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Handicapped Badass / Video Games

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Handicapped Badasses in video games.

  • Arknights: Multiple characters in the game suffer from Oripathy, which is a fatal condition that causes the body to gradually crystallize into Originium. Nevertheless, many of them are still in combat and put up quite the fight despite their deteriorating health.
    • Eyjafjalla's Oripathy caused her to go deaf and she is mentioned to be nearly blind.
    • Santalla lost an eye to Oripathy after she was stabbed in the eye by an Ursus soldier with an Originium shard.
    • FrostNova was dying from late-stage Oripathy caused by lack of treatment in addition to Originium Arts overuse. It didn't stop her from going all out in Episode 6: Partial Necrosis after the Yeti Squad was killed, albeit she ends up dying from the strain.
  • Assassin's Creed:
    • All assassins up until Altaïr redesigns the hidden blade are all missing a finger, but they're still very good at their job.
    • Malik from Assassin's Creed loses an arm early on and yet later leads only four fellow assassins against a small army. Successfully. With him fighting in the front. The small army was composed of fellow assassins who were Brainwashed and Crazy at the time. So, Malik takes on a small army of men who have received the exact same training that he has, and he still kicks their asses. And considering that he preceded the ass-kicking of said army with a Big Damn Heroes moment by saving Altaïr.
    • Although not actually in-game, the short cinematic 'Embers' has Ezio kicking as much ass as ever, even as an old, sick man.
  • Asura from Asura's Wrath occasionally loses his arms after getting beat down enough or fights with such anger his arms will physically break off. Despite weakening greatly as far as offensive power is concerned, he doesn't slow down at all.
  • Backyard Sports: Kenny Kawaguchi can, in a wheelchair, kick a football farther than most NFL players.
  • The Abramovici Twins from Batman: Arkham City. Despite both of them lacking an arm, they are the toughest enemies in the game, except for TITAN Henchmen (Titan is a special drug that turns the user into a massive, hulking beast) and bosses.
  • From Battleborn:
    • Benedict the Buteonen Aviant has one wing that's crippled and requires an Aviary Exosuit to enable him to glide but he's still able to kick ass.
    • Pendles the Roa lost an eye and his right tentacle had to be replaced with a prosthetic arm when it naturally molted off, however, Pendles' still just as deadly an assassin despite these handicaps.
  • Evil? Cripple "Bendy" from Bendy and the Ink Machine has a twisted foot that causes him to limp. This doesn't stop him from being the fastest thing in the studio — likely due to his demonic nature and being an Eldritch Abomination. If that weren't enough to overcome his limp, he can also use ink to teleport, and thus pop up anywhere. In combat, he can rip off heads and One-Hit Kill Henry. He doesn't even need to notice lesser ink beings to kill them — the tendrils of ink that cover the rooms and hallways when he's around do that on touch. "Bendy" also has vision problems due to ink constantly dripping down his face. However, he's noted for his exceptional hearing and will find and chase Henry. Basically, he's The Dreaded, and an encounter with him is Run or Die.
  • A word of advice to any and all Bloodborne players: If you see an old man in a wheelchair, do not underestimate him. Best case scenario, he'll stuff you full of lead or set your sorry arse on fire. Worst case scenario? He'll be Gehrman, who on top of being chairbound is also missing a leg, and will mutilate you with his Burial Blade and blast a hole through you with his Blunderbuss.
  • Borderlands: Pandora is a Death World. Being a badass is a requirement for staying there for any amount of time, so any handicapped character you come across automatically qualifies for this trope. One of the first examples you encounter is T.K. Baha, who is blind and missing a leg, yet he's able to sit around outside his house and enjoy the fresh air despite the Skags, Rakks and Bandits around him. Unfortunately, he's not very good against Psychos, which is where the poor bastard meets his end. Another one (non-combat example) is Patricia Tannis, who has Asperger's Syndrome worsened by almost complete isolation, yet manages to survive both the original game and the sequel. Tales from the Borderlands has Rhys, a White Collar Worker turned Action Survivor after he and his best friend Vaughn came to Pandora to try and get a vault key, whose right arm is cybernetic.
  • Bug Fables has bandit leader Astotheles who lost an arm fighting the Dune Scorpion who attacked the hideout. This does not stop him from being one of the toughest boss fights in the game.
  • For a very generous definition of the term, the titular Captain Novolin. Despite his Type 1 Diabetes that he continually has to manage, he's still able to get out there, drive speedboats, climb mountains and put both of his red boots to many craniums in order to rescue Mayor Gooden and put a stop to the aliens' antics
  • The Superfan in Citizens of Earth is a young girl in a wheelchair. While she's one of the weakest characters and her battling role tends more towards support and buffing, she stills throws her lot against an alien invasion.
  • In Crusader Kings II, losing an eye, hand, or leg only reduces characters' personal combat skill, which just affects the outcomes of duels and tournaments. They can still be superb battlefield commanders.
  • Dark Souls:
    • Knight Artorias severely broke his arm before the events that lead to your meeting. This simply means that he could not use his great shield and has to wield his greatsword one-handed (it's not even his good hand either) Does this stop him from somersaulting halfway across the arena to slam that sword into your head over and over again? Nope.
    • Ironically, Hawkeye Gough, another one of the Four Knights of Gwyn, is blind, and according to himself, retired. Neither of these facts stops him from shooting down a dragon because it won't stay in one place. It's implied he's not actually blind — the description of his helmet says that the eyeholes have been plugged up, so he may just think he's blind since he never takes it off — but that's just semantics since he still can't see out of it.
    • The Twin Princes Lothric and Lorian in Dark Souls III are both crippled (Lothric was cursed and has been incredibly frail his entire life, Lorian is mentally damaged to the point he can't speak or use his legs due to sharing his brother's curse). This does not stop them from being a brutally effective Sibling Team more than capable of wiping their boss chamber with you.
  • Dead Island 2:
    • Amy has a prosthetic leg but can kick just as much ass as the other Slayers. Her reason for wanting to get out of Los Angeles instead of waiting it out is that she's qualified for the Paralympics tryout next week.
    • Jacob is blind in his right eye, but his limited field of vision doesn’t stop him from slaying his way through Hell-A.
  • Pox from the first Destroy All Humans!, and in the sequels after he gets destroyed and gets his consciousness stored in a HoloPox Unit.
  • The Inquisitor from Dragon Age: Inquisition becomes this following the conclusion of the epilogue DLC Trespasser. With the Anchor mark growing increasingly unstable, Solas/Fen'Harel is forced to cut their arm off to prevent the Anchor from overwhelming and killing them. Even then Solas implies that the Inquisitor is Living on Borrowed Time anyways due to the Anchor's damage to his/her body. Still, it doesn't seem to let the lack of half an arm phase them even a bit; the next scene is of the Inquisitor striding into the Exalted Council with one arm of their jacket neatly pinned up, where they deliver either an epic Rousing Speech or a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the Council, and either pledge to serve as the Divine's personal honor guard to keep the peace, or disband completely. The scene after that involves them vowing to stop Solas' plans at all costs. Even without their arm and regardless of the Inquisition's fate, it's clear that the Inquisitor is far from being done. Certain ending sliders also show that they replace their arm with a crossbow mounted on the stump.
  • GSD from Dungeon Fighter Online is a blind, retired swordsman, but an insanely capable one. You get one Escort Mission with him, but his level is so far above all of the enemies in the tower you have to travel through that you'll feel like the one who's being escorted.
  • In Dwarf Fortress, thanks to the combat system, anyone can become this including yourself in Adventure Mode and your dwarves in Fortress Mode. All you need is a crutch (preferably a heavy, metallic one) and enough time to grind crutch walking and you are back up fighting against the best of them, or you can just crawl around and slay megabeasts, although it will be difficult because of your reduced speed.
  • Xiahou Dun from Dynasty Warriors would also count: after being shot in the eye with an arrow, he plucked it out (arrow and eye) and proceeded to eat his own eyeball in plain view of enemy soldiers. Badass. Dun, minus one eye, tracked down the poor sod who had fired the arrow and killed him.
  • Echocalypse: Nephthys was paralyzed from the waist down by a bomb that nearly killed her, but even in her wheelchair, she can kick a lot of asses, being one of the more powerful CASEs in the Nebu Alliance.
  • Elden Ring:
    • Malenia, Blade of Miquella, is an Empyrean harbouring the divine Scarlet Rot. While this makes her a potential Walking Wasteland, she is not immune to the Rot's effects herself, and it has taken a heavy toll on her body: she has lost her eyes, her sword arm, most of her left leg, and a third of her right leg, and had to replace the lost limbs with prosthetics.note  None of this gets in the way of her reputation as the World's Best Warrior, nor does it stop her from being the game's ultimate Superboss.
    • Malenia learned all she knew from another exemplar of this trope, the Blind Swordsman. The Blind Swordsman is a lore figure who was, well, blind and may have also had a prosthetic arm, and yet managed to seal away the Scarlet Rot with the aid of a fairy.
    • When you meet Starscourge Radahn, he's long been diminished by the Scarlet Rot, which shows by the fact that he's a mid-game boss despite having been Malenia's equal in the past. Also, both of his feet are gone. This does not stop him from holding the celestial bodies and destiny itself in place, putting up a significant fight as the Climax Boss of several quetlines, or still caring for his horse, Leonard.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • Tiber Septim, the founder of the Third Tamriellic Empire who ascended after his death as Talos, the Ninth Divine, could use the power of the Thu'um early in his campaigns. He used it to "shout down" the walls of Old Hroldan, which earned him much attention and acclaim. However, a failed assassination attempt left him with his throat slashed and unable to speak in more than a whisper. He still completed his conquest of Tamriel (with the help of the Numidium at the end). He would, of course, also later ascend to Godhood.
    • The Moth Priests, members of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth, dedicated to Julianos, the Aedric Divine of Knowledge, are tasked with keeping and reading the eponymous Elder Scrolls. Even with their special protective rituals, repeated readings of the Scrolls will render them blind. Blinded Moth Priests are sent into retirement, but despite this handicap, are still quite capable of defending themselves in combat.
    • Several famous heroes have been missing an eye. St. Jiub is one famous example, as well as Hakon One-Eye and Olaf One-Eye from Nordic history. A massive scar over one eye is often a frequent option for Player Characters during creation, and it doesn't hinder them a bit.
  • Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code:
    • In the prologue, a young Judge is angered at Tovit's presence and attacks him because the latter's daughter deserted her troops. Tovit, who is dying of lung cancer, easily knocks the Judge down.
    • After Joshwa loses his arm, Lamech gives him a spear that's suitable for being used one-handed, allowing Joshwa to maintain his battle performance.
  • The main protagonist of Endoparasitic, Cynte, has one of his arms and both of his legs torn off by the game's parasitic monsters at the start of the game, alongside being forced to use medication throughout the game to avoid being infected himself. Being limited to crawling across the ground with his remaining hand for movement, however, doesn't stop them from being able to gun down waves of monsters all by himself.
  • The End Times: Vermintide and Vermintide II have two among the Badass Crew:
    • The veteran Witch Hunter Victor Saltzpyre was blinded in one eye sometime in his long campaign against the Skaven.
    • Sienna Fuegonasus the Battle Wizard mentions in passing that she's hearing-impaired.
  • Kala Kapur in Evolve. She's blind in her left eye and has to wear an exoskeletal life support system to prevent her immune system from failing completely. It still doesn't stop her from fighting giant flesh-eating monsters.
  • Far Cry:
  • Fear & Hunger: Termina: Olivia has to use a wheelchair as a result of several strokes that affected her spine, whereas Daan ripped out his own left eye as part of a ritual. Both are capable of surviving Termina just as easily as the able-bodied playable characters.
  • Final Fantasy:
  • The final boss in Final Fight is an old man... who races around in a wheelchair shooting the twin rocket launchers he strapped to it!
  • Fire Emblem:
    • After accidentally killing his wife Elena in a magically induced rage, Greil of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance cut the tendons in his dominant hand to ensure he'd never wield a sword again. Even with his skills hampered, he's still a total badass with his humongous axe, with one villain even stating that "he fights like a demon!"
    • Queen Emmeryn in Fire Emblem: Awakening becomes this after their Spotpass chapter. Her (ultimately failed) Heroic Suicide at the end of Chapter 9 has left her with Trauma-Induced Amnesia and brain damage so severe that even putting together simple sentences heavily strains her. Despite this, she manages to be one of the best healer/support characters in the game.
    • Saizo and Niles from Fire Emblem Fates each lost an eye in separate but very, very messy incidents in their pasts. Neither is stopped by such facts, with Saizo as a very badass Highly-Visible Ninja who has the absolute trust of Prince Ryoma of Hoshido and Niles as a well-known assassin who works for Prince Leo of Nohr.
    • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, on all routes save Crimson Flower, Dimitri gets his eye taken out during the five-year timeskip. It doesn't slow him down one bit, as by the time you reunite with him he's developed a habit of wiping out entire platoons of Imperial soldiers single-handedly.
  • Tyto the Swift from Gigantic is missing their left arm, but it doesn't stop them from being a Lightning Bruiser capable of superhuman feats of swordsmanship and acrobatics.
  • God of War: Ascension: Pollux is a severely atrophied man due to being a conjoined twin to his brother Castor, having only one arm, a head and a torso. With that said, Pollux is the demigod half of the Gemini Twins and has psychokinesis as his main power. When Kratos knocks Castor out cold during the boss fight, Pollux keeps fighting using his powers by lifting their body with his mind and throwing everything out at the Ghost of Sparta.
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • Grand Theft Auto V has Lester Crest, who suffers from an unidentified wasting disease that makes it painful for him to walk, and he uses a cane (or when at home, a wheelchair) to get around. He's also a criminal mastermind whose bad side is a dangerous place to be, as LifeInvader CEO Jay Norris found out when Lester blew his head to bits on live TV via a rigged prototype smartphone. And during the "Obvious" version of the final heist, he even leans out of a helicopter with a rocket launcher and blows up other attacking helis.
    • Wu Zi Mu (aka "Woozie") from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a Triad boss who doesn't hesitate to go in guns blazing against gangs that try to muscle in on his turf and also loves to race cars. He's also blind.
      • Revealed to be a subversion: his Triad subordinates like to rig the casino games he plays with them, and he thinks CJ must be very lucky to be able to beat him at things like blackjack. But he does have instances where his "incredible luck", as the Triads call it, allows him to beat CJ at video games and drive a sports car in an illegal rural-road street race without wrecking. He's also the best shot in the game, next to CJ himself.
  • Guild Wars Nightfall has the Sunspear leader Kormir blinded by a demon early in the campaign. Despite being unable to fight from that point on, she remains an important guiding force for the battle against Abaddon and later becomes a goddess via Heroic Sacrifice.
    • Guild Wars 2 has Taimi, a Delicate and Sickly Asuran who can barely walk due to crippling pain. To compensate for this, she modified a fully combat-capable golem chassis to carry her around and which she can pilot during battles.
  • Baiken from Guilty Gear is a badass one-armed, one-eyed swordswoman. Zato-1 is an obvious reference to Zatoichi. "One" in Japanese is "ichi".
    • Ragna the Bloodedge, from its spiritual successor BlazBlue is a handicapped badass whose arm is an Eldritch Abomination because he lost his real one when Terumi, while possessing his brother Jin, cut it off. In Continuum Shift he loses his other arm while freeing Noel from mind control and gets it replaced with an arm made of Lambda-11's components. During a good portion of Chronophantasma Ragna is unable to use his Azure powers, and by extension his right arm and eye, because of Celica's ability to suppress seithr.
  • Zaird from Gungnir is paraplegic. He is also the final boss and deserves the status.
  • Kat in Halo: Reach has lost her right arm, but her robotic replacement arm works so well that she's still in active service in an elite unit and the team's expert on fixing broken electronic equipment, even though she's right-handed. It does look pretty ghastly though, but nobody ever comments on it. Maybe they are too scared to risk it.
  • Take this trope and add "disturbing" in the middle and it's what you get in Haunting Ground when you encounter the final stalker, Lorenzo Belli. You'd think a crippled wheezing old man in a wheelchair wouldn't be scary or a threat, but then he starts dragging himself after you, scurrying on the ground like a spider as fast as you can run. Then you figure out that no matter what you can't hide from him, all you can do is run in desperation. Then you find out he can survive being blown up, and then minced in a rock grinder. Then you figure out if he catches you it's a One Hit Kill. To make matters worse, this is before he reveals his ability to de-age himself and drop the "handicapped" part altogether...
  • Alexander Cayne in Hitman: Blood Money. Despite needing a wheelchair, having severe burns in his face and possibly being partially paralyzed, he is tough, heads an assassin agency and is surprisingly hard to fight and kill in the final mission.
  • Iji's Asha only has one arm. This doesn't stop him from being a good fighter at all. Being able to teleport like crazy helps.
  • Kid Icarus: Pit is an angel who does not have the ability to fly, with Palutena in Uprising hinting at it being some sort of disability. Despite this physical limitation, Pit is still the Captain of Palutena's Army filled with centurions who can fly, and he's saved both Skyworld and the Earth multiple times across multiple games.
  • Harman Smith of Killer7. A wheelchair-bound old man who will destroy nearly anyone with the anti-materiel rifle he possesses on the back of his wheelchair. Con Smith as well, he's a skilled gunfighter despite being completely blind.
  • The King of Fighters:
    • Heidern. His right eye was torn out by Rugal and has since obtained an Eyepatch of Power, but it didn't stop him from kicking massive amounts of badass.
    • In the manga G by Ryo Takamisaki, Kyo Kusanagi almost has his eyes ripped out by Benimaru, who was under More than Mind Control by Goenitz and after that incident, Kyo has to keep his eyes shut at all times, but it doesn't diminish his badassness at all.
  • Kingdom of Loathing's Armory and Leggery is run by a man with no arms or legs, but during Zombie Slayer runs, he manages to impregnably fortify his shop against the Zombie Apocalypse.
  • League of Legends has its fair share of fighters who don't let a handicap stop them from kicking ass.
    • The most famous is of course, Lee Sin. When Noxus invaded Ionia, Lee Sin invoked the dangerous power of the dragon, permanently blinding himself in the process. Being blind hasn't slowed him down any, as he's an elite martial artist and not to be messed with even without his sight.
    • Lissandra likewise is without sight, having her eyes clawed out by the fearsome Freljordian Demigod Volibear. She's still a massively powerful mage, leader of the Frostguard and only thing keeping the Frozen Watchers from escaping and destroying Runeterra.
    • A few other champs are minus just one eye, but are nonetheless fearsome fighters. Such as criminally insane murder hamster Kled, fearsome Vastaya hunter Rengar and showy but lethal Noxian bounty hunter Samira.
  • Louis in The Passing for Left 4 Dead 2. His legs are injured, so he can't run and gun to give cover as Zoey and Francis can. So what does he do? He mans the Heavy Machine Gun.
  • LISA The Painful RPG: Depending on the player's responses to Buzzo's sadistic choices, protagonist Brad can lose one or both of his arms as the game goes on. He's still a toughed, determined, fireball-throwing martial artist who can take out gangs, kill powerful bloated mutants, and climb ropes with his mouth. It is, however, made more difficult to do so with fewer arms.
  • Morrighan in the MMORPG Mabinogi is in fact, blind... This does not stop her from fulfilling her job as the Goddess of War and Vengeance at all.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Jeff "Joker" Moreau, the pilot of Cool Starship Normandy, makes a point of how all his flight awards and commendations were not charity for his suffering from Vrolik's Syndrome, which makes his bones so brittle that he cannot walk without assistance. Good thing he doesn't need to walk for his job, then, and he lives up to his boast that he is "the best damn helmsman in the Alliance fleet", piloting the Normandy as swiftly and easily as if she were an X-Wing fighter. He ends up firing the shot that takes out Eldritch Abomination Sovereign in the first game's finale. As if his badass-ness wasn't already established in the first game despite his brittle bones: When Shepard and the Squad are evacuating from the suicide mission back to the Normandy in the second game, who do we see at the ship's door unloading a machine gun on the enemies following them?
    • The quarians are a whole race of humanoids who are zipped up in life-support suits for their whole lives due to atrophied immune systems not adapted to any ecosystem other than their occupied homeworld. This doesn't stop some of them from taking up arms and getting into fights guaranteed to at least get some punctures in their suits that would risk them getting nasty infections. One of these quarians is the series' recurring squadmate, Tali'Zorah.
    • Thane Krios does not let something like a terminal disease stop him from being a deadly assassin.
    • Nakmor Drack, of Mass Effect: Andromeda. At least, by krogan standards. Thanks to a long life of killing things, and a few moments of carelessness, he's down several of his spare organs, and even an arm. He's got cybernetics holding the rest of him together. And you'd never know watching him fight.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Big Boss lost an eye, but never lost a trace of his badassness. He becomes even cooler as an old man. Hell, the eye alone doesn't do him justice: during the ill-fated Virtuous Mission, he suffers a broken arm, multiple lacerations, and a broken rib from getting his ass kicked by The Boss and thrown off a bridge into a river. The medical officer overseeing him fully admits he should be back in intensive care rather than going on Operation Snake Eater a week later, where (not even counting injuries he can get in gameplay) he ends up getting shot in the leg with a crossbow, poisoned by spider venom, electrocuted with 10 million volts, beaten to within an inch of his life by a guy strong enough to punch massive holes in concrete, and then loses his eye. He still succeeds the mission.
    • Old Snake. The power suit doesn't really make him superhuman, so much as gives him just enough of a muscle assist to stay in the game. Physically Snake's in his 70s despite being 42, and after the first act, he starts having seizures due to his older generation nanomachines. And in the third act, half his face is burnt off. And he still keeps fighting, no matter how many obstacles he must face, or how many friends try to talk him out of it.
    • Revolver Ocelot lost his arm, but it doesn't stop him from betraying whoever he worked for, commanding two squads of Amazon Brigades, having a one-on-one fist fight with Old Snake at the top of a submarine, and ultimately freeing the world from the Patriots and war economy once and for all. Unlike Old Snake, Ocelot is legitimately in his 70s, and he's still as ripped as he was in his youth.
    • In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Raiden is more artificial than organic, to the point that he runs completely on synthetic white android blood. This does not slow him down at all, but his real Handicapped Badass moment comes, when he has to come to Snake's rescue after having lost both of his arms. Again, with hand-like cyborg feet, this doesn't slow him down at all.
    • Disabilities are a recurring motif throughout the appropriately named The Phantom Pain. Numerous characters are missing limbs, are blind, mute, etc., and makes an apt physical reminder for what Snake's lost and the cause of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • Kiling Meehilbis "of the Ghosts" in Mitsumete Knight is not only a Handicapped Badass due to his blindness, he's also a cool Old Soldier; yet he's the Number Two of the enemy mercenary brigade Valpha-Valaharian, a master strategist, and a powerful foe in battle using a Sinister Scythe. Badass indeed!
  • Ishara is the most powerful character in the interactive romance novel Moonrise. With a look, she can decimate any enemy. Missing an arm doesn't stop her in the least.
  • Kenshi Takahashi from Mortal Kombat is a swordsman who was blinded, thanks to an evil trick by the sorcerer Shang Tsung. However, this hasn't stopped him unleashing many fatalities on his opponents.
  • Mother series
    • Duster of Mother 3 had a leg injury that gives him a serious limp, but not only can he keep up with the others, but he's also actually the fastest character in the game who can counter enemy ambushes and attacks by kicking.
    • Ninten, the main protagonist of EarthBound Beginnings, is asthmatic, but that doesn't stop him from kicking around all manner of monsters, aliens, and malevolent animated objects alike with nothing but a baseball bat. However, the vehicular enemies can expel exhaust that causes him to have asthma attacks, which renders him unable to act. The purchasable asthma spray can alleviate this condition.
  • Shinobu in the No More Heroes series, after losing her hand to Travis post-ranking fight.
  • Overwatch:
    • Cole Cassidy. "Handicapped"? He has a prosthetic arm and implied dissociative identity disorder. "Badass"? He took on a bullet train and five helicopters worth of Talon operatives equipped with automatic weapons, with only a revolver, and won without missing a single shot.
    • Ana Amari is one of the best snipers in the world. When she was working for Overwatch, she had a cybernetic eye that enhanced her vision to the point where she technically didn't even need a scope anymore. However, being on the receiving end of a Scope Snipe, courtesy of Talon operative Widowmaker has left her with only her organic left eye to aim with. Not that that stops her from kicking ass well into her 60s.
  • Gage in PAYDAY 2 is a Gulf War veteran-turned-black market weapons dealer who got paralyzed from the waist down after an assassination attempt. Even when handicapped, he manages to run one of the largest weapon smuggling rings on the east coast, and he uses his handicap with a dose of Obfuscating Stupidity to stay ahead of people — even Bain notes that he's not to be underestimated. This also hasn't stopped him from performing assassinations when necessary — he paid his would-be assassin back, and Episode 4 of the web series shows him posing as a hobo to take his target off-guard before gunning him down.
  • Wally from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire has an unspecified breathing problem (probably asthma) that's kept him homebound for most of his life. When he finally gets a Pokemon, it's a Ralts with no attacking moves. Somehow, he raises it, catches five other Pokemon, and makes it all the way to Victory Road unassisted.
  • In Project Zomboid, it's possible to play as a character who is deaf. It makes it so you only detect flanking zombies when they are extremely close to you (basically biting range) but it also gives you a whopping 12 points to spend on positive traits. You can quite easily become a deaf Genius Bruiser or Badass Bookworm with a wide range of skills.
  • Punch-Out!!: Glass Joe has a, well, glass jaw, that renders him very susceptible to blows to the head. Then in Title Defense, he gets some headgear. And then he'll most likely show you first-hand why you shouldn't underestimate the man who, in a so-called "freak accident", took down Nick Bruiser.
  • The Quarry: Dylan can go half the game with only one hand. His best moment comes from using both a crane and a blowtorch to fight off a bloodthirsty werewolf... single-handedly. Earlier in the game, he also jury rigs a PA system to blast feedback at a werewolf and drive it away from a group of survivors.
  • Red Dead Redemption II: Despite being terminally ill with tuberculosis, Arthur Morgan still manages to hold off a large number of Pinkerton agents and later fights the healthy Micah Bell to a draw. Things may have turned out very differently indeed if Arthur had been in fit condition during the ending.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Resident Evil 2 introduces Lickers, which are t-Virus victims that have undergone a second mutation. The mutation causes their brains to swell and take over their eye sockets, rendering them blind - but they evolve excellent hearing to compensate, and they can easily chew through unprepared characters like paper.
    • The Garradores in Resident Evil 4 have their eyes sewed shut. And can nevertheless always know where Leon is by following his footsteps or his smell. Add to that sets of 2-feet long steel claws and a homicidal parasite dwelling in their bodies and you have quite the badass.
  • The same thing can be said for Zorne Sepperin of RosenkreuzStilette. A major difference is that what happened that caused her to gain her metal gauntlet in place of her arm seems to be a mystery (though Fanon suggests that she lost it in an accident, and one source even states that her arm got caught in a belt). While it was somewhat subverted in the first game due to her being a Butt-Monkey there, she got her own badass part when she took her own level in badass in Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel.
  • Tachibana Ukyo in Samurai Shodown is suffering from tuberculosis, including having an Incurable Cough of Death. Doesn't stop him from stylishly kicking ass whenever a fight breaks out.
  • Cyphr Wolfchild from fighting game Schwarzerblitz has lost both her arms, her right ear, and some internal organs when she was a child. Despite this, she worked hard to get an effective kick-only fighting style and, as a result, became one of the strongest characters in-game.
  • Both Date Masamune and Chosokabe Motochika from Sengoku Basara are missing an eye, but it doesn't stop them kicking copious amounts of ass, and while Masamune is acknowledged as having a blind spot, Motochika doesn't seem to care.
  • The titular Severed Steel ranks among the most agile sharpshooters ever represented in a First-Person Shooter genre, being able to Slide, Wall Run, dive did-air, and jump past and flip herself upside down to shoot up MegaCorp mooks with uncanny accuracy with the help of her reflexes, and all of that with her missing an arm, which she does get to make up for it by obtaining a powerful Arm Cannon.
  • Bentley in the Sly Cooper series mixes this with Genius Cripple, becoming a better fighter than before after he became wheelchair-bound by building a bunch of stuff onto his wheelchair.
  • Voldo from the Soul Series. After spending years taking care of his dead master Vercci's treasures in a cave, his eyesight is irreparably damaged, but he's still one of the most infamous characters in the game.
  • Like in the show, Jimmy Valmer as The Bard in South Park: The Stick of Truth is not only The Dreaded who is known and feared by the warriors of Kupa Keep, but also serves as the first genuinely difficult boss in the game. He also manages to be a decent ally when he's in your party, able to use buffs and debuffs to great effect and possessing a ranged attack that can hit any enemy for moderate damage. This is all in spite of his crutches and crippled legs.
  • Star Ocean: Crutch character he may be, Ashley is 50-60 years old and has only one good arm (crippled in the original, but in the remake it was outright "forcibly amputated") yet he can still keep up with the rest of the party and go head to head with some of the nastiest monsters Planet Roak has to offer.
  • Street Fighter:
    • Oro, the one-armed Old Soldier from Street Fighter III, subverts this since the one-armed thing is deliberate — his other arm is hidden behind the knot in his shirt. He's never met anyone who deserves both arms.
    • Sagat aka "the Emperor of Muay Thai" is one of the most feared and respected fighters in the whole world despite lacking an eye.
    • Gen once fought Shin Akuma to a standstill despite suffering from leukemia.note  Hell, the fact that Gen had lived at a terminal level for 10-15 years (or however much time passed between Alpha 3 and IV) by sheer determination to die in battle rather than succumb to his illness has to count.
  • MOBA game Strife features Claudessa, a warrior who lost her arm slaying a dragon, Silvertongue. She took the dragon's claw as a weapon and uses a shield in place of her missing arm. Fittingly enough for this trope, she is arguably the most powerful hero available to play.
  • Super Fighter: The ninja Onimaru, despite having lost a leg (and having it replaced with a peg leg), needing a staff as a makeshift cane, and having taken serious injuries to his head (needing cybernetics to replace his left eye and metal plating around the parts of his face surrounding his lost eye), he can still hold his own against all the other fighters of the cast.
  • Calvina Coulange from Super Robot Wars Judgment suffered severe nerve damage to her arms when the Abusive Precursors known as the Furies attacked the Moonbase she was stationed at, but she's just as capable a pilot as she ever was once she gets her hands on an alien mech with a brainwave interface.
  • Hobyrim from Tactics Ogre kills 2 ninjas in his first scene. He is also blind. Katanas Are Just Better indeed.
  • Tales Series:
  • The Demoman from Team Fortress 2. He's a one-eyed black Scotsman and despite his lack of a functioning liver and depth perception, he still rocks.
    • The Demoman comes from a Badass Family of mercenary explosives experts. All of his ancestors with his job, according to his mother, have been entirely blind by age 30. His missing eye is Fridge Brilliance as well since one of the Demoman's assets is his ability to attack outside his field of vision.
    • His alcoholism is so severe that his BAC reached the point that he gave alcohol poisoning to a bunch of robots who tried to drain his blood. He can also somehow ferment alcohol using his own bone marrow.
    • The Demoman's family seal bears the following motto: In Regionem Caecorum Rex Est Luscus. It means In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
    • One of the replacements for his grenade launcher, the bootlegger, literally chops his leg off and places a wooden peg on the stump. What does it do? It makes him run faster and gives him better turn control while charging.
    • Ever since the Meet the Pyro video has come out, we finally know the Pyro's mental handicap. His mind is filled with laughter, candies, and rainbows. Even though he thinks he's spreading joy to the world, he is actually mercilessly slaughtering his enemies.
    • Lampshaded with the Rainblower weapon for the Pyro: "Your friendsnote  will squeal with delightnote  when you cover them with sparkling rainbowsnote "
  • Touhou Project:
  • The Blind Ones race in Turok 2 includes deadly-accurate crossbow snipers.
  • Not-Robot Bunny from Ultimate Chicken Horse is in a wheelchair (due to being a reskin of the default Bunny, who is a robot with wheels). This doesn't affect its ability to navigate deadly obstacle courses, and it plays just like the other able-bodied animals.
  • Undyne from Undertale is openly stated to be one of the biggest badasses in the game. She is very Hot-Blooded and able to outright resist dying. She is also missing her left eye.
  • The Walking Dead:
    • In The Walking Dead: Season One, Lee's right knee gets injured in the police car crash, giving him a noticeable limp in the first episode that causes him trouble, and he stumbles. A lot. Lee can also have his arm cut off in episode five to stop the spread of the zombie infection. He still goes to find Clementine, who's in danger, and makes his way through zombie-infested Atlanta, jumping through rooftops and climbing.
    • The Walking Dead: Season Two: Kenny loses his eye in an altercation with Carver. Doesn't slow him down in the slightest.
    • The Walking Dead: Season Three: If you've choosen the "Go alone" ending in season two, Clementine will be missing a piece of her ring finger, due to having it accidentally jammed by doors of an abandoned car. It's implied she amputated it herself.
    • The Walking Dead: Season Four: In episode two, you can only save one person from being taken away during the Delta raid on the school, Violet or Louis. If you didn't save Louis, he will have his tongue cut out, essentially making him unable to speak, while Violet will get blinded in episode three. The one you DID save might have their finger cut off. Clementine herself will always end up having her leg cut below the knee in episode four. Despite all that, all three are still competent fighters and valued community members.
  • Birdie, the leader of the Turnbull AC's skinhead gang in the video-game adaptation of The Warriors. He uses a wheelchair and can only defend himself by using a gun — and his followers are STILL intimidated by him. ("Why don't you use your goddamn good legs of yours and FETCH ME A FUCKING SIX-PACK!")
  • Lucky from Whacked! is a rabbit that has no feet, but he is a very intimidating character in the game. This includes Van Tastic, who is actually the devil.
  • Wolfenstein:
    • In Wolfenstein: The New Order, we have Caroline Becker, who is paralyzed from the waist down, but organizes a formidable resistance movement against the Nazi regime. She later actively joins the fray when she downs a Da'at Yichud power suit which allows her to move as well as, if not better than, an an able-bodied soldier.
    • In Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, B.J. Blazkowicz starts off severely injured and wheelchair-bound, but is still perfectly capable of killing Nazis. He later dons Powered Armor to help him continue fighting the Nazis. It's the same power suit that Caroline wore before she was killed.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • Farseer Nobundo is not a draenei shaman; as a former vindicator who narrowly survived a Self-Sacrifice Scheme and went through several sorts of hell after the fact, he is the draenei shaman. That said, he's also a gimpy, arthritic Krokul.
    • The blind shaman Drek'thar commands Frostwolf forces against the Stormpike dwarves in Alterac Valley and is a pretty tough boss. He's a major Horde figure both in lore and in-game, and he only becomes more awesome in Warlords of Draenor, where he buries a whole contingent of Iron Horde soldiers in a landslide.
    • The entire Shattered Hand clan fits the bill, who have all cut off one of their own hands and replaced them with a blade. Their leader, Kargath Bladefist, is quite possibly the most feared orc of them all.
    • Zul'jin, the leader of the Amani trolls until Cataclysm, was captured by his enemies the high elves, and tortured horrifically. They put out one of his eyes, and to escape, he cut off his own arm. Doesn't stop him from being one of the more difficult bosses in Burning Crusade.
    • Lor'themar Theron lost one of his eyes in a battle against the Scourge during the Third War. Kilrogg Deadeye, meanwhile, followed the traditions of his clan and put out one of his eyes to be granted a vision of his own death.
    • Dragonflight adds Sansok Khan of the Clan Shikaar centaur on the Ohn'ahran Plains. She's been deaf since birth, but it doesn't slow her down; with a little help from her guide dog and her sign language interpreter, she's a skilled hunter, a strong warrior, and a capable leader to her clan.
  • Dunban in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 injured his right arm in a battle that took place a year before the game's story began. Regardless, he springs right back into action for the purpose of protecting his hometown and friends when the need arises and does a really good job at it. He manages to completely cripple that arm in doing so, but he just comes right back using his left arm for sword-work. He also doesn't have any issues climbing up cliffs with only his left arm.
    • Shulk follows suit in Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed, having lost the entirity of his right arm prior to the start of the expansion. Just like his mentor, he switched to his left hand as is just as skilled as before.
  • Yakuza 0: Tetsu Tachibana became a gang leader at a young age by trouncing a group of four local gangsters so soundly they begged him to become their boss. He lost an arm and most of his kidney function as an adult, but that didn't slow him down an inch.
    • Goro Majima lost an eye and spent a year being tortured for failing to follow orders. He is still one of the most feared men in the Japanese underworld, and capable of dismantling lesser men by the dozen without breaking a sweat.

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