Nominal Hero / Video Games

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• In Ace Combat Zero, Cipher on the Mercenary path. As opposed to Soldier, on this path he's willing to take out anything not specifically on his side, be it enemy combatants, disabled enemy units, or even civilians on occasion.
• Augus in Asura's Wrath only joined the Eight Guardian Generals so he could have exciting battles. Four of the Seven Deities are implied to be this.
• Copen in the Azure Striker Gunvolt series is the type of person who fights the right people for the wrong reasons. He is fueled solely by bitter vengeance and Fantastic Racism and has personally declared war against every single Adept on the planet until either they drop dead or he does. It just so happens that most of the Adepts he kills (at least on-screen) are much worse on the moral compass than he is. The sequel goes a long way in humanizing Copen while maintaining that his justifications for terminating Adepts with extreme prejudice is wrong; the revelation that his biological sister was born an Adept leaves him deeply conflicted and by the game's ending, he considers himself beyond saving and cuts ties with his family for their own protection.
• Baldur's Gate II:
  • After you solve all the problems of Trademeet, the citizenship agrees to place statues celebrating you as the local hero and your companions as your followers. Even if you were only in it for the reward, you are following a generally evil path in the campaign, and you even have party members hired for money as mercenaries or following you to get more power or fulfill their evil deeds.
  • After the Enhanced Edition were released, an expansion to the first game story, Siege of Dragonspear, was created. In it, the main character is greeted as the "hero of Baldur's Gate" because he defied Sarevok's plan. Of course, just like above, this is regardless of the true intentions and alignment of the protagonist.
• Several of the protagonists of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2. Vhaidra wants to hone her skills as a monk so she can take bloody revenge against the assassins who murdered her family, and Borador, as a result of a debt owed to the elves, wants to get his hands on as much coin as he can. Dorn is a borderline example, since his motivation comes across as equal parts 'make the realms a better place' and 'earn as much glory for myself and seduce as many women as I can.'
• BlazBlue:
  • Despite him being known as "The Hero of Ikaruga", Jin is a MAJOR bastard that acts condescending to others and downright abusive to Noel. He's also selfish to the point that no problems besides his own meant anything to him and would start acting Ax-Crazy whenever around Ragna.
  • Kokonoe has a few soft spots here and there, but REALLY has no problems with nuking a whole city just so she can claim Terumi's head... never mind the thousands and thousands of innocents who would die along the way. That said, it is very much a last resort, to the point where she's willing to undergo self-experimentation on her own brain before legitimately considering the nukes.
  • Yuuki Terumi himself was forced to be part of the Six Heroes and he did not care for anyone at all. Once they succeeded in defeating the Black Beast, the Evil Hero Terumi betrayed his "comrades" when he had the opportunity so he could continue with his Evil Plan.
• In Blood, Caleb spends the entirety of both his games killing everything that moves. The only reason he's the good guy is, excluding a few mimes and other innocents, everything that moves is part of the world-spanning Cabal. Keep in mind, Caleb is an ex-member of the Cabal himself, and he didn't quit because he disagreed with their goals or ideals; it's just that his boss's greater plan involved killing Caleb and his friends, and Caleb took exception to that.
• Most of the Vault Hunters in Borderlands 2 are not particularly upstanding people. Axton is motivated by money, glory and the chance of a worthy enemy; insofar as anything about Zer0 is nailed down, it's that he likes to kill things; Gaige isn't all the way sane; and Krieg is a rampaging murder machine.
  • Salvador the Gunzerker is heavily implied to be a mass-murdering criminal, responsible for lots and lots of deaths, and other assorted crimes. So much so that he's managed to rack up a ridiculously large bounty as seen on posters throughout the game. The only reason he became a Vault Hunter is probably because doing so would allow him to continue to cause chaos while searching for treasure at the same time.
• In Brutal Orchestra, some of the recruitable allies fall in this trope. Pearl and Longliver are essentially animals that just want to devour enemies, and Burnout outright says that he is only interested in watching Nowak die.
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow:
  • Said Lords of Shadow are the Enemy Without of the original heroes of the Brotherhood, and have terrorized the Old World with hordes of monsters. However, due to a combination of Mutually Assured Destruction and fear of the REAL demons clawing their way from Hell, they've been forced to become the secret guardians of Earth - the license to kill anyone for fun is just a small bonus. Unfortunately, Zobek got sick of this détente with his bickering siblings and decided to take the fight to Hell for Level Grinding... and got possessed by Satan for his trouble.
  • In the sequel, Dracula serves a similar function, in that he's so powerful that even Satan won't come to earth to start shit, while at the same time being somewhat less evil. He even decides to wipe out humanity for a while, but changes his mind when Alucard designs a plan that will expose both Zobek and Satan to Dracula at the right moment and allow him to kill them both. Dracula, despite all of his loathing of humanity, and almost seeming to hate himself for it, still jumps at the chance to save the world.
• In Chrono Trigger, you can recruit Magus as an Optional Party Member. He doesn't really care about doing the right thing, and only aids you because you're his only shot at getting revenge on the Big Bad.
• Conker's Bad Fur Day: Conker's primary interest is in stumbling home in one piece, and (with some exceptions), he's not doing anything heroic without some serious compensation.
• The eponymous protagonist of the Cotton series is a brilliant witch who has the power to save entire lands from evil forces...but she absolutely does not care in the slightest unless you promise her "Willow" candies, or if something is wrong with the Willows themselves.
• Crash Bandicoot:
  • Crash Bash: Dingodile and Tiny become heroes by default when Aku Aku demands Uka Uka hand over two members of his team to even up the sides for the battle between good and evil.
  • Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time: Dingodile doesn't really care about saving the world, becoming involved in the Bandicoots' adventure entirely by accident and just wanting to get home. He also maintains all of his usual aggression towards his enemies. The only real difference between how he acts as a hero and as a villain is which side he fights for.
• Darkest Dungeon: As a deconstruction of Dungeons and Dragons, your 'standard' party of heroes ranges from the mentally ill to this trope:
  • The Grave Robber is - well, the title says it all. She's less interested in 'earning' wealth and far more interested in murdering people in socially acceptable ways.
  • The Antiquarian is fully into greed. She is cowardly and incompetent in battle, but her treasure-hunting skills mean you need to seriously consider dragging her along. And then she joins the bandits in the sequel because you can't pay her wages - even though standard gold no longer matters during the apocalypse you're trying to stop.
• Demitri Maximoff from Darkstalkers. He only confronts Planet Eater Pyron and Dark Messiah Jedah because they are a threat to his plans in conquering the Makai, and treats everyone who aren't his servants with great disdain.
• Rufus of Deponia. His main goal of escaping the titular trash planet for Elysium is entirely selfish, he is arrogant, rude, and beyond egotistical, and much of the first game is him using, manipulating, and outright backstabbing other people in order to achieve his goals. The "intentional" part comes due to the fact he's actually a Deconstruction. It's made clear that nobody likes Rufus precisely because he's such an asshole, most, if not all of the series' crises are directly his fault, and he is constantly called out for his actions. In fact, in the sequel, Lady Goal abandons the other Goals and all of Deponia to certain doom just so she could get away from Rufus after everything he's done to her. It turns out his extreme levels of douchebaggery were genetically engineered into him - and his brother Cletus.
• The Material Defender from the Descent games. Even in Descent 3 after the Red Acropolis people rescue him, he makes clear he's just in it for the money (and revenge on Dravis). That said, he does have some Pet the Dog moments such as saving hostages in the first two games and saving a trapped medical frigate full of sick and hurt people in the third game.
• Many of the Grey Wardens in the Dragon Age universe qualify as this. The Wardens will take people of any background with sufficient talents at killing darkspawn, whether they're warriors, thieves, murderers, or even blood mages - anyone is acceptable as a candidate as long as they're able to survive the Joining. The Wardens have broad powers of conscription that are honored by most governing bodies, so many Wardens are pressed into service against their will.
  • Oghren is a warrior who fights because that's what he was trained to do and his training left him going stir-crazy in dwarven civilization. He joins you to find his wife and stays with you because it means he can start swinging his axe again. Nothing more.
  • Morrigan is a witch with a dark background and little to no regard for the well-being of others. She's only with you because her mother told her to come and only helps because killing the darkspawn is in her own best interest (though she can develop an attachment to the main character, depending on how you play).
  • Shale is a golem who likes to squish things and see blood fountain, especially if those things have feathers, and is mostly following the Warden around because it's something to do after spending thirty years as an amnesiac statue.
• In Drakengard, Caim is this in the first game. The only thing that made him "heroic" in the first place was the fact that he was fighting against an evil empire that was even worse. Once they're defeated, he defaults back to RIP AND TEAR.
• In the Fable games:
  • In Fable, the Heroes' Guild espouses this mindset, with its Guildmaster teaching that each Hero should strive for greatness but choose their own moral path. The Hero of Oakvale might pursue noble quests for money, fame, Revenge against his family's killers, the thrill of combat, or personal amusement — or turn evil for any of the same reasons. One quest NPC even asks whether the Guild is here to help them out or murder them this time.
  • Reaver from Fable II and III. He tries to double-cross the hero at least twice and only helps the hero because the Big Bad proceeds to double-cross him when Reaver tries to turn the hero over to him.
• In the numbered Fallout games, an evil player character could be seen as this since you have the freedom to blow off civilians’ heads with absolutely zero provocation, enslave children and nuke cities. However, this is somewhat moderated by the main story pitting you against monsters who want to wipe out the vast majority of the remaining human race. With Fallout: New Vegas, the player has the option of becoming a full-blown Villain Protagonist by siding with Caesar’s Legion, as they bring the region under the grip of a nation endorsing rape, slavery, and murder for public entertainment.
• Fire Emblem:
  • From Genealogy of the Holy War, we have Lex, who is apathetic at best about helping the son of someone his father hates, but tags along because Sigurd's initial mission was rescuing Adean and Lex's best friend Azelle has a crush on her.
  • Thracia 776 has Lifis, a pirate leader and Starter Villain who essentially gets roped into the story by way of having been captured by the heroes, and the on-the-run heroes not having a good way to permanently imprison him. Quite a few times in the story, he remarks that he's planning to make a run for it, but only if he can manage to sleep with the local White Mage first.
  • The Blazing Blade has a rather triumphant example of the Bored variant in the form of Geitz. He sees the heroes fighting the Black Fang, arbitrarily decides to enter the fight on the side of the Black Fang, and is persuaded to switch sides because your side has someone who isn't a stranger to him.
  • The Blazing Blade also has Karel, a Blood Knight looking only for strong opponents to kill who enters not because he sees the enemy as this, but because he sees the heroic team's leaders as having the potential to become this and thinks it'd be a shame if they died before becoming worthy of him killing them, and Renault, a former mercenary with an unnaturally extended lifespan as a result of being a guinea pig for the villain's experiments who tried to retire to a remote location where he expected no one to tread, only for the plot to show up on his figurative doorstep. While he does, as mentioned, have a connection to the villain, he fights only to get all these noisy people away from his solitude. Vaida is a borderline example, as she's a nonrecruitable enemy (a boss, no less) in her first appearance who only joins up because the good guys saved Prince Zephiel from an assassination attempt. The same Prince Zephiel who winds up becoming the Big Bad of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade.
• Ghostbusters (1984): In line with their film incarnations, the goal of the Ghostbusters is not to save the city but to make a profit. It doesn't matter to you if the city is destroyed or not; even if New York is a smoldering ruin at the end you still win if you made at least $10,000, enough to pay off your debt to the bank. The only motivation you actually have to save the city (get rid of all the ghosts) is you make an additional $5000 dollars if you do it. Our heroes, everybody.
• Intentionally done in God of War with Kratos, to the point that, particularly after the first game, he comes off as an outright Villain Protagonist, even worse than the people (or gods) he's trying to kill. Kratos was created to be a classical greek hero with a sad and violent backstory. As the series goes on, he comes into conflict with Zeus and the Olympians who themselves become Nominal Hero antagonists. Their motivations for opposing Kratos are purely selfish, and they have little concern or empathy for humanity itself. This all comes to a head in the finale of the third game when it's revealed that the Gods increasingly evil actions were being caused by Kratos opening Pandora's Box in the first game to beat Ares at the urging of Athena. The evils from inside infested and corrupted the Gods and twisted them from somewhat benevolent leaders into despotic bastards. At this point, Kratos has had his revenge and finds it unsatisfying because he's destroyed the world around him during his mindless pursuit of vengeance on Zeus. In the end, he chooses to kill himself and release the powers of hope in order to give humanity a chance to survive on their own. As the alternative was to give Athena the power and make her the sole god of a new world. Or not. Kratos makes a triumphant return in God of War (PS4), pretty much alive and raising a son, but now Older and Wiser, and considers his time as the Ghost of Sparta to be the darkest acts committed by him.
• Hat Kid from A Hat in Time is a "Leave me alone"-type example, not that she isn't a nice person, but all she really cares about is getting her time pieces back so she can go home. Notably, save for a couple of disparate exceptions, she doesn't even do much to save the day or make the world a better place: pretty much all of the major characters and worlds have problems or conflicts that go unresolved in her journey to get the time pieces back, like the cursed state of the Subcon Forest or the Mafia of Cooks controlling Mustache Girl's island (though you do have the option of letting her keep a single time piece to help fight them off in the end), and in a couple of cases she leaves things worse off like the Arctic Cruise. This could be seen as Fridge Logic when you consider she's a time traveller and most likely doesn't want to do anything that might alter history anymore than losing the time pieces she already has.
• Dmitri Johannes Petrov from the Henry Stickmin Series is the warden of the Wall prison complex, meaning his job is to lock up criminals. However, he has a selfish motivation for doing so, which is building up his reputation as a good warden, and he doesn't even care about the severity of the crime or the innocence of the person.
• In Hexen II, two of the heroes are the Assassin (who wants to prove she can kill the most powerful and best protected being on the planet) and the Necromancer (who has a problem with Eidolon being more feared than him).
• Horizon: Sylens is a cynical, misanthropic loner with no regard for the world he lives in. His only goal is the pursuit of knowledge, and he will go to any lengths to achieve this, including supporting violent cults and rebellions with the potential to wipe out entire tribes. However, he remains a valuable ally to Aloy and always helps her to save the world, but only out of mutual interest, because he lives in the world and obviously can't gain the knowledge he's after if it's destroyed.
  Aloy: I'm past trusting you with secrets.
  Sylens: Good, that means you're wising up. Trust is for fools. It shifts and crumbles like sand — a poor foundation for any partnership. But mutual-self interest, now that is a solid bedrock upon which you and I might build a new science of understanding.
• Dark Pit from Kid Icarus: Uprising. He isn't too concerned with the war between the gods. He just likes beating up monsters. After the time skip he gets more involved in order to make sure Pit remains alive (since he learns his existence depends on Pit's).
• One of The King of Fighters' main characters, Iori Yagami (introduced in 1995 as the rival of Kyo Kusanagi), plays this role. A loner and a very angry and consumed character, he lives to see the defeat of Kyo and won't stop until that happens. He does do genuinely heroic things (even teaming up with Kyo when the situation warrants it) but only so that he can resume thirsting for Kyo's blood. He has no friends and has attacked his own team members in the past (be it willingly or unwillingly when his Orochi blood goes out of control).
• In Kingdom Hearts II, Maleficent, while still not "good" in any sense of the word, is allied with the heroes in a common goal of stopping the Organization, and helps the good guys out at least twice.
• Joel from The Last of Us. 20 years of hardcore survival in a world long gone to Hell and the death of his young daughter Sarah have left him an extremely bitter and almost nihilistic middle-aged man who will cross any moral line to survive in a harsh world. However, he is given the task to escort Ellie, a young girl who may be the key to curing the plague, to a holdout on the other side of America. He's not at all doing it because he cares about the ongoing factional conflict, or because he cares about Ellie's well-being ^note (initially) or because his doing so could end up saving mankind from extinction; he's doing it to get his guns back. Eventually his priorities do change, but even then he still remains this. Ellie is ALL he cares about to the point that he slaughters the Fireflies when he learns they plan to dissect Ellie to learn how she's immune to the cordyceps. Marlene tells Joel that Ellie would want to give her life if it could save humanity and that Joel even realizes that it's what Ellie would want. Joel still shoots Marlene and then tells Ellie that the Fireflies gave up trying to cure the fungus, which Ellie seems to realize is a lie.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny:
  • Levi the Slasher, while being a cheerful sort, is mainly a Challenge Seeker and had accidentally saved several towns in Eltria since she loves taking down the powerful monsters that happen to be threatening them.
  • Former Big Bad and current Anti-Hero Lord Dearche is a Card-Carrying Villain that has saved The Multiverse in her quest to gain unlimited power, and is currently reversing the decay of a planet on its last legs as part of her plan to "conquer" it. At least, that's her story and she's sticking to it.
• In Marathon, not only does Durandal make it quite clear that he is only fighting the Pfhor as a means of escaping the end of the universe, he is the one who brought the Pfhor to Tau Ceti in the original game, an action that resulted in the deaths of nearly everyone in the colony.
• Mass Effect:
  • This trope is actually a plot point in the first game, as Saren is believed to be a hero throughout the galaxy and is well-liked by many. In reality, he's a very amoral Knight Templar who is willing to cause many civilian casualties as long as he gets the job done and is a severe racist. His popularity in the galaxy means that a big problem in the game's opening act is actually convincing the Citadel Council that he's not on their side anymore and has to be brought in.
  • Zaeed Massani from Mass Effect 2 is a ruthless revenge-obsessed merc on Commander Shepard's team. During his loyalty mission, he burns an entire refinery to the ground while callously disregarding the innocent lives trapped inside just to get revenge on another merc who screwed him over 20 years prior. In Mass Effect 3 he becomes an Unscrupulous Hero through character development.
  • Aria T'Loak is a crimelord who allows slavery, drug running, and pretty much anything else as long as it doesn't undermine her power. She is however willing to aid Shepard to some extent and seems none too fond of Ardat-Yakshi or the Collectors. Probably both for practical reasons and on principle. In Mass Effect 3, she helps you out of self-preservation because, as she puts it, the reapers are a threat to all existence, including hers, so it's "within (her) interests" to help Shepard.
  • By default, everyone in Mass Effect 3 is either this or Stupid Evil, depending on whether or not they side with Shepard, seeing as s/he's the best bet to stop the Reapers, who have made their intentions very, very clear.
• Metal Gear:
  • Meryl, Psycho Mantis, and Liquid claim that Solid Snake is a Sociopathic Hero who enjoys combat and killing, with the latter two telling him that he's far worse than they are. However, Psycho Mantis and Liquid are mass-murdering psychopaths attempting to 'kill as many people as possible' and bring on a Darwinist 'warrior's paradise' respectively, which makes their attacks on him border on Hypocritical Humor and possibly Unreliable Narrator as well.
  • Enforced in the Metal Gear Solid V duology, which shows Big Boss becoming more and more monstrous during his Protagonist Journey to Villain. He has to be convinced by Miller of all people to not put child soldiers back to work under him and instead give them traditional educations on Mother Base.
• In the first No More Heroes, Travis Touchdown. The only thing that makes him any kind of hero is that the rest of the assassins are sociopaths. Later, though, his motivation becomes more heroic.
• Therion from Octopath Traveler is of the "forced" type. After a botched robbery left him saddled with the Fool's Bangle, he essentially becomes the errand boy of wealthy family who request him to retrieve the stolen Dragontones in exchange of getting the bangle removed.
• Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth has the Traitor from Persona 5, Goro Akechi. They are still the hatchet person for an evil Government Conspiracy and plotting to betray the Phantom Thieves and lead them all to their deaths, but getting drawn into the cinema world has nothing to do with their villainous agenda and they're just as determined to escape as the genuine heroes.
• The protagonists of [PROTOTYPE] and [PROTOTYPE 2] are vengeful shapeshifting monsters whose primary goals are revenge. They do save the city of Manhattan from the villains of their respective games and genuinely care about those closest to them, but both Alex Mercer and James Heller acknowledge that they are not particularly morally upstanding people.
• In the final stages of RefleX, the Phoenix is thoroughly trashed by ZODIAC Virgo and its pilot killed, causing its AI to take over and transform into ZODIAC Ophiuchus. It then proceeds to tear up Virgo, and later the other ZODIAC units. At first, the people of earth hail the Ophiuchus as its savior from the "Winged Menaces", but the Ophiuchus is not interested in protecting humanity, only dueling with the other ZODIAC units until they are all destroyed, no matter how much collateral damage happens in the process. The damage and death toll pile up, and before long, humanity sees Ophiuchus as simply yet another menace to the planet.
• The Daemoness in Sacred: Underworld. At the start of the game, she gets stabbed in the back by her master, Anducar, and has a prophetic vision that working alongside the other heroes is her best chance of getting revenge.
• Sacrifice: The player takes the role of Eldred who use to be a tyrant on his own world, then when his own people turn against him he summoned the demon Marduk to defeat them, then Marduk proceeded to destroy everything else. He is really regretful of having to kill a dragon but is ok with slavery.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • All of Team Dark, who only ever join up with the rest of the good guys when something even worse comes along, and it gets too big to ignore. The most straight-up example is Shadow, mostly in his own game. After Sonic Adventure 2 had him pull a Heel–Face Turn, he protects the world only because Maria wanted him to, or to boost his ego and superiority over others as the Ultimate Lifeform. Shadow has been shown as willing to cross any line to succeed in his mission and goals, which may or may not be for the good of Earth. Most of the time, it is, but it's always about Shadow achieving his own ambitions first.
  • As for the rest of Team Dark, E-123 Omega only ever does anything either because it involves his goal of getting revenge on Eggman for abandoning him for other robots, or because Shadow and Rouge asked him to help them out. Rouge the Bat's main motivation for being a government spy is her obsession with the world's most famous jewels, which she expects to be rewarded with.
  • Eggman is this when he is fighting against the Deadly Six in Sonic Lost World until all the Deadly Six meet their final defeat.
• The Speed Runners are supposed to be superheroes, but all we see them do in-game is race each other. In the in-game comics, it is shown that they are getting in the way of the police by running through crime scenes, and their use of items is dangerous to civilians. While the main character is more than willing to stop a series of bomb threats in New Rush City, he seems to care more about running than anything else as he deliberately refuses to help people at times, such as the runner known as The Falcon.
• Lord Scourge in Star Wars: The Old Republic is a Sith Lord who is a companion to the Jedi Knight class; he sides with the Jedi to stop the Sith Emperor from destroying the entire galaxy. In the backstory, he was responsible for Revan's capture and the Exiles death because he saw that they would fail in defeating the Emperor. By the end of the Jedi Knight storyline, he is credited as a hero of the Republic, which both he and Satele Shan really don't like the idea of.
• In the Super Mario Bros. series, more particularly in his own spin-off games, Wario frequently ends up doing a lot of good in defeating various bad guys, but he usually only does it when he's competing with them for treasure. Otherwise, he couldn't care less. Word of God notes that Wario doesn't really care about anything, he just wants to keep doing what he wants.
• The entire party in Tales of Berseria except for Laphicet and Eleanor are fighting for personal reasons instead of some noble cause. Velvet is driven by revenge, Rokurou wants to kill someone from his past, Eizen's target is part of the enemy group, and Magilou's along for the ride because she's bored and wants to see how things turn out.
• Harold Berselius in Tales of Destiny 2 is an amoral Mad Scientist who just wants to kill a goddess, no other questions asked. Otherwise, she's only considered good because she's on the side of the Er'thers, who are fighting the genocidal racist aristocratic Aetherians. While she does have Pet the Dog moments, she also experiments on people without their consent and threatens to join Elraine at a point. Essentially, everything she does is for her own amusement, and our heroes' quest provides her with a lot of it.
• Luke in Tales of the Abyss for the first third of the game. Our "hero" is functionally a child, having been kept inside and away from people ever since an accident stripped him of his memory, leaving him a moody, selfish, and arrogant Sheltered Aristocrat brat with little people skills or knowledge of the world. He is then told that he is The Chosen One, which does very little to help his already over-inflated ego and sense of entitlement. This is made even worse by the encouragement of his mentor, the only person he truly respects. Luke continues to become more whiny and insufferable until the game's Wham Episode kicks in, when he's called out on his actions by the entire party. It takes a few more rather unpleasant experiences all in a row before he finally snaps out of it.
• Garrett of Thief doesn't really give a damn about anyone other than himself. He winds up in the "hero" role primarily out of circumstance: the Big Bad is usually (in addition to their main plan) gunning for him personally for one reason or another. Also, it's of no benefit to him if The City is destroyed, then where would he do his thieving?
• Lara Croft in the PlayStation Tomb Raider series is an archaeologist that is willing to kill anyone who stands in her way and destroy priceless objects as long as she can collect the fabled artifacts she had researched on. The only reason Lara can be considered "good" is that she's usually trying to get to the artifacts with power before the villains do so that they can't abuse them. If Lara does manage to work with someone, she only helps them as long as it helps her reach her goal. By Chronicles and Angel of Darkness, Lara becomes a total bitch to everyone. The Crystal Dynamics reboots scale her back a bit. In the first reboot (Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld) Lara's motivations are more personal, and in Anniversary she shows scruples against killing other people (while she seems to have given them up in Legend and Underworld, Legend at least introduces the mooks by having Lara overhear a conversation where they discuss their orders to kill her on sight). The second reboot features a younger, less experienced Lara trying desperately to survive.
• The titular Tomba! Sure he's a nice guy and sure he goes out of his way to help a lot of people along his journey, but all he ultimately cares about is getting back his grandfather's bracelet. Had the Koma Pigs not stolen it he'd have been more than content to sit back and relax as they did their thing to the island.
• Gensokyo, the setting of the Touhou Project games, is run by these. Reimu Hakurei is, at best, motivated by a desire for her life to be predictable mixed with not wanting it to be too boring, either, and is at worst solely motivated by the possibility of getting donations and being a Slave to PR. Marisa Kirisame is one part motivated by the prospect of getting to loot magical artifacts from the villain's lair, one part the opportunity to upstage Reimu and one part getting to kick someone in the teeth. Remilia Scarlet is more interested in alleviating her own boredom and maintaining her power than actually fixing Gensokyo's problems (and she's not the harmless kind of vampire, either). Sanae Kochiya is interested in spreading the worship of and gathering faith for her ancestor-goddesses. Youmu Konpaku fights because her mistress says so, as does Remilia's maid Sakuya Izayoi, who is also implied to have done something really nasty in the past. And Yukari Yakumo is the one who founded Gensokyo as a Fantastic Nature Reserve and everything she does is to further the survival of youkai, up to and including striking up deals with the humans that favor them, because she knows that if humans become content and don't feel as threatened by youkai, they'll lose their edge and become easier prey. Her colleague, Okina Matara, isn't much better; she stirred up trouble just to make everyone in Gensokyo (native and permanent residents alike) remember her and is disliked by many of Gensokyo's residents due to her (intentionally cultivated) Ambiguously Evil vibes.
  • Subverted with the first later on in that as Reimu matures, she does later missions out of a sense of duty, even if she's reluctant to admit it. Unfortunately, this places her to be manipulated by the above Yukari and has at least once led to her accidentally contributing to an invasion of the moon.
• Trent in Tyrian is the "leave me alone" and "force" type. He joined the war out of desperation to live a normal life again after losing his friends and family to the belligerents. Cue being chronically manipulated and backstabbed during his campaign.
• In Undertale's neutral routes, the Player Character just wants to go home and may or may not end up helping people along the way, most notably saving the human race from Asgore just by not being killed and Saving the World from Flowey.
  • If one does a Pacifist Run after having previously done a Genocide run, the ending will acknowledge the fact that the player has already dirtied their hands and so must effectively be the "did it because they were bored" variant of this trope.
    • To parallel this is the fact that upon discovering his SAVE ability, Flowey first used this power to solve everyone's problems and become friends with everyone, just as the player likely did before reaching the point where this is revealed. Flowey describes these activities and the friendship of the monsters as "amusing... for a while."
• Grom Hellscream and Illidan Stormrage of Warcraft: the first is an amoral Blood Knight with a superiority complex about how orcs are better than everyone else, and the other is a subject obsessed with demonic power and destroying the Burning Legion by any means necessary while being bad about telling people his apocalyptic actions actually have good reasons.

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