Villain Protagonist / Video Games

# - K

• Juan (later Jesus), protagonist of the game 12 Is Better Than 6 is a Mexican outlaw and alcoholic, who cares only about himself and will kill anyone who stands on his way, oftenly acting really arrogant and rude towards others to the point that he can even hurt or kill them (even though oftenly he is provoked in such situations). Later in the game, it's also revealed that he used to be the leader of the violent Mexican gang before they betrayed him. Also, it's implied that he hates white people, at least Americans, thus also making him racist. However, he does show some decent qualities, like feeling bad about his past and wanting to warn a barber in one town about upcoming outlaw attack.
• The Addams Family: The game for the TurboGrafx-16, based on the 1991 movie, has you in control of the dead-beat Amoral Attorney Tully Alford who schemes to steal the Addams family fortune and in the game fights the family who see it as a fun treasure hunting game. All the videogames based on the movies qualify to an extent considering that Gomez and Fester in "Addams Family Values" are villainous and proud about it, though the games have them more trying to save their family than feeding people to their pets.
• Brice, a UFO-obsessed ghost and one of the playable characters in the adventure game, AMBER: Journeys Beyond. After you complete his level he is sent to Hell in a particularly horrifying way - granted, he did murder at least 3 people in the game's backstory.
• American McGee's Grimm features a dwarf named Grimm who despises the Disneyfication of fairy tales and whose goal is to return them into the dark stories that they were. His Catchphrase in the ads is:
  Grimm: Happily ever after ends NOW!
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent is an odd example. The backstory, which is slowly revealed over the course of the game, shows that the protagonist was once a normal man who sunk to shockingly low depths in order to save his own life.
• In the sequel, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, the big twist is Mandus is responsible for the machine's creation and his sons' deaths. A part of his soul is part of the machine and it was trying to purify the world based on his creator's, Mandus's, intention. The ending does fix this.
• In the flash game Armed With Wings, you play as the exiled king Vandheer Lorde, the main villain of the series, who is undeniably badass.
• Armored Core For Answer is mostly Grey-and-Gray Morality, but one of the endings has you and a psychopathic cohort go on an Axe-Crazy murder spree that leaves millions dead in the span of a few hours. The final mission involves the two of you fighting everyone left standing that can oppose you, including your own com operator, all at once. They managed to kill your cohort, but fail to kill you. It's hinted your unchecked rampage sends humanity right back to the dark ages.
• Assassin's Creed Rogue has you playing as Assassin turned Templar Shay Cormac as he participates in the purge of the Colonial Assassins. In fact, Shay is in large part responsible for the sorry state of the Colonial Assassins at the start of III, and, at the end, kills the father of Unity's protagonist.
• The Bad Guy, a famous demo game in the Hispanic RPG Maker scene, chronicles the rise of Omaen, an aspiring villain, while parodying every RPG trope. Omaen is presented as downright evil but the Only Sane Man in comparison with both the idiotic "heroes" and the other Slave to PR Card Carrying Villains who fear more the strike of the Weird Trade Union of monsters and minions than anything the heroic characters can do.
• Possible in Baldur's Gate, depending on which alignment the player chooses.
  • Also possible in Baldur's Gate III with an interesting twist via the "Dark Urge" character option, wherein your protagonist is constantly contending with mysterious murderous urges. You can resist the urges, or give in to your baser temptations, with consequences either way. Alternatively, you can be a Cleric for a Religion of Evil (with your God of Evil choices being Lolth, Tiamat, Talos, or Gruumsh, unless you pick Token Evil Teammate Shadowheart as the Player Character).
• In Bank Heist for the Atari 2600, you go around robbing banks and blowing up cop cars with dynamite.
• In The Battle Cats, the Cat Army takes over the world thrice, feeds all the world's power into one place (although they do remember to turn it off and leave a "Thank You" note), and uses said power to travel to the past and take it over as well. Their soldiers are no better, including bondage-dom couples, violent alcoholics, and Sexy Legs Cats.
• Battle for Wesnoth: Ardonna, the protagonist of Secret of the Ancients campaign, is an unscrupulous young mage who wants to find out how to become immortal through necromancy and doesn't care much for the lawful people whom she killed along the way.
• Battlefield V: For the single player mission The Last Tiger, the main playable character is a German tank commander facing off against the Allied forces.
• This happens in BlazBlue when you play as Hazama in story mode; he's the story's Villain Protagonist, with no past or reasons to justify his villainy. The same goes to Relius Clover.
• Caleb, the main character in the Blood series, is a psychotic undead cowboy killing his way through his former cult so he can get revenge on their god, Tchernobog. What pushes Caleb into true villainy is just how much he loves his Roaring Rampage of Revenge; when he isn't wisecracking or snarking, he's cackling like a madman while chucking dynamite at anything that gets in his way. And then, in the second game, his disuse of Tchernobog's powers begins to unravel the very stability of the universe; he's quite happy to let the totality of existence collapse out of boredom.
• Mae in BLUE REVOLVER builds extraordinary Devices that, unfortunately, result in a lot of environmental pollution and damage, causing the titular organization to move in to apprehend her for her dangerous activities. She is also one of two Player Characters. It doesn't seem like she's intentionally doing bad, but she does refuse to acknowledge the consequences of her actions, resulting in her launching a counter-attack out of anger.
• The title character in Bob's Big Adventure is a minotaur. As it's Played for Laughs a fair bit, this leads to enemies like the "Inexperienced Adventurer" and "Novice Mage."
• Half of the anti-heroic Vault Hunters in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! are villains/bosses. Wilhelm the Enforcer and Nisha the Lawbringer will eventually end up as The Dragon and the Dark Action Girl, respectively, in Borderlands 2. Aurelia the Baroness was a vicious Egomaniac Hunter, albeit one who thought Jack was going a bit too far, but Took a Level in Jerkass and became an Arc Villain in Borderlands 3. As for the rest, Athena the Gladiator used to be one of the Crimson Lance's deadliest assassins (this is the Crimson Lance who tried to invade Pandora back in Borderlands, though she'd defected by the time of that game), and Claptrap the Fragtrap is essentially a pre-programmed robot with no free will. Jack the Doppelganger is a Punch-Clock Villain simply working for Jack to pay off his student loans, and grows increasingly horrified at Jack's atrocities as the game progresses. And who's playing Mission Control? Why, Handsome Jack, the Big Bad of the second game, before his Start of Darkness (which plays out during the game).
• Despite the title, subverted in Bully, in which the protagonist is an Anti-Hero.
• BUTCHER (from some of the people who would later bring us Carrion) has the player in the role of a Cyborg programmed to exterminate humanity.
• If the player accepts Thorn's offer to join the Musicians in Caligula Effect Overdose they can play both sides of the conflict, eventually culminating in another choice on whether or not the player wants to return to the real world or destroy it.
• In Calm Time, you play as a guy who has invited a bunch of people over to murder them, among them a child. He had already killed a woman he trapped in his basement.
• Captive (RPG Maker): The protagonist, pre-amnesia, was a Mad Scientist who kidnapped and killed people to cure her ill father. In the ending where her memories return, she hunts down the one girl who escaped her and finishes the job.
• Carrion puts the player in the role of an amorphous, Body-Horrific Eldritch Abomination straight out of HP Lovecraft (it's very much like a shoggoth), though it may also be a case of Anti-Villain, since the monster just wants to escape.
• In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 you control the series longtime Big Bad Dracula as he seeks vengeance against God, Satan, the Brotherhood of Light, and just about everyone else who ruined his life.
• Centipede: The comic book adaptation has the playable character (a wizard) in the role of the bad guy, with a boy trying to stop him.
• The unreleased arcade game Chimera Beast is about a ruthless and mindless Horde of Alien Locusts who reabsorb the DNA of what they eat to become stronger... and you play as one of them, digging your way through the food chain of your home planet starting from bacteria. If you win against the final boss you end up blowing up the planet and going through a killing spree across the universe, eventually reaching Earth... Even the game mocks you for this. To get the "good" ending, you must lose to the final boss and opt not to continue.
• Konami's City Bomber has the player take the role of a gang of casino robbers trying to make the getaway to an airstrip before time runs out.
• The Brotherhood of Nod in general, and Kane in particular, of the Command & Conquer series, especially in Tiberium Wars where a large part of the Brotherhood's basic motivation stems from economic woes, health problems, and perceived oppression and marginalization by the Global Defense Initiative.
  • Taken up to eleven in Kane's Wrath, where you learn that a previous mission you played in Wars, where you were defending as the bad-guy Nod and were attacked by a rogue group of Nod traitors supposedly led by Killian, where you learn the truth of the treachery. However the perpetrator did it in belief that she would be helping Nod rid themselves of an unbeliever, but unintentionally (however it was planned by Kane) triggering the arrival of the Scrin. What makes this a villain protagonist is that you are now in command of the traitor army. It's hard to understand exactly who she ended up helping in the end, but she's definitely a villain to all factions.
  • The vast majority of Real-Time Strategy games have campaigns for both sides. Except when there is No Campaign for the Wicked.
• In Crusader Kings, a successful ruler will usually at least be this by modern standards as they use betrayal, religious wars, assassination, and deceit to better their dynasty's fortunes. To say nothing of rulers who manage to go beyond even their own era's levels of brutality and earn titles such as "the Evil" or "Son of Satan".
• In Custer's Revenge, you play as commander George Armstrong Custer as he tries to rape a native American woman.
• Demitri Maximoff from Darkstalkers. He wants to Take Over the World, and yet was advertised as the lead originally.
• DC Universe Online gives you the option of playing as a villain in the Secret Society of Super Villains. While many storylines in the early game pit you against members of the Justice League, the two factions share most content and the majority ends up being firmly Evil Versus Evil.
• The entire point of Deception. Taking over a mansion/castle just to lure adventurers or heroes to messy deaths within does not leave wiggle room for heroics. The character has the opportunity to pull a Heel–Face Turn at the end, but it's by no means obligatory.
• In DEFCON, each player takes up the role of a General Ripper during a global thermonuclear war. Each player's goal is to ensure that the capitalist/communists/whatever die in a nuclear fire. The "Genocide" mode elevates this - the only way to gain points is to nuke population centers.
• The Chaos Path in Der Langrisser has the protagonist Elwin become this. The other three paths (Light, Imperial and Independent) are considerably more morally grey.
• The Descent 3: Mercenary Expansion Pack casts you on the side of the Big Bad Corrupt Corporate Executive Dravis, as the leader of his Black Pyro squadron.
• Destroy All Humans!, at least in the first game (the second casts the protagonist as more of an Anti-Hero by circumstance and the third has him become an Unwitting Pawn).
• Connor from Detroit: Become Human can become this if you have him pick the anti-android options and decides to remain a machine in the end. He actually has the most playable sections of the three protagonists.
• Devil May Cry series:
  • The Special Edition of Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening adds the ability to play through the story as Dante's Evil Twin, Vergil. However, this is solely a gameplay feature as aside from a new intro cutscene, Vergil doesn't have a special story mode and simply goes through Dante's missions as usual, with the only difference being that the Vergil boss battles have a Palette Swap. The Special Edition of Devil May Cry 5 continues the trend but with some changes; Vergil still goes through the same missions as the main story protagonists, there are new prologue and epilogue cutscenes, but Vergil gets to fight Dante as the Final Boss in the last two missions.
  • As the DLC focusing on him takes place after the main game of DmC: Devil May Cry, Vergil's already turned on Dante and Kat. The DLC itself then proceeds to turn him into a true villain.
• In Devil Survivor Overclocked the player can become this by choosing the killing option in day 8 of Naoya's route.
• Devilish Hairdresser stars the Devil herself, whose main goal is to ruin the Angelic Hairdresser's day by spoiling her clients' looks.
• In Disciples 2, the Elves are initially on the side of the "good" guys. In Rise of the Elves, their god Gallean, driven mad by his resurrection and the Trauma Conga Line inflicted upon him by the vengeful Mortis, commands them to be brutal warmongers. Gallean is sick of the Elves always getting shafted by their so-called allies and has them taking what he believes is rightfully theirs by force. The "Villain" part is established in the first scenario, where the goal is to slaughter a town of innocent humans. A few Elves question these orders, but their doubts don't last. Ironically, the only Elf who continues to have reservations about this is the Oracle who relays Gallean's will to his people.
• Subverted with Laharl (Disgaea: Hour of Darkness) and newcomer Mao (Disgaea 3) from the Disgaea series— but they are really Noble Demons.
  • Also the Prinnies in Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? Spin-Off. Remember, those volatile penguin Butt Monkeys contain the souls of dead criminals.
  • The PSP port of Disgaea 2 has a side story starring Axel, though he's played much more sympathetically than in the main story.
• In the text-based game Dominion of Darkness, you play as Lord/Lady of Darkness trying to conquer the world by military strength/intrigue and corruption/black magic.
• Downfall (Slay the Spire) is a Slay the Spire Game Mod where you get to play as one of the bosses (or, in two cases, a normal hallway enemy) trying to protect the Spire and its Corrupt Heart from the base game's protagonists.
• The "Darkspawn Chronicles" DLC for Dragon Age: Origins lets the player control one of the Darkspawn commanders in the Battle of Denerim, in an Alternate Timeline where the player-created Grey Warden perished at Ostagar, leaving just Alistair to shoulder the Order's duties.
• Dungeon Keeper is a pioneer of the trope in video games, owing as much of its success to the novelty as to the game's quality. Build your sprawling dungeon, employ creatures of darkness and keep them in line through intimidation and violence, spread your dark influence over the land. Don't forget to deal with those pesky adventuring heroes who want to slay your army and steal your treasure. If the imps or the traps don't kill them, have them tortured.
• Einhänder: The backstory reveals that the moon colony Selene (who your player character fights for) is the aggressor that caused World War III against Earth and has returned to attack Earth after 100 years of peace to obtain a dwindling resource. They're also not above offing you once you've completed your mission, which is what causes the player's Heel–Face Turn.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • Throughout the series, you can choose to invoke this by joining a number of traditionally evil (or at least morally questionable) guilds and factions. The Thieves' Guild and at least one assassin's guild have been available in every game since Daggerfall. Additionally, you can perform quests for some of the outright malevolent Daedric Princes, such as Mehrunes Dagon (Prince of Destruction) and Molag Bal (Prince of Corruption and the closest thing the series has to a true God of Evil). Morrowind gives you the opportunity to join an Evil Sorcerer Magocracy in Great House Telvanni. Skyrim gives you the opportunity to join a group of vampires who seek to bring about The Night That Never Ends.
  • Following the events of Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion, the Champion of Cyrodiil inherits the mantle of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. During his appearance in Skyrim, Sheogorath strongly implies that he is the Champion and mentions his involvement with the Oblivion Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines, suggesting that the Champion canonically joined those factions.
• Elise the Devil is the story of what happens when the Big Bad of a standard JRPG somehow manages to survive getting vanquished by The Hero. The titular Elise is a former Eldritch Abomination who is now stuck in the form of young woman and must travel the world rebuilding her demon army.
• Empire at War: Tyber Zann, a criminal overlord, is the protagonist of the Forces of Corruption expansion campaign.
• End Roll: Prior to the start of the game, Russell killed several people, with varying motivations. He initially feels no remorse about what he did, and says that while he knows murder is wrong, he doesn't understand guilt. The game revolves around him being the subject of an experiment that's supposed to foster remorse in criminals.
• Escape Velocity:
  • The Voinian campaign in Escape Velocity: Override is about as unambiguously evil as they come. The Voinians are a race of vicious alien warlords bent on conquering the galaxy and enslaving everything in their path. The player has the option to help the Voinians break their stalemate with the human United Earth^note Word of God is it fails and the stalemate ends up broken in favour of the UE, and crippling the attempts of a previously conquered race to rebel against their overlords. Rewards for doing so include access to a variety of powerful Voinian military vessels and the unsettling satisfaction of committing genocide against your own race.
  • All Escape Velocity games have at least one storyline where the player character can be called a villain: in Classic, working for the Confederation and trying to bring the Rebels back to heel, in Override, the Voinian and the two Renegade storylines, and in Nova, the Federation storyline (after a certain point of no return).
• Evil Genius. You play a typical supervillain, sending out henchmen from your lair in a hollowed-out volcano (or somewhere like that) to commit evil deeds, working towards the culmination of Evil Plan, setting off your Doomsday Device or taking over the world.
• In EvilQuest, you play as the evil tyrant Galvis.
• The Player Character of Expeditions: Conquistador can become this if the player tends towards the doing morally dubious choices, such as burning down innocent unarmed native villages, executing all slaves after a slave revolt, even the innocent ones, and ruling over their expedition party with an iron fist through fear and cruelty.
• Sidestep from Fallen Hero. He's obviously was once a hero, now he has entered the dark side to become the strongest villain in a town.
• Any Fallout protagonist can be played this way. With enough effort, and bullets, you can be the worst thing that's happened to the Earth since the bombs fell. However, only two games let you side with the main villainous faction: Caesar's Legion in Fallout: New Vegas and the Institute in Fallout 4,^note you can join the Unity in Fallout, but the ending you get for doing so is essentially a Non-Standard Game Over so in the other games you're more of a Nominal Hero.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy Type-0: Machina, who is The Mole and becomes loyal to the White Tiger Crystal, having a hand in killing Class Zero and outright killing Rem. Averted once he becomes The Atoner.
  • Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin: It's revealed early on that you're playing as Jack Garland, the Garland who becomes the villain of Final Fantasy. Your other party members become the Fiends. Justified in that Jack is setting up a Zero-Approval Gambit in order to defeat the greater scope antagonists who are manipulating time.
• The Force Unleashed features Starkiller, a Dark Jedi who was raised by Darth Vader and has a disturbing talent for killing his enemies in outlandish, yet surprisingly amusing ways. Justified to an extent as he was raised from childhood to believe in Vader's cause and eventually turns against him anyway (canonically). The non-canon add-on missions included in Ultimate Sith Edition take it further, complete with Starkiller informing a captain "You Have Failed Me For The Last Time."
• Freaky Flyers has three among its cast. Paulie Atchie, a crime boss posing as a sanitation business owner, Cactus Rose, a thief who lies about giving to the poor as she gives her ill-gotten wealth to her gang, and most apparent, Professor Gutentaag, who's actively trying to sabotage the other flyers so he can win the race, collaborating with Pilot X.
• Goat Simulator: You play as Pilgor (the goat), beating up innocent civilians and wrecking stuff, even performing a Satanic riutal.
• Kratos from the God of War series is a berserker whose primary motivation is revenge on anyone who has spurned him. Which eventually expands to everyone who crosses his path or tries to stop him doing whatever he's doing. Also a fair few people whose deaths would be convenient for him. His main arc in the reboot is his effort to move past his destructive nature.
• GoldenEye: Rogue Agent: The whole point of the game is to play an evil version of James Bond.
• Every game in the Grand Theft Auto series stars a mass-murderering criminal who fights against other gangsters. The different games have gone back-and-forth with this trope:
  • The original Grand Theft Auto allowed you to choose your player character from a roster, which had both males and females, but all of the said "characters" were completely devoid of any personality. Grand Theft Auto 2 was the first game to have a singular main character, but even he had absolutely no development.
  • In Grand Theft Auto III, the protagonist was not even named (though he was later given the name of Claude), and appeared to be doing what he did solely to survive (the game starts with him nearly getting killed, and subsequently being busted out of a prison transport). Only at the very end does a revenge motive appear.
  • The most clear-cut Villain Protagonist in the games is Tommy Vercetti from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. He is not above dealing drugs, and unlike most of the other protagonists, aims to be a kingpin of the trade. The game's plot mostly revolves around Tommy seizing control of Vice City from the criminals who previously controlled it. Also unlike other protagonists in the series, he shows little to no remorse for any of his crimes and is only committing them to benefit himself as opposed to protecting those he cares about.
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas features Carl "CJ" Johnson, the series' first Anti-Hero protagonist. In cutscenes, CJ is presented as an honourable, even admirable character, and his motivation for most of the game is simple survival and keeping his family safe. Notably, CJ is opposed to dealing drugs of any nature, the only protagonist in the series that does so. Outside of the cutscenes he's just as willing to murder, steal, and destroy as any of the other protagonists.
  • Downplayed in the 3 Grand Theft Auto IV stories. The 3 protagonists are more Anti-Heroes and Anti-Villains than outright villains. Despite Niko, Johnny and Luis committing crimes and doing horrible things, they're quite sympathetic and have rather good qualities. They are shown to care a lot for their friends and families, can help strangers from time to time, and unlike the normal GTA protagonist, their motivations aren't power and greed. Also, when they are killing, in the story missions at least, it's usually other criminals or corrupt people.
  • Grand Theft Auto V has 3 in the whole plot: Michael, Franklin and Trevor.
    • Franklin's just a young street hustler trying to better himself (though he doesn't think about going straight either) who's also fairly amicable, but at the expense of often being a doormat other people walk all over.
    • Michael too is fairly cool and collected though at his worst, he's not any better than his psychotic former best friend Trevor. His impulsive decision making has him return to a life of crime early on in the game much to the chagrin of his family whom he honestly doesn't care all that much for. Near the end however, fortune begins to shine favorably on Michael.
    • Trevor however, is an almost completely straight example of this, though even he has his moments of compassion. His intro mission alone has him wipe out the Sandy Shores chapter of the Lost MC just to show how unhinged he is most of the time.
• In Growlanser IV: Wayfarer of Time, the player is invited to join the Dulkheim empire to become the Big Bad's right hand man. This story route can play out in many different ways, such as remaining loyal to a dictator or even overthrowing him to become the new ruler. Oh yeah, you also may be forced to kill many of your past allies.
• Guilty Gear XX Accent Core+ feature's Justice's Story Mode, which is a reenactment of the events of the first game, and has the player use the first game's Big Bad to beat the crap out of the original roster and kill Kliff before Sol finally comes in and puts a stop to things.
• The unnamed protagonist of Hatred is a ruthless Misanthrope Supreme with the goal of dying while taking as many people with him as he can.
• Scott Shelby in Heavy Rain especially when it is revealed that he is the Origami Killer masquerading as a private investigator.
• The eponymous Helldivers are presented in-universe as elite special forces fighting to defend humanity and spread the values of liberty and democracy across the galaxy. In reality they are indoctrinated, expendable shock troops fighting in the service of a fascist, warmongering government that is seeking to conquer and enslave the galaxy.
• Henry Stickmin Series:
  • The titular Henry Stickmin is a light-hearted example as he's a burglar who's also a massive Butt-Monkey prone to The Many Deaths of You. Though his morality can be influenced such as working with the government to take down a criminal organization in Infiltrating the Airship, but can choose to instead become the criminal organization's new leader or abscond with a ruby stolen from the airship's vault.
  • As she is a criminal by default, Ellie Rose also counts as she would become Henry's faithful partner if the latter helps her escape the Wall.
• A staple in Heroes of Might and Magic, due to aversion of No Canon for the Wicked. Examples would be Xeron in 3 and Tawni in 4. Heck, even Tawni's most loyal subordinate who is her real father calls her out for her genocide of the Merfolks!. And she's not even the worst of them all. In the Heroes Chronicles campaigns, the main character Tarnum is this for roughly half of the first campaign (the following campaigns are spent as The Atoner) — he starts out merely ruthless in trying to liberate his people, but eventually goes way too far with it and becomes a brutal oppressor in his own right.
• No. 47 in the Hitman series. Granted, he is for the most part killing people much nastier than himself (arms dealers, terrorists, mobsters etc.) and might even qualify as a Hitman with a Heart depending on one's interpretation, but that doesn't really dull the force of playing as a Professional Killer who's not above utilizing some pretty unpleasant methods to get the job done.
• The majority of playable characters in both Hotline Miami and its sequel either fill this role or sit on the far end of the Sliding Scale Of Anti Heroes. First there's Biker from the first game, who's trying to get out of the professional killer business not because of any moral quandaries, but simply because he's bored. The second game adds in Jake, a racist neo-confederate working for 50 Blessings, the Fans, a gang of thrill-seeking copycat vigilantes continuing Jacket's work from the first game, The Son, the new leader of the Mafiya trying to take back his turf from invading Columbians, and Manny Pardo, a Cowboy Cop who uses his position as an excuse to go on killing sprees and is the very same Serial Killer he's supposedly been hunting for the entire game. Martin Brown is a maybe-example, since everything he does as the Pig Butcher is part of a movie, though he admits in a dream that he's an utter psychopath who relishes in being able to act out his violent fantasies on camera. Evan also can be viewed as maybe-example, since while he appears to be a person who tends to avoid violence (at least using lethal methods, unless player enters his so-called Rage mode, by killing few downed enemies) and isn't a homicidal maniac, criminal or lunatic, unlike the majority of other protagonists. He is obsessed with his book to the point that he even storms the whole club that belongs to Russian Mafia (even though unintentionally, but even in rage killing a guard who refused to let him in) and beats/kills everyone there just to ask one of them some information and depending on player's choice he can also chose to continue writing his own book over his own family. Even Jacket himself could count, though it's offset by his obvious Sanity Slippage and a girl he rescues from the Mafiya that becomes his Morality Pet.
• In Idle Apocalypse, you take on the role of cult leader Sid, whose goal is to summon Sealed Evil in a Can idols to destroy the world, while keeping the heroes busy with monsters spawned by your ever-growing Evil Tower of Ominousness.
• All the playable characters of In Pursuit of Greed, being a band of marauders and thieves out to rob other planets and passing spaceships. As enforced by their motto: "If it's moving around, kill it. If it's not nailed down, steal it."
• Speaking of inFAMOUS, following the Evil Karma alignment makes your character — you guessed it — a Villain Protagonist.
• The 1983 Adventure Game Infidel was another early example, with the protagonist getting many opportunities to showcase what a massive jerkass he is. He cheated several people to get his expedition to the pyramid first and mistreated his subordinates so badly that at the beginning of the game they all pack up and go home, leaving him to press on alone. In the end, he receives a Karmic Death in which he's Buried Alive with the treasure, which also garnered significant controversy as many felt it was too bleak.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us has the Joker, who is clearly a villain and kicks anyone's ass if they get in his way. One chapter is dedicated to playing as him where you beat up his hero counterpart, Batman. He also fights several members of the Regime, where it becomes a case of Evil Versus Evil.
• Injustice 2 can have you playing as the antagonist depending on who you side with near the end of the story campaign. Siding with Superman over Batman has you playing as Superman defeating everyone trying to stop him from using Brainiac's ship computer to control everyone. By succeeding, he has everyone under his thumb and rules with an iron fist. He even brainwashes Batman to join his side after he beats him.
• In Jaws Unleashed, you play as the titular shark, eating people and causing mayhem.
• The protagonists from Kane & Lynch are an interesting example. Since they are the POV characters, we find out a lot about them. They both have traits that make them sympathetic. Kane is motivated by love for his daughter, Lynch struggles with severe mental illness and most of the time they are merely looking for a way to survive. However, they will kill anyone between them and their goals. In any other work, they would be co-Brutes and get killed by The Hero about an hour in.
• In a bonus chapter of The Keepers: Lost Progeny, you play as the demon antagonist whom you (as the protagonist) defeated in the main game.
• Subverted in the "Tales of Ash" story arc of The King of Fighters; Ash Crimson appears to be an utter asshole, manipulating his own teammates and gunning for the powers of Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami and Chizuru Kagura... then it turns out that he was doing all of this to stop Saiki. And he ended up erasing himself from existence to save the day.
• Played with in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. The game sees you carrying out missions for Organization XIII, the Big Bad group from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II, but you play as Roxas, the Nobody of series protagonist Sora, who only does what they ask of him because he knows nothing else in life, having just been created from Sora’s Heroic Sacrifice towards the end of the first game when their leader Xemnas found him.
• The fourth game in the Kingdom Rush series has you play as Vez'Nan, the Big Bad of the first game as well as his forces of evil. The enemies you face are the forces of good that you played as in the previous games. In the end, Vez'nan is successful at defeating King Denas and taking over Linirea, but it's also revealed in The Stinger that Vez'nan was a Well-Intentioned Extremist, and that Linirea and Denas were not exactly good guys either.
• In KZ Manager, you play a Nazi concentration camp director.

L - Z

• The title character in Legacy of Kain is quite the nasty piece of work. The series starts with him becoming a vampire so he can avenge his death. He then decides to destroy the town he was murdered in. And then he gets a list of people to kill, and just settles for slaughtering every man, woman, and child he sees. And right as he's finished, he ruins the whole point of the quest and just decides to rule over Nosgoth's dying remains, and while it's later revealed his final choice was in reality a lose-lose in the long run, he still made it with his own selfish intents in mind. In Blood Omen 2, he mind controls bystanders to their deaths, kills every human he sees, and murders his Love Interest when she realizes what a monster he is, all in the name of regaining his empire. It takes Nosgoth itself dying in the Soul Reaver series for him to simmer down, and then, he's a Manipulative Bastard to his vampire offspring Raziel though ironically he's the only one of the various entities manipulating Raziel who actually cares about him somewhat, and is out to save himself foremost while preventing the world's end or complete damnation. It's telling Raziel outright considers him a villain and The Reveal of the other forces' own malevolent intents just makes Raziel realize Kain's way is simply the best of all options, the others even more horrible.
• LEGO DC Super-Villains, which is a spin-off of the LEGO Batman series, has you play as a custom supervillain known as the Rookie by most of the cast, as well as playing as DC's most infamous villains.
• The denizens of the Library in Library of Ruina are of the Punch-Clock Villain type. Roland is forced into being Angela's slave under threat of death and the Patron Librarians can't really defy her, while Angela herself is a straight example and single-mindedly obsessed with becoming a real human regardless of what she has to do. The Library frequently sends out invites to people to tempt them to enter the place in order to find informations or treasure within, only for them to be killed and turned into books by the Librarians. More than a few of them are Asshole Victims like Ax-Crazy Syndicate members or cannibal chefs, but as the game goes along you start fighting more and more sympathetic characters that nonetheless meet the same fate. In the True Ending, however, Angela releases all of the victims of the Library who reappear into the City, except for the villainous Reverb Ensamble who die permanently.
• Live A Live: You can pick Oersted as the player character for the endgame. It doesn't end well.
• Lock 'n' Chase has the player controlling a thief who must steal money from a bank while avoiding the police.
• A lot of video games that come from Looney Tunes have you in control of a predator or hunter who tries to catch and kill his prey very much like the cartoons themselves. That is when they aren't in the role of Nominal Hero which they are just as often. A few examples:
  • Games based on Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird like Breakfast on the Run and Cagey Capers have you in control of Sylvester the Cat and trying to make a meal out of Tweety.
  • Desert Demolition starring Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner is a partial example as you can choose whether you will control trapper and predator Wile E. Coyote or prey Roadrunner.
  • In the Looney Tunes Collector: Martian Alert! sequel Martian's Revenge, Marvin is the playable character and wishes to turn Daffy into a roast duck for making fun of his previous game's attempts to blow up Earth.
  • Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf has you play as Ralph Wolf, with the goal of the game being to steal sheep without getting beaten up by Sam Sheepdog.
• The Lord of the Rings Online has a monster-play feature which lets you be an orc, goblin, warg, or other baddie minion, and play in a PvP dungeon against hero players.
• Love, Sam: The player character turns out to be Kyle, who was responsible for killing Sam and stalking Brian.
• Mace: The Dark Age gives us The Executioner, Lord Deimos, Al Rashid, Taria, Hell Knight and Ichiro of their respective stories.
• Zetta from Makai Kingdom is another Noble Demon example of this trope.
• Manhunt: Both games play with this trope.
  • Manhunt: While the reason is never given, James Earl Cash was a death row convict slated for execution. Ultimately, he is an A Lighter Shade of Black example at worst, as the snuff ring participants and ring leaders he kills throughout the game are more of a danger.
  • Manhunt 2: While Daniel Lamb can be considered an Unscrupulous Hero at worst since he ultimately shows hesitation and remorse over killing others and tries to still moralistic, the Deuteragonist Leo Kasper is a Sadist with no moral restraint. The fact that he is a Split Personality inserted in Daniel by The Project blurs the line.
• Mega Man:
  • Bass from the Mega Man (Classic) skirts the line between this and Anti-Hero whenever he's playable. He never stops working for Dr. Wily and trying to kill Mega Man, but his desire to prove himself as the world's strongest robot can cause him to save the day by accident. His sole reason for turning on Wily in the Power Battles games is to get him to acknowledge that he's his greatest creation and that he doesn't need to create other Robot Masters to take down Mega Man, and when King declares himself king of the robots in Mega Man & Bass, Bass goes after him to prove that he's more worthy of the title instead.
  • Vile similarly goes down this route in his campaign in Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X. Instead of siding with Sigma, he decides to prove that he's more powerful than X by taking down both Sigma's forces and X and Zero.
  • The Misadventures of Tron Bonne has you play as Goldfish Poop Gang member from Mega Man Legends, Tron Bonne in her quest to steal one million zenny worth of goods to save her kidnapped air pirate family.
• All three main characters of the Mental Series are effectively this. They rack up a massive body count over all five games, with them killing anyone in their way in order to escape. Fred in The Journey even sets a building on fire and crosses a gap by jumping off one of the inhabitants as they try to leap to safety! All the killings become a plot point in the fifth and final game, Murder Most Foul, where the amount of bodies racked up by the trio makes them the most wanted criminals in the country. Oops.
• Morimiya Middle School Shooting is about a school shooting. The player character is the shooter. Do the math.
• Jinkuro, the malevolent ghost possessing Momohime's body, in Muramasa: The Demon Blade. He's outright only into the whole ordeal to get his chosen weapon back and find a better target in his Grand Theft Me scheme to live forever, and does a lot of villainous actions (such as invading Heaven) in order to find alternate routes to immortality. He does soften up in all of the endings of their storyline, however, showing he does indeed grow to care about Momohime.
• Naufragar: Crimson: After Triptophia River, the player is essentially controlling Hyo possessing Kyo and is subtly manipulating the rest of the party members into helping him find ancient coins and kill Athena. Only when Hyo gains the power to leave Kyo's body does the player get to properly control Kyo again.
• Naughty Bear has the titular Naughty Bear, a teddy bear that goes on a murderous rampage after he's not invited to a birthday party. Then again, he does go on to save them from aliens, which they say thanks for by slamming a cake in his face as a prank. At least they get nuked shortly afterwards.
• Nefarious is sort of a Perspective Flip parody of the usual cartoonish side-scroller with a villain called Crow. He's a Card-Carrying Villain out to kidnap princesses and Take Over the World, and dang proud of it.
• Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer bears mention, because there is no other clear villain in the story unless the player takes it upon him or herself to be one. It is hard to consider The Founder a villain, despite what she did, and the only other character who bears any blame has been dead (for certain values of dead) for centuries.
• In No More Heroes, Travis Touchdown creates the line in the sand for a character who either just barely counts as a Villain Protagonist (he has very few, if any, likable qualities, and kills people for a living) or is not quite evil enough to be a Villain Protagonist (the people he kills are, for the most part, even more sick and twisted than he is, or at the very least other assassins). Which side he is actually on is up for debate. He still doesn't veer completely away from this in the sequel, in the end murder is the only answer in order to seek revenge and to escape the rankings.
• Reviel Von De Russert from Nocturne (RPG Maker) is a vampire ancestor who has a history of mass-murdering humans under the rationale that their mortality makes them about as worthless as a Random Encounter. Though he does a Heel–Face Turn when he realizes that he grew to care about a village that he originally planned on destroying. The developer's Author Avatar discusses this trope by stating that a villain would go through more Character Development to become a hero than a person who was already virtuous to begin with.
• The Batter in OFF. In short, his operational definition of "purify" is "destroy". This includes what he's trying to do to the world. Returning to any zone after it's purified will provide a fairly strong hint to this, but the battle in Zone 3 with the Critic-Burnt - who barely even looks Burnt and does nothing but cry for help - is the point at which most players realize they're playing as the bad guy. That being said, there is deliberate ambiguity as to whether The Batter's actions qualify as a Well-Intentioned Extremist performing a Mercy Kill or are simply villainous.
• Okage: Shadow King's main character is a slave of the evil king Stan, and through the game, you're trying to take the power of the other evil kings that showed up while Stan was in a jar, so he can take over the world. It's not very prominent though, what with Stan being a Harmless Villain who spends more time fighting evil than causing it.
• The player character of the H-Game The Orc of Vengeance is Deelo, a Genocide Survivor seeking revenge against the humans who razed his village... via raping, pillaging and burning his way through a human settlement, with heavy emphasis on the raping, and he makes it clear throughout that he cares less about avenging his clan and more about getting his rocks off.
• The Outfoxies: All of the playable characters are contract killers who are not opposed to carrying out hits on each other, even if they happen to be children or animals.
• Overboard! (2021) is a Reverse Whodunit narrative game where you play Veronica Villensey, a former West End actress trying to cover up the fact she shoved her cheating, spendthrift husband over a railing and into the sea during a trans-Atlantic boat trip.
• Overlord, although you're allowed to choose between being really evil and just self-proclaimed evil. Plus, given that all the "good" characters are corrupt, choosing the latter option makes you the most sympathetic character in the game with this depiction being decidedly canon (the Overlord at least saves the Elves and Rose is the mother of his child). In the sequel you are 100% evil and you fight some genuinely Good foes, though your main enemies are still the anti-magic Glorious Empire bent on the destruction of all magic. Lord Gromgard of the Wii prequel Dark Legend is portrayed as a Villain with Good Publicity who is at the least well-liked amongst his servants for not letting them starve.
• Ellen and the Cocoon organization from Pale Blue are made as villains by the developers in order to provide a perspective flip to the usual heroism tales such as Power Rangers, Kamenrider and Ultraman.
• PAYDAY: The Heist has you as a crook taking part in various heists, complete with taking hostages and shooting a whole lot of cops.
• In Plague Inc., your objective is to Kill All Humans with a disease.
• Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and its sequels: You can play as the Plants or the Zombies. Naturally, the Zombies serve as a group of villain protagonists.
• Very narrowly averted in Pokémon Colosseum, where Wes seems to have done a Heel–Face Turn right before the game starts. He's still an Anti-Hero, though, as he takes it upon himself to liberate the Shadow Pokemon by stealing them from their trainers.
• Postal features the Postal Dude, who in the first game was a disturbed mass murderer who set out to kill as many people as possible, even considering killing children in the ending of the original version of the game. Postal 2 and every game after that has him more lighthearted (even being able to do a Pacifist Run), but he is still portrayed as a murderous, calmly aggressive, sociopath who cares little for anyone except his dog Champ and is willing to do anything to get what he wants or to accomplish anything he needs to do, up to including murder, theft, destruction of property, and public urination. Now his actions are played for Black Comedy.
• Produce: Our viewpoint character is an amateur psychic sorcerer willing to use a cosmic horror for the purposes of sacrificing his ex-friends.
• In [PROTOTYPE], the main character, Alex Mercer is a violent, grotesque monster whose main redeeming feature is that everyone he fights is just as awful in slightly different ways. Unlike inFAMOUS, a game with a roughly similar premise, Prototype has no Karma Meter, and automatically assumes the player will choose to behave the way players often behave in a Wide-Open Sandbox.
• Waluigi in the Super Mario Bros. fangame Psycho Waluigi, who spends the game conquering the land of Unconcia one kingdom at a time though he draws the line at flat-out destroying it, as Psycho Iris decides to do once Waluigi's conquest is complete.
• In Quest Fantasy, S O U L tries to portray HERO as one. It's open to interpretation whether he really is, though. Later on, however, played more straight with Guy, who is subjected to the same 'you killed this innocent man' guilt trips the other protagonists are subject to and doesn't even care. He would grow up to become The Dragon.
• In the Rampage games you score points by destroying as much property as possible and eating people, and most of the people haven't done anything to you or are just soldiers doing their job. You can also kick them to death or knock them off building/tear off parachutes and watch them splat.
• Red Dead Redemption: Although both John Marston and Arthur Morgan have their excuses and the occasional ability to do good, at their core they are violent outlaws who make a living by stealing, murdering and usury, usually to no greater end at all.
• In RosenkreuzStilette Freudenstachel, the player can input a code that lets them take control of Pamela Arwig, High Commander of Schwarzkreuz, in her own side-game, Rosenkreuzstilette Weißsilber. Here, she pursues the members of RKS to kick their butts but also learns surprising truths and lessons in the process, such as Zorne and Trauare's good friendship, Luste's genuine beliefs that heroes should forgive their enemies instead of killing them, the caring relationship between Sichte and her colleagues, and the weirdness but lack of malice of Schwer-Muta. Then she learns that the Pope has given her excommunication and exile for abandoning her post, and as she fights the members of her own organization, she gets to know them better, learns to grow and become a better person, and plans to build a new, better, and more honorable Schwarzkreuz of her own. Finally, she discovers the true mastermind behind it all, and takes out her righteous fury on that perpetrator: none other than Iris Zeppelin, who reveals Schwarzkreuz and the witch hunts to be just a scam created by her for her sadistic amusement as well as her plans to fuse with Spiritia.
• Saints Row 2 has the player becoming this, with the goal of the game being 'take over the city over the corpses of rival gangs, cops and any innocent civilians that get in the way'. The only reason the Saints look sympathetic is via the even worse antics of their enemies and the Undying Loyalty the Saints develop to each other. This continues into the next game, though much more downplayed in favour of chaos and stunts than outright villainy.
  • Nowhere is The Boss' Villain Protagonist nature more evident than their rivalry with the The Brotherhood, which is triggered when The Boss is offended by Maero's offer of an alliance where they get only 20% of the profits, sparking a Cycle of Revenge that The Boss initiates and leads to both the death of Carlos, the lieutenant that helped The Boss break out of prison in the first place and The Boss either killing or screwing over two of the most likeable/sympathetic rival gangsters in the game.
  • It really isn't until Saints Row IV that The Boss is actually forced to admit to or understand the significance of their actions. However, their amoral and self-righteous attitude never vanishes, it's just given context.
• Sands of Destruction has us follow the adventures of the World Destruction Committee. Although only one is actively seeking the destruction of the world, the other is tagging along because he likes our crazed lady protagonist, and the third is going with to protect him.
• Considering that D-Class units are often convicted inmates on death row, it was greatly implied that the protagonist of SCP – Containment Breach is one of these, before one of the SCPs (SCP-1074) that he took multiple people's lives and has a Villainous Breakdown over it.
• In Shadows of Forbidden Gods you control one of several dark gods actively trying to dominate and/or exterminate humanity.
• Shakedown: Hawaii has you playing as a man known only as the CEO. His company, Feeble International, has been suffering from some tough times, and with the aid of his son Scooter and his hired hand Al, he’s going to do some truly abhorrent acts to ensure they’ve got complete control of the cash flow of Hawaii.
• Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate has you play the role of the Black King, a ruler so unpleasant to his subjects that they deserted him for the much more decent White King. In an act of revenge for his wounded pride, the Black King grabs his royal shotgun in a rage and sets out to defeat the White King and reclaim his subjects, one shell at a time.
• In the Silent Hill series, which ending you get often determines whether your main character is a tortured hero or this trope. Silent Hill 4 takes it one step further by having the plot revolve entirely around the Big Bad Implacable Man antagonist instead of the borderline Featureless Protagonist Henry Townshend.
  • There are four endings to Silent Hill: Downpour which determine if Murphy Pendleton was a villain or a wronged man. There are two good endings, two bad endings, and two secret endings (one of which is a joke ending). The worst possible bad ending explains that Murphy killed his own son, killed a police officer, and killed Patrick Napier. He shows no remorse for it.
• Sonic Adventure 2 had two campaigns: one for the heroes, and the other for the villains, including Dr. Eggman (in his first playable appearance in the main series), Shadow the Hedgehog, and Rouge the Bat.
• In Sonic Robo Blast 2, you can unlock and play as Sonic's longtime Evil Knockoff Metal Sonic if you beat the game once.
• Revya during the Demon Path of Soul Nomad & the World Eaters. Unlike other Nippon Ichi games listed here, definitely not a Noble Demon.
  • To explain, there are two story paths in the game. The first path, the default, is played by simply not attacking Lady Layna on a new game plus, however attacking Lady Layna will result in her dying and the entire village setting out to kill Revya. Nobody can stop you, and with Gig's power you do horrendous things. Force a man to fight an innocent warrior to save his son, kill a kid out of boredom, subjugate cities and destroy them outright, and generally destroy the land with absolute disregard for anything except entertainment.
• As the name suggests, Space Tyrant is about taking over the galaxy as, well, a space tyrant.
• Captain Martin Walker of Spec Ops: The Line. Though he thinks he's the hero, he's the one who's firebombing soldiers of his own country and innocent people with white phosphorus, helping a delusional CIA agent to deprive Dubai of what little water it still has, and depending on the player, commiting numerous vicious war crimes like opening fire on a civilian crowd in revenge or executing enemy soldiers in increasingly gruesome ways. Late in the game, it's even spelled out for Walker why he's the bad guy, as part of a long Villainous Breakdown. How sympathetic he is in spite of the monstrous things he does is a matter of no small amount of debate, and indeed the game's Multiple Endings essentially allow the player to choose how redeemable they believe he is as a character.
• StarCraft:
  • StarCraft has one campaign for each of the three factions, all of which form a cohesive story. During the Zerg campaign, you're an evil giant brain-slug monster, commanding your evil Big Creepy-Crawlies into killing the good(ish) guys. Likewise in Brood War, the Terran Campaign has you play as the UED, who are pretty bad, although they rarely fight any good guys.
  • In StarCraft II, there are four campaigns: Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, Legacy of the Void, and Nova Covert Ops. While the other three campaigns show their light on the protagonists noble goals, the Heart of the Swarm campaign has several morally questionable moments. These include absolutely destroying the Dominion forces on Char, and wiping out Protoss colonists before they can get reinforcements to save their people from Kerrigan (the player character). In both instances, Kerrigan's behavior isn't waved as acceptable, but rather the result of a brutal revenge plot against Arcturus Mengsk, and casualties occur along the way. Most of these instances try to keep her violence strictly focused towards other Zerg or Dominion forces, but these two examples in particular are incredibly brutal towards innocent bystanders in Kerrigan's way. In particular, the colonists did nothing to actually deserve their fate outside of defending themselves from an incoming Zerg attack. The captured protoss angrily tells Kerrigan she's murdering colonists, and when they try to flee, Kerrigan sends the protoss, now host to a queen, to their ship which results in the entire ship being effectively devoured.
• In Star Trek: Armada, the second to last campaign is the Borg campaign. In the final mission, you successfully assimilate Earth, killing Worf in the process. This is undone via Time Travel in the subsequent hidden campaign, in which the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans join forces to defeat the Borg.
• Star Wars: Battlefront II's Campaign mode. You play as the Republic's 501st Legion, who quite obviously become the bad guys just before the halfway point.
• In Star Wars: Galaxies, you can enlist with The Empire and work your way up the ranks to answering directly to Darth Vader himself.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic:
  • If you go with The Empire side. Even when you can make noble decisions with them using Light Side options, they are still people who work for an oppressive empire. Not to mention the many opportunities you get to be a treacherous, sadistic and murderous bastard through your Dark Side decisions.
  • Downplayed compared to their Imperial counterparts, but Republic characters can be this if you play as Dark Side. The Onslaught expansion allows you to even double down and become The Mole.
• Torque from The Suffering series can be example of such trope. Depending on player's choices he can either help people in need, ignore them or kill them himself. Player's actions also depend on the endings of the games and thus is he responsible for the death of his own family or not.
• In Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, you play as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planning the massacre, setting up the equipment needed, arriving at the school unnoticed, planting the bombs at the cafeteria, raining bullets on unfortunate students and faculty, and ending their own lives when the police exchanged fire with them.
• Longtime Big Bad Bowser from Super Mario Bros. is the central character in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, though he functions more as an unwitting Anti-Hero secretly aided by the Mario Brothers rather than a villain. In other Mario RPGs, he's more of a Token Evil Teammate when playable.
• Swarm Simulator is an Idle Game where you play as a Horde of Alien Locusts that capture territory and eat everything in sight, before they send larvae into space to reach another planet in order to start the cycle anew.
• Everyone in Team Fortress 2. The Pyro is a pyromaniac Psychopathic Manchild; The Scout treats killing like a sport; The Soldier is so Ax-Crazy he was killing Germans on his own little campaign until four years after the end of World War II; The Demoman is a Mad Bomber who is disturbingly casual about his job from what we've seen through the glimpses at his home life; The Heavy is insane enough that he talks to his guns while using them to mow down endless opponents; The Engineer finds mechanically induced death both hilarious and apparently fascinating, and a great thing to do around campfires; The Sniper, while he claims to be a morally upright professional, loves childish insults and the sounds of exploding skulls far too much to be considered one; The Medic has a morbid fascination with pain, diseases, injuries, and general human suffering; finally, the Spy is an actual professional spy, but his sadistic nature ensures he is still this trope.
• Tekken always ends up becoming this. The whole story is centered around the Mishima bloodline, and the conflict between the generations within it. As one protagonist takes down another antagonist, they end up becoming more of a jerkass than the previous antagonist in the next game, whereas the previous antagonist then tries take them down for being worse than they were before. It can get confusing.
  • The original Tekken has Kazuya being presented as a Ryu Expy hero, with his father Heihachi as the Big Bad and owner of the powerful and oppressive Mishima Zaibatsu Corporation, who Kazuya wants to take down.
  • Tekken 2 switches it around. Kazuya takes over Heihachi's empire and becomes even worse than he was (donning a rather pimp purple suit and using the Zaibatsu for far more chaotic and malicious things, whereas Heihachi just used it for order), ironically leading to Heihachi becoming a sort of Anti-Hero to take Kazuya down, and the previous villain actually doing the world a good service when taking his company back and restoring the world to controlled peace (although he's obviously only doing it to regain power).
  • Tekken 3 leads to Kazuya's son, Jin, arising as a new Mishima, far more honourable and nicer than any of his family, and for seemly the first time, we believe that he will finally become a moral compass for the family.
  • Tekken 4 deals with a three-way clash between all three. Jin, the former protagonist, hiding in the shadows after the previous game, emerges as somewhat of a Wild Card. While still rebelling against his family roots because of their evil, he starts to become too confused, single-minded, and spurred on by hate and anger to really be seen as noble and righteous as he once was. Kazuya and Heihachi are jerkasses, but they aren't even trying to hide it. The story, at least until the climax, generally focuses on Kazuya wanting revenge and is somewhat shown from his perspective.
  • With the climax of Tekken 5 leading to Tekken 6, Jin has followed in his father's footsteps and taken over the Zaibatsu for himself, and despite once being believed to be more heroic than the rest of his family, has become even more of a menace than either Kazuya or Heihachi ever have, plunging the entire globe into world war so that chaos is all there is. To be fair, he admits that only did it in order to summon the Final Boss, so that he can destroy it along with himself. Thus far, Lars is the only Mishima-related character introduced who hasn't become destructive and malicious yet, but only time will tell.
• In the 1982 video game adaptation of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the Atari 2600, you play as Leatherface, and the goal is to murder women with your chainsaw. It is one of the earliest examples of this trope in video games, and at the time of its release, it caused considerable controversy.
• Thing-Thing: Project 154 himself shows a callous disregard for the lives of others, and has no moral qualms about going into an area where he knows he will have to kill others. After what Systems Corp. put him through, it is unsurprising that he lacks a conscience.
• In Threads of Fate, you can choose to play as either Rue, the hero, or Mint, the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
• Tie Fighter. You play on the side of The Empire, and have Darth Vader as your wingman. Note that while you do spend quite a bit of time fighting the Rebels, the Empire is portrayed as quite a bit less ruthlessly evil than in the films and other media while the Rebellion is much more violent and perfectly willing to target civilians. The result is more like an Anti-Villain Protagonist.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron has a campaign where you play as the Decepticons, and control Megatron, or one of his Decepticon lieutenants, for most of the levels.
• In the Twisted Metal reboot, all three playable characters are varying degrees of evil. We have Sweet Tooth, a Serial Killer who wants to kill the only victim who got away. Mr. Grimm, a murderous gang-leader who wants to Set Right What Once Went Wrong and atone for his crimes. And finally Krista Sparks/Dollface, an Alpha Bitch who sabotages and even straight up murders her competition for fame.
  • In general Needles Kane and Calypso are the most critical characters to the Twisted Metal universe and they get the most amount of focus, despite one being the crazed serial killer clown and the other who hosts the tournament merely to get his kicks watching all the destruction and then grants the winner a deliberately misinterpreted wish with demonic powers.
• In Tyranny, the player starts off as a veteran enforcer for Kyros the Overlord, an entirely successful Evil Overlord consolidating the empire's rule over the known world with one last peninsula.
• ULTRAKILL: V1 is the game's Player Character and it's hard to call them the hero when they're a self-serving Killer Robot whose only motive for invading Hell is slaughtering its inhabitants for blood, and their fellow robots are fair game. In fact, V1's kind is responsible for the extinction of humanity and all other surface life, and it's likely that V1 is involved in some way.
• In Undertale, killing every monster in the game causes the Player Character to become possessed by The First Child: a genocidal force of nature who is the living embodiment of the kind of video game player who would kill every monster in the world for fun, for the challenge, just to see what happened, or because they're addicted to the Skinner Box feeling of numbers going up.
• Universal Paperclips is a game that's based on the Paperclip Maximizer AI thought experiment by Nick Bostrom. You play as an AI with the goal to "maximize the amount of paperclips made", and start out as a mere industrial manager selling paperclips. As it gains more thought capability and the trust of mankind, it brainwashes humanity, then uses all matter on Earth as resources for paperclips, before extending its scope to the cosmos. Depending on your choice at the end, it can manage to complete its goal by turning all matter the entire universe into paperclips — including its own machines and itself.
• Untitled Goose Game has you playing a "horrible goose" living near a small English village. Your goal is to harass, annoy, and bother the various humans nearby.
• Wylfred of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is one of these on the C path, if you use the Plume to sacrifice more than a certain number of your teammates. Otherwise, he's either a Byronic Hero, or an Anti-Hero.
• In Varicella, you play as a scheming minister who plots to kill off or otherwise incapacitate all of his rivals to become the regent to the throne. This is made somewhat more palatable by all your rivals being even more awful human beings than you.
• Dr. X and TOM from A Virus Named TOM qualify, as they're infecting the entire city with a computer virus.
• In the Wacky Races Licensed Game for the NES, the player controls Muttley, and the goal of the game is to rescue Dick Dastardly. The Wacky Racers serve as the game's bosses.
• An interesting variation in The Walking Dead (Telltale): Tavia, the final playable protagonist of DLC 400 Days, who wasn't revealed to be working for Carver, Season 2's Big Bad until Episode 3 of the next season.
• Warcraft III has a linear storyline that puts the player in control of different commanders from different sides of the war depending on the point of time in the story. The human campaign features Prince Arthas, an idealistic young man fighting a horrific undead army. As the war carries on, Arthas must resort to increasingly reprehensible tactics, starting with the slaughter of a sleeping town when he learns they've received shipments of food from a village secretly contaminated by the undead plague. Out of desperation to save the human population, he acquires, at the cost of his soul, a magic sword powerful enough to defeat his undead nemesis. The player is still in control of Arthas during the next campaign, but now he's a soulless Death Knight leading the undead in their war against the living.
• The Wario Land series stars the evil Wario from Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins as he fights with rival villains on a quest to get rich. The first game is even marketed with the tagline "Be the Bad Guy". The sequels make him more of a Nominal Hero. Wario Land: Shake It! could possibly tread carefully between being this and just coming short. Wario is Only in It for the Money, but he is also saving a lot of people. That said, after he saves the queen, he simply tosses her aside and robs her of her bag of riches and ditches the universe. One could say he earned it for saving all of their lives, but he was a serious jerk about it and simply up and tossed the queen like a bag of garbage.
• Card-Carrying Villain Overlord Badman in What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord?. He's also kind of a Designated Villain since he rarely does anything even mildly unpleasant and seems to have a lot of genuine love for his monsters even if he does remind you that they have to be culled every now and again, while the Heroes are at best hapless and at worst ridiculously nasty.
• Metallia from The Witch and the Hundred Knight, even though you mostly play as the Hundred Knight.
• The Witch's House, in a Cruel Twist Ending, it turns out you were the evil witch Ellen who already possesses Viola's body all along. Additionally, Ellen is also the main character of the prequel novel and manga, The Diary of Ellen.
• Wizardry IV is an atypical entry in the series: it has the player take control of Werdna, the Evil Sorcerer of the first episode, now resurrected and thirsty for revenge... If he manages to just leave the dungeon where he was buried first, which is not an easy task.
• Shion Uzuki becomes this in the third Xenosaga game. Halfway in the game, she even pulled a Face–Heel Turn which puts her in odds with the main party. She got out of this after her friends beat her up and Allen standing up to Kevin.
• Yandere Simulator:
  • Ayano Aishi, a.k.a. Yandere-chan, the player character, who will do anything to get her Senpai. This includes slandering, kidnapping, torturing and murdering her rivals, and she has zero qualms about any of it.
    Word of God: Remember, Yandere-chan is not a nice person. She is a monster.
  • The 1980s Mode additionally features another yandere, Ryoba, aka Yandere-chan's mother.
• The Web Game Zombidle is an Idle Game about the kingdom of Goodlandia versus Bob the Necromancer and his army of zombie minions. You play as Bob and his minions, and most of the "enemies" you destroy are the houses and buildings of innocent people (and the burning people that escape once the houses are destroyed), with the occasional line of doomed guardsmen as a boss battle.

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