father who serves as the source of her nightmares, the enemies encountered in her dream world.
  • LISA: The Painful has two main antagonists, although it is initially vague as to whether they are working together or not. The first, and most obvious, is Rando, a Raoh-styled warlord who leads a massive, brutal army and is Brad's main opponent in saving Buddy, who has been kidnapped and delivered to him as the only woman left in the world. Brad also has to deal with Buzzo, an enigmatic warlord who is heavily involved in the Joy trade and is obsessed with psychologically breaking Brad for unclear reasons, though it is not clear what connection, if any, he has with Rando. It's later revealed by both the Joyless ending and the Pain Mode ending that Rando is not a villain at all, but rather a former student and adopted son of Brad's who seeks to repair the world, making Buzzo the true Big Bad. And Buzzo himself (who is implied to be the one who cut off Dusty’s face in the Pain Mode ending) is just The Dragon to Dr. Yado, who created both Joy and the Great Flash (and who is also the Trumpet Man, seemingly an Easter Egg NPC who can be seen hanging around several of Dr. Yado's labs).
  • LISA: The Joyful has the mysterious true ruler of Olathe, Dr. Yado, finally take center stage. After turning a good chunk of the population into Joy Mutants with his Joy pills, he subtly manipulates his daughter Buddy into killing all the remaining Olathe warlords and all other remnants of humanity, then tries to kill her once she is no longer needed to fulfill his dream of ruling a world without humans.
• Little Nightmares:
  • First game: The Lady, the woman running the Maw kidnapping children and feeding them to her guests, making her the source of all the horrors that Six experiences.
  • Very Little Nightmares: The Pretender seemingly owns the Nest, where she has children turned into dolls for her to play with, and wants the girl in the yellow raincoat to be her next victim.
  • Little Nightmares II: The Thin Man, the one seemingly responsible for the transmission that "chokes the air waves". Although it's implied that the Signal Tower is manipulating the Thin Man rather than the other way around.
• The Little Red Lie: The Big Bad Wolf is keeping Red's grandmother captive within the forest and is out to eat Red, who wants to save her. As it turns out, the wolf is grandma.
• Little Red Memories: The Parallel is a sentient dimension that traps lost souls inside it to feast on their suffering, with Bonnie Roux as its latest victim, and she spends the game trying to escape it.
• Live A Live: Odio/Oersted, a knight-turned-demon king who incarnates throughout the game as the final boss of each chapter save the one detailing his Start of Darkness. The Big Bad of Oersted's own chapter is Streibough, who is simply tired of being second best to Oersted and orchestrated his fall.
• Lonely Wolf Treat has Juju, Mochi's overprotective cousin and leader of the xenophobic rabbits of Frosting. She treats wolves and foxes with extreme prejudice, is openly hostile towards Treat and Moxie, and does her damnedest to keep them away from Frosting, even if it means ruining her friendship with Mochi.
• Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven has Kaiser Sein, who turned a once prosperous kingdom into a tyrannical empire that wages countless wars so he can claim God's power by enslaving his seven daughters, the Artemsias.
• Lost Dimension has The End, a mysterious man SEALED is trying to stop from destroying the world.
• Lost Eden: Moorkus Rex, an evil dinosaur tyrant who leads an army of Tyranns to conquer all other kingdoms.
• Lost Odyssey: Gongora, who sealed away the memories of the main characters in order to prevent them from getting in the way of his plans of world domination.
• Lufia: Daos, the master of terror and leader of the Sinestrals who are always wreaking havoc upon the world.
• Luminous Arc has both Cardinal Kingston and Priel, both of whom seek to resurrect Zehaal for their own reasons (Kingston so he can claim Zehaal's power, and Priel out of genuine loyalty).
  • Luminous Arc 2 has Mattias and Fatima at first, but then it ends up being the Mage Queen Elicia.
  • Luminous Arc 3 has the Core of God, who manipulates Life and Death into fighting.
• Luminous Plume: Emilia is the main antagonist behind the returning Harbingers of Calamity and the strange aura activities in Celis. She's trying to absorb aura throughout Celis in preparation for challenging Raven to a deathmatch, all so she can avenge her lover Jade.
• Lunar:
  • The Silver Star: Ghaleon, the boss of the Vile Tribe who aims to rule Lunar as their new god.
  • Eternal Blue: Zophar, who's responsible for killing the Blue Star and corrupting the church of Althena, with his endgame being to destroy the world and remake it in his own image.
  • Dragon Song: Dragonmaster Ignatius, the leader of the Vile Tribe.
• LunarLux: The main antagonist and the one behind the Murks is General Saros, who kidnaps people in order to perform Murk serum experiments on them, all to find a way to transform humanity into antimatter beings to survive Comet Coda.
• Lunarosse has Empress Corlia del Lunarosse, ruler of The Empire of Lunarosse, and Yliandra, shamaness of the demi-human Yliandra Faction, are the antagonists. At first, they seem rather reasonable and do not antagonize the party, but once the war is reignited, they descend into violence and tyranny. However, it is hinted early on that a third party, the “illusion master”, is sparking the war and Playing Both Sides for their own purposes, though it’s not clear who it is. It’s revealed in the True End Path to be Dr. Dario Naumov, Corlia’s therapist in the real world who inserted himself into the story as Naamari, the ambassador who’s “death” restarted the war, as well as Zevahn, Corlia’s advisor, and Bellahan, a servant of Yliandra. He did this as revenge for Corlia giving him a role he hated, writing a story he hated, and not returning his love.
• Luxaren Allure: Aurelie/Evil Overlord Darkloft, Karuna's Love Interest who was corrupted by the Infernal Armor of Ellicide, is the one trying to conquer the world/destroy humanity by summoning endless waves of monsters. Except Darkloft is actually a spirit who is possessing Aurelie for her own purposes of unleashing the Demon Lords on the world.

M

• Machina of the Planet Tree -Planet Ruler-: Gertheim is the headmaster of Halbern Academy, who wants to use Apocalypse Noah to wipe out humanity before they can ruin the planet's ether balance.
• Machina of the Planet Tree -Unity Unions-: Nova is a corrupted ether being who has the ability to control monsters and has wiped out a kingdom in the past with these powers. Once Nova is unsealed, Corona has to defeat it before it can destroy her village and the rest of human civilization.
• Madagascar: While the fossa were on their own in the movie, here they are led by the Fossa King, a muscular, more anthropomorphic-looking male fossa with a crown on his head who acts as the game's final boss.
• MadWorld: Leo Fallmont. He's the one behind the Deathwatch game, which he organized for fun using Noa as his figurehead. His father's company made the virus to sell vaccines, and he decided to test it on Jefferson Island.
• Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven has Don Ennio Sallieri, with Tommy turning on him after figuring out he's been using him.
  • Mafia II has Don Carlo Falcone, who tries have Vito killed for becoming a liability to his operations.
  • Mafia III has Don Sal Marcano, the unseen ruler of New Bordeaux and head of the Italian mob there. He is also responsible for the death of Lincoln's adopted family.
• Manhunt: Lionel Starkweather, the leader of a snuff film ring, who directs the entire manhunt for Cash.
  • Its sequel has Leo Kasper, who kills Pickman and remains the antagonist for the rest of the game.
• Maniac Mansion initially appears to have Dr. Fred Edison, but he is actually being controlled by the Meteor.
  • Day of the Tentacle has Purple Tentacle, a mutated tentacle bent on taking over the world.
• MapleStory seems to be angling to have the Black Magician as the Big Bad. He sure fits it. He had several heroes frozen in ice for a while, chased the people from continent to continent, and is willing to do it all twice.
• Marathon:
  • The first game provides a rare, non-villainous (though certainly antagonistic) example: Durandal. Although he has his own goals and desires like any other being, Durandal was the one that set things up for the first game; he's ultimately responsible for everything that happened to the titular Marathon ship. Sure, he helps you halfway through, but only because it fits with what he was aiming for in the end.
  • In the second game, T'fear is introduced as the commander in charge of Pfhor Battle Group Seven, but he isn't even encountered, much less killed, and serves more as a Greater-Scope Villain. Later in the game, Tycho is reintroduced, this time allied with the Pfhor, trying to kill Durandal and the humans (he has bad experience with both). Tycho, however, is killed about halfway through, and the rest of the game deals with cleaning up the mess.
• The Big Bad in both Marathon Infinity: Blood Tides of Lh'Owon and Pathways into Darkness is the W'rkn'cacnter, an Eldritch Abomination capable of destroying the universe. In both cases, the Jjaro help you stop it. In Infinity, Tycho thinks that he's the Big Bad, but he doesn't know the universe is being threatened and that he's essentially a wannabe, as the Jjaro are transporting you through space and time (although he does force you to go into another timeline, thanks to his capture of you).
• Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death: Heng Long, an enterpriser who seeks to gain godlike power through the substance Tiox Choq'ik; having Marlow killed and taking his girlfriend hostage in order to further his goals.
• Mary Skelter, for the series as a whole, have the Jails, living structures the main characters have to travel through during their journeys, with the Marchens and the Nightmares patrolling them being most direct opposition. However, each individual game also has a main instigator of the plot the heroes must face at the end of their journey:
  • The first game, Nightmares, has Snark, an alien who attempted to recreate his homeworld using the Jail. When that failed, he manipulates every faction in the game to create a new Jail that he can assert god-like control over.
  • The sequel, taking place in an alternate timeline where Little Mermaid's averted fate causes a Butterfly of Doom, has the Mysterious Nightmare, who ends up usurping Snark for the role of Big Bad. The Nightmare is revealed to be Alice, who transformed after mistakenly assuming she killed Jack, leading her to go on a rampage all across the Jail.
  • The third game, Finale, has the master of Massacre Pink, Yuto Gato, who seeks to wipe out all life on the planet out of hatred for all-non human life and anyone sympathetic to them. After discovering Mary to be source of the time loops hindering his plans, he sends the Massacre Pink to assassinate Mary and her allies so he can fulfill his plans.
• Mass Effect:
  • In Mass Effect, rogue turian Spectre Saren Arterius serves as this. Only, he's not. The real Big Bad is Sovereign, Saren's flagship, in reality a fully-sentient member of an ancient race of "machine devils" known as the Reapers.
  • In Mass Effect 2, we have the Collector General, but, again, it's a fake-out, and the real Big Bad is Harbinger, a Reaper merely using the General to control the Collectors.
  • In Mass Effect 3, Harbinger is this as the leader of the Reapers. The Catalyst acts as the Greater-Scope Villain; he created the Reapers but does not directly control them and takes no action against you in-game, instead simply outlining the ending choices.
  • In Mass Effect: Andromeda, the Kett Archon is a straight example, being the leader of the Kett expeditionary force that comprises the main antagonistic force of the game. In the context of the whole empire, however, he's just one of countless numbers of mid-level military officers, so he's only the Big Bad in this particular story.
• Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: Yomi Hellsmile serves as the leader of the Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeepers, playing the role of the main opponent of the Master Detectives. However, as part of a plot twist, the overall main antagonist is revealed to be someone besides Yomi: Makoto Kagutsuchi, CEO of Amaterasu Corporation and ruler of Kanai Ward, is the homunculus clone of Number One of the WDO, or Yuma, in other words, having been corrupted by Yomi's actions in the backstory, becoming a heroic figure turned to a villainous ruler, and his goals regarding his protection of the homunculi of Kanai Ward are the cause of the conflict and trauma that Yuma suffers through during the events of the game.
• Master of the Monster Lair: The Devil Prince. Also The prince's father, Devil Lord, who you can fight in the post-game.
• Max Payne:
  • Nicole Horne in Max Payne, as the head of the conspiracy to cover up the illegal proliferation of the Valkyr drug in New York. She is also a member of the Inner Circle and wants to take over it or wipe it out.
  • Vladimir Lem in Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, as the leader of the conspiracy to take control of the criminal underworld in New York. He is also a member of the Inner Circle and wants to take over it.
  • Victor Branco in Max Payne 3, as the one using criminal gangs and corrupt police to kill his family and run a black market organ theft operation, then kill off the gangs to gain public support for dealing with the gangs as well as gain sympathy for his family's deaths, all while using his family's fortune and the earnings from the organ harvesting to fund his mayoral campaign.
• Maximo: Ghosts to Glory: Evil King Achille, Maximo's Treacherous Advisor who usurps the throne and raises an army of the dead to construct the Soul Drill, which will allow him to access even more power. However, the Demon Queen is revealed to be the Man Behind the Man to Achille, having granted him the power he sought out, and serves as the Final Boss. The sequel has Lord Bane, who's actually an undead Achille in disguise, lead the titular army in ravaging the kingdom.
• Meat Boy has Dr. Fetus, who kidnaps Meat Boy's girlfriend, Bandage Girl.
• Mega Man:
  • No matter who starts the plot in each Mega Man (Classic) game, you can guarantee that Dr. Wily is behind it in some way. Same goes for Sigma in the X games (with three exceptions), and eventually, Dr. Weil in the Zero games. Even Mega Man Battle Network does this, with the villains of the 2nd, 4th, and 5th games being connected to — you guessed it — Dr. Wily.
  • Prior to the Mega Man X series, then-leader of the Maverick Hunters, Sigma, was infected with the Zero Virus after he fought the rampaging Zero, the last creation of — yup — Dr. Wily. Sigma eventually succumbed to the virus and turned maverick himself.
  • Dr. Weil of Mega Man Zero fame seems to be following in Wily's footsteps. Not only is he the one who caused The End of the World as We Know It, he continues to plague the world, even after his and Omega's exile. Most of the machinations behind the series' first half can be indirectly linked to Weil. And, in Mega Man ZX, it was hinted that it wasn't Serpent, Master Albert, or Master Thomas who was the true Big Bad, but it was actually Model W, which is what remained of Dr. Weil's own consciousness. And Weil was closely linked to Omega, who was what Wily's Greatest Creation was supposed to be, thus creating a distinct intellectual link between the two Big Bads.
  • Mega Man ZX has Serpent, who was corrupted by Model W and seeks to fully awaken its power.
    • The sequel, ZX Advent, has Master Albert, who was working on Model W prior to the events of the first game and seeks to reset the world with himself as its god.
  • Mega Man Legends has the Bonne family as the most recurring enemies of Mega Man Volnutt, though the System Unit, Mega Man Juno, ends up being the far more serious threat and Final Boss.
    • Mega Man Legends 2 has the System Unit, Sera, who seeks to wipe out the population of the planet.
  • Mega Man Battle Network, as explained above, has Dr. Wily (or Lord Wily in this continuity) being the main antagonist of 1, 3, and 6 (attempting to unleash the Life Virus, Alpha, and the Cybeasts respectively). Even if he isn't the antagonist of the other games, he still has some connection to the villains of those games.
    • Mega Man Battle Network 2 has the leader of Gospel, Sean Obihiro, who is revealed to be a pawn of Wily.
    • Mega Man Battle Network 4 and Mega Man Battle Network 5 has Dr. Regal (even though the Final Boss of the former game is Duo, who has no connection to Regal), son of Lord Wily and leader of Nebula.
  • Mega Man Star Force:
    • The first game has Cepheus, the king of Planet FM who seeks to destroy Earth with his planet destroying weapon, Andromeda, out of a paranoid belief that the human race intends to invade his planet.
    • The second game has Dr. Vega, who seeks to restore the lost continent of Mu and use the power of Le Mu in order to create a world for only those she deems worthy and resurrect the love of her life, Altair.
    • The third game has Mr. King, who seeks to use Meteor G's power to conquer the world. Notable in that he's the only main villain who gets to be the final boss of the game, whereas previous Big Bads relied on a superweapon or Sealed Evil in a Can.
• The Messenger (2018): The Demon King, who leads the demon invasion against the remaining human survivors.
• METAGAL has General Creeper, who kidnapped Dr. Ray and Meta's eight sisters, who were reprogrammed into battle robots to help him Take Over the World.
• Metal Arms: Glitch in the System: Dr. Exavolt, the true mastermind behind General Corrosive and the Milbots' enslaving and murdering countless Droids.
• The Metal Gear series is probably best known for its mind screwiness and Gambit Roulettes, and while the series as a whole appears to go through several Arc Villain Big Bads, culminating in the reveal that there has never been a true Big Bad at all, the confusion is mitigated somewhat by the fact that each individual game has a Big Bad of its own:
  • Metal Gear has Big Boss, wanting to use the Metal Gear TX-55 to secure the superiority of his "Outer Heaven" city-state, a place where soldiers can be free and choose their own battles.
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake has Big Boss again, having taken over Zanzibar Land as a new version of Outer Heaven. He plans to mass-produce a new type of Metal Gear, Metal Gear D, to be able to use the nuclear weapons he has seized. He has also kidnapped Dr. Marv to acquire his OILIX formula for a petroleum replacement, thus allowing for unlimited fuel for his troops and Metal Gears. This will ensure that he can fight wars for as long as he wants, fulfilling his goal of allowing soldiers like him to have a place in the world free from government control.
  • Metal Gear Solid has Liquid Snake, Solid Snake's evil "twin brother" who takes control of Metal Gear REX, threatening to use it unless he gets the body of his "father" Big Boss, hoping to use the body to improve the combat capabilities of soldiers under his command. He also wants to build a new Outer Heaven, partly because he believes that as Big Boss's clone-son, he is destined to repeat what Big Boss did, and partly to spite his memory, as he despises Big Boss and hopes to tarnish his legacy further by upstaging him and truly establishing Outer Heaven.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has Solidus Snake, another clone-son of Big Boss who wants to take over the war machine known as Arsenal Gear and use it to set off a bomb to disconnect Manhattan from the rest of the world. This will allow him to establish an area free from the control of the Patriots, a secret cabal running America and the world. He ends up Out-Gambitted by the Patriots, but still puts up a remarkably good resistance and carries on with his plan despite it clearly being doomed from the start.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has Colonel Volgin, a Soviet Colonel and one of the last members of the Philosophers (precursors of the Patriots), who wants to mass-produce the Shagohod weapon to incite Communist revolutions around the world, allowing for the world to be united under the Soviet Union with him in charge.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops has Gene, an enhanced soldier who seized control of a secret Soviet base, and wants to use the Intercontinental Ballistic Metal Gear weapon to destroy the last bastions of the Philosophers to free humanity from their overbearing control.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has Liquid Ocelot, supposedly Ocelot possessed by Liquid Snake, trying to take down the Patriots, who are revealed to be advanced AIs, if only so he can dominate the world and fulfill Big Boss's goal of making the world a paradise for soldiers. At the end, it's also revealed that Liquid Ocelot is actually just Ocelot pretending to be possessed to catch the Patriots off guard and making them easier to defeat.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has Hot Coldman, hoping to use the Peace Walker weapon to launch a nuke, proving that its nuclear retaliation capacity is an absolute certainty, therefore stopping every country from ever launching a nuke again, out of fear of mutually assured destruction.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has Senator Steven Armstrong, who supposedly wants to restart various wars to inspire a new wave of nationalism to help him get elected, but his true goal is that after he gets elected, he will use the power at his disposal to change America and eventually the world into a Social Darwinist utopia where the strong survive and can fight for themselves to defend their beliefs through his Might Makes Right mentality.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes has Skull Face, who interrogates Chico and Paz to fulfill his goals, which include destroying Big Boss's Mother Base and attacking his former commander Major Zero.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has Skull Face again, wanting to use Metal Gear Sahelanthropus to incite panic and cause a worldwide arms race for nukes. He will provide nukes and the means to fire them, thus leading to a global nuclear stalemate as everyone will be able to use nuclear weapons, though Skull Face will have ultimate control over the nukes. He will then unleash an infectious parasite that kills anyone who speaks English, with more parasites targeting speakers of other major languages if needed, so that cultural imperialism through language will be halted, allowing various cultures and their languages to be preserved. In Chapter 2, the epilogue for the story, the closest there is to a Big Bad is Mad Scientist Huey Emmerich, who wants to cause trouble for Snake and Mother Base out of spite for perceived mistreatment, culminating in trying to mutate the parasites into a more lethal variant to be sold as a weapon, leading to many soldiers on Mother Base being infected and having to be killed to prevent spreading the infection.
  • It can be argued that the Greater-Scope Villain of the Solid Snake games (Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots) are the Patriots, or more specifically the Patriot AIs secretly running the world. Every villain of the Solid Snake games is in some way trying to being them down, and stopping the villain is just allowing the Patriots to maintain their grip on the world.
  • It can be said that the Greater-Scope Villain of most of the Big Boss games (specifically Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, but not Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater) is Cipher, led by Major Zero, Big Boss's former commanding officer. Cipher seeks to control the world, believing that it is the best way to bring peace. Cipher was founded by Big Boss and his support team in Snake Eater, including Major Zero, before he and Zero fell out due to conflicting ideologies and the fact that Zero secretly had Big Boss cloned to preserve his genes. Zero ends up realizing his mistake in controlling the world by force and commissions the creation of the Patriot AIs to correct his mistake and allow them to simply guide humanity to peace. However, his incapacitation by Skull Face, a former lieutenant, leads to him being unable to oversee the AIs's progress, so they end up going off the rails and decide to control the world in a misguided attempt to bring peace.
  • For Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the secret group known as the Philosophers, though much weaker of an organization and heavily splintered by the time of the events of the game, have a hand in the events of the game. They were originally formed to secretly guide humanity towards world peace after the First World War, but then succumbed to infighting and greed. Colonel Volgin attempts to take their funds, the Philosopher's Legacy, to finance his own plans, while various other factions of the Philosophers fight to regain the funds for their own dominance. It is their ruthless manipulation that disgusts Big Boss and Zero, leading them to eventually form Cipher to fulfill the Philosophers's original goals until Big Boss and Zero split due to their own disagreements. Zero also apparently usurped the Philosophers's resources gradually and folded everything they had into Cipher.
  • In general, the Philosophers are the Predecessor Villain of the series, Zero or Cipher as a whole are the Greater-Scope Villain of the Big Boss games, and their successors the Patriots or rather the Patriot AIs are the Greater-Scope Villain of the Solid Snake games, with Zero as the Greater-Scope Villain of the series overall.
  • That said, most of the villains are Tragic Villains and Well Intentioned Extremists, up to and including Zero, and the responsibility for most events cannot be concretely pinned to one or two specific people, hence there is no true Big Bad for the series, just a bunch of people with conflicting motives and ideals who are too blinded by their own beliefs or hubris to see that their actions are making the world worse.
• Metal Slug has General Morden, the leader of the Rebel Army terrorist group who aims to Take Over the World and turn it into a military dictatorship. However, he's constantly upstaged by the Mars People or some other threat. In Metal Slug 6, both Morden and the Mars People are forced into an Enemy Mine situation by the Invaders.
• Metal Wolf Chaos: Vice President Richard Hawk, who deposes President Michael Wilson and turns the United States into a dictatorship while having Michael hunted down.
• Metro: While 2033 and Exodus' main game have no overarching villains to count as one, Last Light and Exodus' story DLCs all have one.
  • Metro: Last Light: General Korbut, the true leader of the Red Line, is the mastermind behind Maxim Moskvin's attempted assassination of his brother Andrey, in an attempt to install himself as the organisation's puppet leader, with Korbut being the true leader. That includes him attempting to wipe out the Moscow Metro with a bioweapon in order to have the Red Line rule amongst them.
  • Metro Exodus: The Two Colonels: Anatoly "Tolya" Vinogradov is the General of the OSKOM, who seeks to put order on the Novosibirsk Metro. However, he is revealed to be a corrupt official, who is pushed further into Pragmatic Villainy because of the Novosibirsk Riots, going so far in mass-murdering both the Novosibirsk residents and rioters, as well as his own men with a chlorine gas.
  • Metro Exodus: Sam's Story: Klim serves as Tom's The Dragon, who is, in reality, Tom's Smug Snake right-hand, who seeks to depose him as the leader of Vladivostok, in order to gain access to the U.S.S. Mayflower's nukes and destroy anyone he dislikes.
• Metroid: Presented chronologically:
  • Metroid, E-Manga, and Zero Mission: Mother Brain is the leader of the Space Pirates who leads them in her plan to take over the galaxy and subjugate everyone.
  • Metroid Prime Trilogy:
    • Metroid Prime: Meta Ridley and Metroid Prime are the antagonists, the former being the acting Space Pirate leader who blocks Samus' path when he can and the latter being the Metroid that is spreading Phazon throughout Tallon IV.
    • Metroid Prime: Hunters: Gorea is the ancient power that manipulates the other Hunters into trying to free it so it can continue rampaging across the galaxy.
    • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has another Big Bad Ensemble. Emperor Ing is the leader of the Ing Horde who aims to destroy the planet Aether and the Luminoth, while Dark Samus, a reincarnated Metroid Prime, seeks the Ing Phazon for herself.
    • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: Dark Samus reappears and aims to corrupt the whole galaxy with Phazon.
  • Metroid II: Return of Samus and Metroid: Samus Returns: The Queen Metroid is the one breeding the Metroids, which Samus has been ordered to kill to prevent them from rampaging throughout the galaxy. The latter has Ridley appear as the Final Boss.
  • Super Metroid: Mother Brain returns and is behind the kidnapping of the baby Metroid that Samus wants to rescue.
  • Metroid: Other M: Melissa Bergman, otherwise known as MB, is an AI based on Mother Brain that takes over the Bottle Ship and intends to use the creatures in it to commit acts of genocide against the rest of the galaxy.
  • Metroid Fusion: The SA-X is the one responsible for the disaster and for releasing all of the captured X into the station. It is also responsible for all of the tactical and deliberate damage done to the station that hindered Samus' progress and blocked off necessary areas, as well as being the most personal and dangerous opponent in the game.
  • Metroid Dread: Raven Beak is the main antagonist of the game. He is the one who strips Samus of her abilities at the beginning of the game and traps her deep below ZDR. And he's the reason why the E.M.M.I. went rogue as he reprogrammed them to capture Samus and extract her DNA for his clone army of Metroids.
• Midnight Maid Night: Jeremiah Vermander is the main threat of the game and the one responsible for all bad things that have happened in the mansion. He's also the only one who intentionally seeks to harm the maids, while Cornelius and Agatha are only threats by coincidence.
• Midnight Train: The titular Midnight Train is a cursed entity that traps the main characters inside the building and forces them to play its game, where they must escape the buildings within three hours or be trapped forever. On the other end is Justice II, leader of the vigilante Black Gear organization, who organizes the killing of criminals that the police cannot catch and is responsible for Luna's tragic past, him having raised her, as well as the one who sent her to the Midnight Train for defecting.
• The Might and Magic series has had a number of Big Bads over its very long run.
  • Might and Magic 1 to 5: Sheltem, a rogue Planetary Guardian, one of many created by The Ancients, who went a little bonkers and decided the best way to protect his own planet was to destroy all the other ones that were created by the Ancients.
  • Archibald Ironfist was the Big Bad of Heroes of Might and Magic 2, being the evil contender in the titular Succession War. He seems to be set up as this in Might and Magic 7, after being released in 6, but ultimately is upstaged by his Terran advisors, who themselves fail to reach this level by virtue of not causing most of the problems the heroes must solve.
  • Might and Magic 6 and Heroes of Might and Magic 3: The Kreegan, the ancient enemies of the Ancients, although their leadership changed quite frequently due to consistently being killed by the games' heroes. M&M 6 had the Kreegan Queen and HMM3 had Xenofex and, after Xenofex gets killed in M&M 7^note He is not the Big Bad of that game - no one is, most problems the heroes must solve being actually independent -, but he gets killed in it., Lucifer.
  • Might and Magic 8: Escaton the Destroyer causes, directly or indirectly, most of the problems the heroes must face. As opposed to Sheltem, however, he is not malfunctioning, just caught between his programming and the realization that the Ancients might have failed to consider this situation or deemed it acceptable losses.
  • Might and Magic 9 and Heroes of Might and Magic 4: These two games mainly suffered from Canon Discontinuity due to 3DO games crashing and burning at the time they were made. This aside, Might and Magic 9 sets up the warlord Tamur Leng as the big bad but when you actually meet the real villain turns out to be the rogue god Njam the Meddler who'd manipulated both Tamur Leng and your party, while Heroes 4 had individual villains for each of its campaigns in the original game, the mad wizard Hexis in The Gathering Storm expansion, and most of the protagonists acting as a Big Bad Ensemble in the Winds of War expansion.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic 5 and Dark Messiah: The Demon Sovereign, Kha-Beleth.
• Mighty Aphid: The villain of this game is Lady Bug, who stole Dr. Cavor's powerful moon gems and used them to create giant bug monsters that she let loose on the city of Victoria.
• Miitopia has the Dark Lord, who is a actually an Innocent Bystander possessed by the Dark Curse.
• Mikoto Nikki: The titular Mikoto is Yandere towards Matarou and wants to trap him in her house.
  • Bokko Youchien: Kotomi is the local school bully who targets Mitarou.
• Milya[broken]: The titular Milya is the entity responsible for killing the girls and trapping them in the hellish dimension, and is tearing apart reality.
• Mimana Iyar Chronicle: Heidar, who destroyed Crais' village and seeks the seven gems that will allow him to summon the water dragon, which he intends to use to destroy the world.
• Minecraft: Despite being a Wide-Open Sandbox game, there is a main antagonist in the form of its Final Boss, the Ender Dragon. In Survival Mode, with what little information there is based on her, the player's final goal is to kill her and receive the End poem, and her powers alongside the fact that she traps the player in her dimension upon visiting the End is evidence of her significance in comparison to other hostile mobs.
• Mirror's Edge: Mayor Callaghan, although she is not physically present in the game. A mysterious assassin revealed to be Celeste Wilson and Jacknife are the physically present villains in the game, but neither of them are at the top of the villain food chain.
• Mirror's Edge Catalyst: Gabriel Kruger, the CEO of KrugerSec and the dictator of Glass who intends on using the program Reflection to gain complete control of everyone in the city.
• The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories: The Hairshrieker is the monster that haunts Memoria Island and is chasing down J.J. and Emily. It is revealed to be the embodiment of J.J.'s suicidal feelings after being outed as a transgender girl- the true goal is to kill her and thus allow J.J. to find the will to live, bringing her out of her nightmare.
• Mix Ore: Depending on the route, whichever girl Kantarou chooses: Nagisa who kills his girlfriend Sanae, Rikana who cons him out of his money, or Ayano who seeks revenge on him for his harassment of her.
• Monkey Hero has the Nightmare King, who aims to conquer the Waking realm.
• Monster Girl Quest has the mysterious Monster Lord, the infernal counterpart to Goddess Ilias who is said to be behind the attacks on humans. The Monster Lord’s true identity is revealed to be Alice. She then reveals she is actually trying to bring peace to humans and monsters; the true Big Bad is Goddess Ilias, The Creator, who seeks to destroy the entire monster race, killed off an entire city for coexistence between monsters and humans, and sealed a former Hero for rebelling against her; her deep-seated hatred for monsters was even made into a religion. She started planning to recreate the world in her own image after Luka rebels against her at the end of Part 2, by killing every monster and human on the entire planet.
• Moon Diver has Faust, a mysterious boy with the power to grant life to the inanimate and a desire to eliminate humanity off Earth so he can claim it as his own.
• MorphX: The Leader of the Swarm led its species in invading and decimating Earth and intends on snuffing out the remains of the Resistance.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Mortal Kombat (1992) has Shang Tsung, being the foreseer of the Mortal Kombat tournament and the most immediate threat to Earthrealm.
  • Mortal Kombat II and 3 both have Shao Kahn, who is also The Man Behind the Man to Shang Tsung in the first game. Due to being retellings/reboots of the same plot, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat 9 has Shao Kahn back at this position.
  • Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat 4 has Shinnok. Being the retelling of this events during the new continuity, Mortal Kombat X brings back Shinnok at the helm of the story.
  • Mortal Kombat: Special Forces has Kano, who Jax must stop from obtaining the "Eye of Shitian".
  • Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance has a Big Bad Duumvirate between Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, with them teaming up to resurrect Onaga and his fallen army; requiring Raiden to gather together Earthrealm's strongest warriors to stop them.
  • Mortal Kombat: Deception has Onaga, having reclaimed his army from Quan Chi and Shang Tsung and set about reconquering the realms.
  • Mortal Kombat: Armageddon has Daegon, Taven's evil younger brother.
  • Mortal Kombat 11 has Kronika, aiming to restart the timeline after Raiden's meddling with it and place it back on its "rightful" course. Shang Tsung retakes the position and usurps her in the Aftermath DLC.
• Mother trilogy:
  • Mother 1 aka Earthbound Beginnings: Giegue is an alien warlord who has been sent by his people to destroy Earth for stealing the knowledge of Psionics.
  • Giegue also comes back in the fangame Mother: Cognitive Dissonance, though he starts to change his name halfway through to Giygas the Transcendent One.
  • Mother 2 aka EarthBound (1994): Giegue, who has become Giygas the Embodiment of Evil and the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, is the leader of the Alien Invasion who has become so pwoerful and mindless that he poses a threat to all existence. He must now be destroyed before he sentences the universe to eternal darkness. It turns out he is working with Pokey/Porky Minch, Ness' next-door neighbor, who is implied to be using him for his own purposes.
  • Mother 3: King Porky Minch, the Pig King and leader of the Pig Mask Army, oversees the creation of the violent chimeras roaming the world and industrializing the Nowhere Islands. Under his command, he has the Pig Mask Army, led by The Masked Man, track down and pull the majority of the 7 Needles, so he may summon the Dark Dragon and have it destroy the world.
• The Mr. Hopp's Playhouse games have the titular Mr. Hopp, an evil plushie who haunts and tries to kill the protagonist of each game, with the true Big Bad eventually revealed to be The Entity who created him.
  • In the original, Mr. Hopp is Ruby's demonic stuffed bunny who traps her in her house and seeks her out to kill her.
  • One Hour With Mr. Hopp: Mr. Hopp aims to kill the protagonist, who must keep him away from the bedroom with the flashlight.
  • Mr. Hopp's Playhouse 2: Mr. Hopp, Mr. Stripes, and Miss Bo (Collectively known as the Three Curses) haunt the Blacklands Manor orphanage and begin kidnapping the children, seeking out Esther in particular. It is later revealed that they are subordinates for The Entity, who is working with Dee/Isabelle to assimilate the children into itself.
  • Mr. Hopp's Playhouse 3: The Entity takes center as the main antagonist of the game as he send the Three Curses to prevent Esther and Ruby from escaping the Underworld.
• The Mummy Demastered: Princess Ahmanet, the mummy of the title, is raising an army of the undead to level London and Take Over the World.
• Muramasa: The Demon Blade has Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the Shogun, was the one who was ultimately behind the attack on the Kagami clan and the theft of the Kuzuryu Muramasa, which kicks off the plot for both Momohime and Kisuke.
• Murdered: Soul Suspect: Abigail Williams, the true identity of the Bell Killer, who Ronan is after.
• Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden: Plutonia, the leader of the Nova Sect out to destroy both the Ark and the rest of the Zone.
• My Place: Dark is the creator of the game who became corrupted by the rose and now traps the player inside, making them play a game to escape. However, it turns out that the Red Mask, aka Nightmare, is the true source of the corruption.
• The Mystery of the Druids: Lord Sinclair, being responsible for both the troubles that dogged Halligan and the recent skeleton murders.
• Mystery of Mortlake Mansion: The Evil Sorcerer, Cagliostro, who dwells in the "shadowy" mansion.

N

• NAM-1975: Dr. R. Muckly, who's building a giant laser he plans to use to take over the world.
• Namco × Capcom has Saya, an agent of Ouma, a rival organization of Shinra seeking to bring chaos to the world. However, near the end of the game, the true villain ends up being 99.
  • Its Spiritual Successor Project × Zone has Meden Traore, who wants to erase all other universes and recreate a singular one in his own design. Then in the sequel, Saya returns as the main antagonist, with Sheath serving as her lackey, until it's revealed that Byaku Shin is revealed to be the true antagonist of the game, being The Man Behind the Man to both Saya and Sheath as well as every villain featured in the sequel.
• Nancy Drew:
  • While the series itself does not have a Big Bad, every game has at least one figure who plays this role, the Culprit. The Culprit is usually directly or indirectly responsible for the case Nancy is solving, and occasionally even makes an attempt on Nancy's life.
  • In the case of the second game, Dwayne Powers is the Culprit and the only one to return in a later game, perhaps making this the closest to a series-wide Big Bad.
  • Haunting of Castle Malloy simply averts this - while Fiona is considered to be the culprit, she had nothing to do with the "kidnapping" of Matt - which happened by a total accident anyway. She did nothing but try to help him. Granted, this wasn't much since she was a seventy year old feral woman flying around on a jetpack.
• NanoBreaker: General Raymond, the mastermind behind the Orgamech breakout on Nanotechnology Island who has countless innocents turned into Orgamechs that he intends on using to takeover the world.
• Naufragar: Crimson: Hyo is the main antagonist of the game, since he is manipulating the party into gathering coins for him and seeks to kill Athena to absorb her life force. He claims he is responsible for the boss monsters the party encounters by using the power of the coins to revive them. He is also implied to have connections with the Kingdom of Oragibe, since he instructed Naitsabes to kidnap Jarret's sister.
• The Need for Speed series:
  • Need for Speed: Underground: Eddie, the leader of the Eastsiders street racing crew, and the player's main obstacle in becoming the greatest underground street racer in the city.
  • Need for Speed: Underground 2: Caleb Reece, the leader of the Wraiths street racing crew, who attempts to control Bayview's racing scene and sabotage your racing career.
  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted: Razor, who sabotages the player's BMW M3 GTR during a race and wins it for himself; with the player having to move up the Blacklist ranks in order to race him and win the car back.
  • Need for Speed: Carbon: Darius, who manipulates the player into giving him control of the three boroughs of Palmont City and is responsible for bribing the police in the race that forced the player to leave Palmont.
  • Need for Speed: ProStreet: Ryo Watanabe, although he's less of a villain and more of a cocky rival to the player.
  • Need for Speed: Undercover: Chase Linh, who manipulated the player into giving her the ill-gotten money of a criminal syndicate leader before framing them for murder.
  • Need for Speed: The Run: Marcus Blackwell, a member of the mob family that Jack owes money to who intends on preventing him from winning the race.
  • Need for Speed Payback: Lina Navarro, who aims to reshape Silver Rock and Fortune Valley to her and the House’s liking by taking over the FVPD under their payroll, rigging street races, and seizing Marcus Weir’s casino.
  • Need for Speed Heat: Lt. Frank Mercer, who goes to extremes in order to try and stop illegal street races once and for all.
• Neptunia:
  • Hyperdimension Neptunia and it's remake: Arfoire, who captured Histoire and set the other goddesses to team up against Neptune in order to weaken the whole.
  • Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 and it's remake: Deity Of Sin Arfoire, the object of worship for the ASIC whose primary goal is Gamindustri's destruction.
  • Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory and its remake: Rei Ryghts, who aims to rid the world of CPUs.
  • Megadimension Neptunia VII: Kurome Ankokuboshi/Dark Orange, who aims to break free from her seal and destroy Gameindustri as revenge for her people rejecting her.
  • Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart: Eno (A.K.A. Arfoire), who kicks off the plot by tricking Noire into making her shares' energy dissipate.
  • Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed: The Next-Gen Mech, who's out to humiliate the CPUs and destroy their reputations.
• The Neverhood has Klogg, a creation of Hoborg who rebelled against his creator and stole his crown with the intent to rule the Neverhood.
• Neverwinter Nights series:
  • The creator race queen Morag in the original. She seeks to restore the reptiloid dominion over the Sword Coast.
  • The medusa Heurodis in Shadows of Undrentide. She wants to raise the fallen Netherese city of Undrentide for unknown reasons, and manipulates you into delivering a mythallar to do it with. No word on what the next bit of her plan was.
  • The archdevil Mephistopheles in Hordes of the Underdark. After being bound on the Prime Material Plane by a powerful drow priestess called the Valsharess, he manipulates you into destroying her armies and attacking her, weakening her enough to break free. He wants to Take Over the World.
  • The King of Shadows in Neverwinter Nights 2. This is a Pure Magic Being that seeks to uphold the laws and protect the descendants of the ancient empire of Illefarn. Problem is, Illefarn is long gone due in large part to the King of Shadows' origin story, and the King is corrupted by Black Magic.
  • Akachi the Betrayer in Mask of the Betrayer. Sort of. He was transformed into a curse of elemental hunger that is slowly killing you.
  • In Storm of Zehir, the yuan-ti House Se'sehen, led by an avatar of Zehir, the yuan-ti god of poison. They want to Take Over the World.
• The New Resident: The CEO of ManneCorp is behind the disappearances that the protagonist is investigating, as he is placing their souls inside mannequins as an experiment to achieve immortality and transcend his human body.
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe:
  • The Führer of Nazi Germany, whoever that is at any given moment - this is an Alternate-History Nazi Victory, they did turn the world into the Crapsack World that it is. When the game starts the Führer is Adolf Hitler himself, but he dies in a Plot-Triggering Death, leaving it up for the AI (or player should you play as Germany) to pick his successor. Potential heirs include the militarist Hermann Göring, the reformist Albert Speer, the conservative Martin Bormann, and the secretive Reinhard Heydrich.
  • Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of Burgundy, is more of a Big Bad Wannabe that has a chance of usurping that role. He's The Starscream to the German Führer, and has much bigger plans for the world than Germany - namely drenching the world in nuclear hellfire in the hopes that only "pure" people will survive. Despite his plotting, Himmler is still subordinate.
• Nexus Clash: The three Evil Elder Powers that are the power source of the demonic hordes, but most of the conflict in the game can be traced back to one of them: Tlacolotl, personification of violence. The other two Dark Powers are Eldritch Abominations whose influence will permeate the universe As Long as There Is Evil. As a Deity of Human Origin, Tlacolotl has no such protection, and so most of the divine conflict in the game is caused by him overtly or covertly stirring up vendettas between the rest of the pantheon to keep them from ever properly uniting to defeat him.
• Nightcry: Vigo Boradsov, the cruise ship owner, is actually the one controlling the Scissorwalker and having her terrorize and kill the ship's passengers.
• Nightmare Creatures: Adam Crowley, who created the titular Nightmare Creatures and unleashes them upon London.
• NiGHTS into Dreams… and Nights Journey Of Dreams: Wizeman the Wicked is the ruler and creator of Nightmare, as well as the Nightmaren entities, who seeks to rule over the Night Dimension and corrupt the Nightopia, and in the second game also aims to rule the waking world.
• Night Striker: Gyrohound, the terrorist leader, though it's later revealed that the terrorist adjutant, Sky Dragoon, was the true mastermind calling the shots, having manipulated the mentally unstable terrorist leader as a puppet.
• Nights of Azure has the Nightlord, the cause of the Night. Turns out to be a subversion since the original Nightlord is an example of Dark Is Not Evil. The true Big Bad is the leader of the Curia and the First Saint herself, Ludegert.
• Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon has the Moon Queen Malvasia, who seeks to bring about an Eternal Night.
• The Night of the Rabbit: The Evil Wizard Great Zaroff, whose spells are responsible for the game's conflict. Though you get hints about it early in the story, you do not discover the identity of the villain until much later.
• Ninja Gaiden:
  • Ninja Gaiden (of the older games): Jaquio, the chieftain of the "Chaos Tribe", who plans to steal the Demon Statue and break the seal on the Dark God, plunging the world into darkness.
  • Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos: Ashtar, who wants to obtain the "power of Almighty Evil" and take over the world, until he is usurped by Jaquio.
  • Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom: A. Foster, who plots to create a race of super-beings, and is indirectly responsible for Irene's death, which sets Ryu in full force against him. That is, until he is usurped by H.P. Clancy, who hijacks the titular ship to bring about the end of humanity.
  • Ninja Gaiden (of the newer games): Vigoor before Murai reveals himself as the actual Big Bad, who's been using Ryu to power-up the Dark Dragon Blade so he may take it for himself and conquer the world.
  • Ninja Gaiden II (of the newer games): Vazdah, an evil deity who's out to take over the world.
  • Ninja Gaiden 3 (of the newer games): Clifford "Cliff" Higgins, a Mad Scientist who brainwashes his brother into becoming a terrorist and aims to destroy humanity using The Goddess.
• Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch has the titular White Witch, Cassiopeia, who attempts to destroy the world because of its imperfections after her failure as a Queen. Interestingly, while the game lets the player know she's the Big Bad from the beginning, the main characters aren't even aware of her involvement and existence, believing her Dragon, Shadar, is the villain they have to defeat. It's not until after Shadar is defeated that the White Witch reveals herself to everyone.
  • Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom has Doloran, a mysterious sorceror who seeks to undermine the rulers of every kingdom through magic and deception by unleashing the Horned One. It's later revealed Doloran seeks to revive his Kingdom and his lost love by reviving what he thinks is the latter's transformed state, not realizing it's actually the source of her rejected power.
• Nintendo Wars
  • Advance Wars has Sturm, the leader of Black Hole who manipulates the other nations into fighting. He returns as the Big Bad in the sequel, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, with four commanding officers at his side.
  • Advance Wars: Dual Strike has Von Bolt, the new leader of Black Hole seeking to suck Omega Land dry.
  • Advance Wars: Days of Ruin has Caulder.
• Nioh has Edward Kelley, who attempts to resurrect warlord Oda Nobunaga to take control of Japan and seize control of Amrita, a mystical substance that can found in Japan. Kelley is ultimately The Heavy, answering to John Dee, who is the true villain behind the events of the game. The DLCs have Lady Maria, who wants to obtain Amrita for Spain.
  • Nioh 2 has Otakemaru, a powerful demonic oni who corrupts Tokichiro and various other characters.
• Nocturne (RPG Maker): Ristill Eva Mizants is the most antagonistic figure and The Rival to Reviel, and she appears to be the one behind the elemental barrier around Algiz that weakens him, as well as a Dark Chains curse to weaken him further. In the remake, it turns out she was only behind the Dark Chains curse while Khaos was the one behind the elemental barrier, and Khaos turns out to be aiding Ristill in order to make the rivalry between her and Reviel more interesting and distract them from/alert the others to his real plan. After Reviel defeats Ristill, Khaos attacks the village of Algiz and reveals his plan to destroy and reconstruct the world, forcing the two into an Enemy Mine to stop him.
• No More Heroes: Dark Star is the number-1-ranked assassin whom Travis Touchdown must kill to become the top assassin. Except he turns out to be a minor player; the real villains are Sylvia Christel, Travis' girlfriend who conned him into killing the other assassins, and Jeane, Travis' ex-girlfriend and half-sister who killed his parents in front of him, triggering his desire for vengeance.
  • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: Jasper Batt Jr. is the CEO of Pizza Batt and head of the United Assassins Association who rules Santa Destroy with an iron fist, organizes the deadly fights between assassins for his amusement, and kills Travis' best friend, Bishop, to get back at Travis for killing his father and brothers, sending Travis on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • No More Heroes III: Prince Jess-Baptiste VI, aka FU, is the leader of an intergalactic legion of aliens who aim to destroy the world. He gains Travis' enmity by killing Bad Girl's father, badly injuring Shinobu, and ordering the obliteration of a huge part of Santa Destroy, killing everybody who was there.
• no-one has to die.: Troy is the one who lit the fire that you're guiding the characters through in Fenix Corporations. Or so he claims. It was actually Christina who did it to kill the CEO Lionel because the company killed her mother in an experiment.
• No Straight Roads has Tatiana, the CEO of NSR and the one responsible for pushing her label's top artists to stifle musical creativity, particularly rock.

O

• The Obscura Experiment: The Dark Matter is some kind of mobile black hole that was being experimented on on the ship, before it escaped and killed everyone but Priya and the Captain.
• Octopath Traveler: The witch Lyblac manipulates the individual Arc Villains of the eight heroes' stories to awaken her father, Galdera.
  • Octopath Traveler II: Arcanette is the leader of the Moonshade Order, who seek to resurrect Vide the Wicked so that he may bring an eternal night to the world, believing that it's beyond saving.
• Oddrietta: Henry is bringing about the wind turning people into monsters and trying to force Henrietta to marry him.
• Oddworld:
  • Abe's Oddysee has Molluck the Glukkon, the head of RuptureFarms who plans on slaughtering his enslaved Mudokon workers, all of whom Abe aims to save.
  • Abe's Exoddus has Vice-president Aslik, although the Brewmaster Glukkon is the Final Boss.
  • Munch's Oddysee has Humphrey and Irwin with Humphrey as the dominant Big Bad.
  • Stranger's Wrath has Sekto, the head of Sekto Industries and owner of the power plant that dams the Mongo River.
  • Lady Margaret, as the queen of the Magog Cartel, is the Greater-Scope Villain behind Molluck, Brewmaster, and all the other Glukkons, however she hasn't appeared in a game yet. Lady Margaret's grandmother is the Greater-Scope Villain behind Lady Margaret, and is supposed to appear in Squeek's Oddysee.
• Odin Sphere: King Valentine desires to destroy all of Erion after having conquered much of it with the Crystallization Cauldron.
• Of Orcs and Men: Emperor Damocles starts out as the main villain, being the ruler of Iserian continent out to exterminate the Greenskin orcs in order to expand his empire, before his assistant Lord Barimen orchestrates his death and takes over as emperor; continuing where his former master left off.
• OFF: Queen Vader Eloha is apparently the one who created the specters, The Batter's mortal enemies who are destroying the world. It is never quite confirmed if this is true, and Vader is implied to be Good All Along, but either way, The Batter himself turns out to be a much greater threat, as his aim is to 'purify' the dying world of all sin by destroying it.
• Okage: Shadow King: Beiloune, who created the Classifcation system that the heroes seek to dissolve and cut off their world from the rest of the universe.
• Ōkami: Orochi is Amaterasu's Arch-Enemy who rules over Eastern Nippon and forces pure maidens to be sacrificed to him so he can become god of the underworld. Until he is defeated, at which point Ninetails, ruler of Oni Island, takes over, leading the demon invasion of Ryoshima Coast, killing Rao and tricking Amaterasu into giving over the Fox Rods; though both he/she/it and Orochi are working for the real villain, Yami, the God of Darkness who wiped out the Moon Clan and leads all the demons.
  • Ōkamiden: King Fury is the leader of the demons who desires to Kill All Humans as revenge for his betrayal by his allies. Except he is being possessed by Akuro, a dark spirit with an ambiguous connection to Yami who wants to restore Yami's rule.
• Omikron: The Nomad Soul: Astaroth, a powerful demon sealed away long ago, created the game itself to ensnare the gamers in our universe and eat their souls in order to become powerful enough to enslave his and our universe.
• OMORI: "Something", a black, one-eyed creature that's constantly haunting Omori throughout the game, is the force that kidnapped Basil. It turns out to be the embodiment of the trauma inflicted on Sunny upon accidentally killing Mari, and Basil for helping cover it up. Besides, the whole reason for Omori's existence is to repress this truth.
• Oni: Muro Hasegawa, the leader of the Syndicate who aims to leak the toxic fumes of the outside world into the settlements and force humanity to become Chrysalis bearers if they want to survive.
• Onmyōji (2016) has Kuro Seimei, the Evil Counterpart of Abe no Seimei. The worst part? He is also the Literal Split Personality of Seimei, meaning that he shares the same soul and aura as him, frequently causing people to mistake Seimei for him and pin his crimes on Seimei instead. Worse still, it is none other than Seimei who created him in the first place, thanks to a spell of his Gone Horribly Wrong.
• Operation Wolf Returns: First Mission has General Viper, the leader of a Nebulous Evil Organisation that is trafficking weapons and drugs and has not only build a secret super weapon, but has also taken hostages. Fittingly, he's also the Final Boss of the game.
• The Order: 1886: Lord Hastings/Jacob Van Neck, the true mastermind behind the Half Breed and vampire scourge in London and plans to expand the scourge beyond England.
• Ouija Sleepover: Linda Simons is the Vengeful Ghost who trapped Aiden and Dan inside the alternate dimension and is trying to kill them.
• Outlast:
  • First game: The main antagonists are Chris Walker, the hulking monstrosity who chases you down at every opportunity; Richard Trager, who captures and tortures you halfway through the game; and the Walrider, the ghostly apparition that everyone fears. The Twins are part of the ensemble to a lesser extent, as they still attack you even though their boss says otherwise. In the final level, it is revealed the Greater-Scope Villain is Dr. Wernicke, the one who created Walrider.
  • Whistleblower DLC: Jeremy Blaire, the Murkoff executive overseeing Project Walrider makes almost everything you encounter here his fault. He also personally ruins Waylon's life by making him their newest test subject.
  • Outlast II: The three leaders of the main enemy factions - Knoth of the Christians, Val of the Heretics, and Laird of the Scalled, as well as the Stalker of the school segments.
• Overwatch has the Talon Organization, a terrorist syndicate who's sole purpose is to exterminate remaining Overwatch members after the group disbanded. The group is led by a council, which includes Reaper, Doomfist and Moira among others. Their actions are what lead to Winston calling the Overwatch group back together in order to combat this threat.
• Owlboy: The Pirate King Molstrom steals the Artifact of Doom and attempts to spread destruction through the world.

P

• While the Pac-Man series isn't one for story in the beginning, it still has villains that set up the plot.
  • The Ghost Gang in most games, consisting of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde, chase down Pac-Man in the mazes to kil him.
  • Pac-Man World trilogy:
    • First game: Toc-Man, a robotic version of Pac-Man piloted by the ghost Orson, is the one who kidnaps Pac-Man’s family.
    • Pac-Man World 2: Spooky orders the four ghosts around and steals the Golden Fruit keeping him sealed away so he can take over Pac-Land.
    • Pac-Man World 3: Erwin is the Evil Genius behind the plot to siphon energy from Pac-Land and the Spectral Realm to fuel his conquests.
  • Averted in Pac-Man Party, as the ghosts who seem to be villains at the beginning of the game are just testing the titular character.
• Painkiller:
  • The original game has Lucifer, whose demonic legions Daniel must cut through in order to stop him from carrying out an invasion of Purgatory, and ultimately Heaven and Earth.
  • The first expansion, Battle Out of Hell, sees Hell fall under the control of Alastor after Lucifer's defeat, redoubling the demonic legions in an even more ruthless charge. After Alastor's defeat, Eve fulfills her plan to absorb Alastor's demonic power for herself in order to become the new Queen of Hell, though the direct confrontation that is implied to follow between herself and Daniel remains offscreen.
  • The second, standalone expansion, Overdose, has its main antagonists in Cerberus and the Angel Samael, who are hunted by Belial, a half-angelic, half-demonic hybrid and Samael's son, who's seeking revenge after the two of them had him imprisoned and tortured when he was rejected by both Heaven and Hell.
  • The distant sequel/reboot Hell & Damnation has Daniel being manipulated and inevitably betrayed by the Angel of Death who is implied to be Samael himself after going through the wringer. Eve also reappears, but is once again on the sidelines.
• Parasite Eve game trilogy:
  • First game: Mitochondria Eve-2 is the successor to the original Mitochondira Eve who plans to birth the Ultimate Being and use it to Kill All Humans.
  • Parasite Eve 2: King GOLEM Number 9 is the mastermind of the Neo-Mitochondrial Creature outbreak at the Akropolis shopping center and the frontman of The Conspiracy. He has superiors, but they serve as a Greater-Scope Villain.
  • The 3rd Birthday: A Big Bad Ensemble between the Twisted, time-distorting monsters who want to Kill All Humans, and Hyde Bohr, who is the chief researcher of the CTI, head of the Overdrive Investigation Unit, and the leader of the High Ones who wants to eradicate the Twisted and go back to Time Zero so he can merge with Eve and become the pioneer of a higher lifeform.
• Path of Exile: High Templar Dominus is the instigator of the plot, being responsible for the player character's exile and the revival of thaumaturgical research. But throughout the game there is talk of a "Nightmare", and its physical representation, The Beast. Talking to Siosa reveals the Vaal knew this being by name. All it needed was someone to control it...
• Pedestal (2021): Akari Abe, Aoi's best friend, is revealed to be the one ultimately behind Shiori's death, as the circumstances that led to Shiori accidentally dying were brought about by her trying to drive Shiori to despair for fun.
• Perdition: Gomadi and Tanas are two enemy AI beings who are the rulers of the decaying world, and both seek to enslave the androids, including the Player Character Eve. However, Gomadi comes across as the eviler of the two, since he started the whole mess and is overtly cruel to Eve, while Tanas comes across as Affably Evil and only wants to defeat Gomadi, whom he split off from.
• Peret em Heru: For the Prisoners: There are two antagonists. Professor Tetsuya Tsuchida is the one who dragged the tourist group into exploring the ruins to use them as meat shields so he can discover the tomb's secrets (and also get Koji killed to avenge his daughter whom Koji refused to save), making him partially responsible for the danger that occurs. However, the Final Boss behind the traps and spiritual happenings is the powerful, psychic Pharaoh Khufu, who lives eternally in the tomb and has gone insane from the isolation, now wanting only a successor.
• Perfect Dark: The Skedar, who intend to test-fire the Cetan warship's superweapon on Earth before wiping out the Maians.
• Pikmin 4: Louie, after showing questionable morality in previous games, outright becomes the main antagonist in this Continuity Reboot, kidnapping a couple of important castaways and eventually taming the Ancient Sirehound in an attempt to fight off the Rescue Corps.
• Pilgrim (RPG Maker): Master Alice is the kidnapper of Inago who desires her soul and challenges Akemi to save her.
• Pillars of Dust: Almorigga is initially pegged as a background villain who ruined the land of Alluriga. It turns out he's still alive and is manipulating Carlton and Gregg into entering the Outer Plane. He plans to lure them to his castle so he can spill their blood, undoing the seal that King Karl placed on him.
• Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat: Captain Hawke, the pirate who murdered Kat's parents, leading her to go on a quest to avenge their deaths.
• A Plague Tale: Innocence: Grand Inquisitor Vitalis Benevent orders the manhunt for the de Rune children so he can acquire the Macula and weaponize the Black Death to conquer the world.
• Pocket Mirror: The Strange Boy is the one who trapped the protagonist in the mysterious world and stole her memories, and he is also responsible for creating the other villains to keep her trapped.
• Pocky & Rocky:
  • Pocky & Rocky has the Black Mantle, who was responsible for corrupting both the Nopino Goblins and Gorgonzola Goblins.
  • Pocky & Rocky 2 has Dynagon, ruler of the demons who sent Impy to kidnap Princess Luna.
  • Pocky & Rocky with Becky has the "Giant Snake", an evil spirit released at the beginning of the game.
  • Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined has Black Mantle, who's returned to use Time Travel to undo his previous defeat and get revenge on Pocky.
• Portal:
  • Portal: GLaDOS. Not only does she place Chell in danger numerous times, half-way through the game she tries to kill her by placing her on a platform heading towards a pit of fire and at the end of the game, she almost kills her by flooding the Enrichment Centre with a deadly neurotoxin..
  • In Portal 2 GLaDOS continues the role at first, but eventually, she's overtaken by Wheatley. Finally it turns out that it's the mainframe which causes all the problems.
• Prayer of the Faithless: Gauron was once a researcher of Miasma trying to find a way for humanity to survive, but used unscrupulous experiments to do so. After Vanessa kills him, he returns as a Revenant and now seeks to wipe out humanity so that the Manna can inherit the planet in their place. He also turns Aeyr into a Revenant in order to convince the latter to become his ally, but this causes Aeyr to be labeled as a public enemy.
• Prey (2017): Apex Typhon, the one behind the attack of Talos-1 space station.
• Professor Layton:
  • Professor Layton and the Curious Village has Don Paolo, Layton’s self-proclaimed nemesis who spends the game obstructing his investigation to get the Golden Apple.
  • Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box has the vampire terrorizing Folsense, Anton Herzen (though he only thinks he’s a vampire).
  • In Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, Future London is under the contrall of Future LaytonA.K.A Dimitri Allen and Future Luke A.K.A. Klaus/Clive Dove.
  • Professor Layton and the Last Specter and Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva has the mastermind behind the town’s invading specter, Jean Descole.
  • Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask has the Masked Gentleman, A.K.A. Randall Ascot, though he’s actually working for Descole.
  • Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy has the leader of the terrorist organization Targent, and Layton and Descole’s biological father, Leon Bronev.
  • Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy: During most of the game, there doesn't seem to be a main antagonist (aside from some thieves in Chapter 8 who are arrested due to a robbery attempt that was resolved in that same chapter), as Katrielle is instead dealing with personal troubles affecting respectively the Seven Dragons. However, it turns out that all seven of them also share a much bigger problem that is being exploited by Lord Adamas (who is none other than Ernest Greeves), who is looked for and confronted in the final chapter.
• Project: Snowblind: General Yan Lo, a rogue Chinese general and leader of the Republic who intends on sending humanity back to the Dark Ages.
• Prom Dreams: Dolores Roth, out of extreme jealousy, decides to sabotage Kyle's prom night, by trapping him and his three possible dates in a "Groundhog Day" Loop/Eldritch Location and sending Claire to kill them all as revenge for bullying her.
• Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy: General William Kreiger, who seeks the two psychic artifacts in order to become a god.
• Psychic Force has Richard Wong, an arrogant Smug Snake who sees people as nothing more than pieces on a chess board, not caring about ruining the lives of many as he seeks to Take Over the World.
• Psychonauts:
  • Original game: Coach Morceau Oleander is the one behind the theft of the campers brains and the plot to use tanks powered by the brains to Take Over the World.
  • Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin: Dr. Caligostro Loboto is the one who kidnapped Truman Zanotto, Grand Head of the Psychonauts, and took him to his lab in the titular Rhombus of Ruin on behalf of his mysterious employer.
  • Psychonauts 2: The Mysterious Figure/Deluginist Mastermind and mole within the Psychonauts is the one who ordered the kidnapping of Truman Zanotto and plans to resurrect the mass-murderer Maligula. It is finally revealed to be Nick Johnsmith, the mailroom worker, who is actually Gzesarevich Gristol Malik, out to reclaim Grulovia and what he considers his rightful throne as the next Gzar.
• Psychotoxic: Reverend Aaron Crowley, the leader of The Fallen, a Satanic cult which seeks to wipe out humanity with the Fourth Horseman.
• Puck OFF: Dominator, the world's greatest hockey player turns out to be this.
• Punky Skunk: Badler who is the leader of the BB Brigade. But although he is mentioned at the beginning of the game, you do not encounter him until the end as the Final Boss.
• Purgatory (RPG Maker):
  • In the first game, The Butcher is the owner of the titular Purgatory building who wants to add the heroine Enri to his lengthy collection of corpses.
  • In the second game, Oliver G. Lobelia is the one behind the hellbeast invasion of the Royal Capital, on behalf of the Lobelia organization which he is an executive of.

Q

• Quantum Protocol: Omega, the leader of the Astrika Foundation and the island city, is using Dungeon Networks to create powerful malware. All of this is a misguided attempt to make his meteor-ruined country relevant again.
• Quest Fantasy:
  • S O U L is the ultimate threat to the fantasy world who is distorting and corrupting it into its own image, and is using Old Guy The King to do so. Every game in the series has each protagonist eventually encounter S O U L.
  • In Era Ovation Acceptance, in addition to S O U L, the villain who targets the game world and wants to corrupt it, the game introduces two rival entities; President Snaily Joe, leader of Virtuoso who wants to rule the world as its democratic leader in the wake of S O U L's destruction; and Shachihata, a world-eating dimensional parasite who wants to devour the world.
• Quiz & Dragons: Gordian is the demon who stole the wisdom seed and unleashed man-eating monsters who maul any victims who answer poorly. It's up for the main cast to take a stand and recover the seed.

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