Who Are the Best Video Game Villains of All Time?

Let’s be honest: A good chunk of the time, the most interesting character in any story is the bad guy. Whether it’s because of their charm, their conviction, or their traumatic backstories that tug at the heartstrings, the best baddies are hard to resist — even when they’re doing terrible things.

Baddies in games are particularly fun to love and love to hate because, as the player character, we are actively involved in the drama created by the choices these villains make. Let’s take a look at seven of the best baddies in video games.

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Lady Dimitrescu

Resident Evil Village

Lady Dimitrescu is hard to miss. She’s a vampire who stands well over 9 feet tall. However, what’s most fascinating about Lady D is not how she got to be that gigantic. It’s her stage presence. When she first showed up in trailers for 2021’s Resident Evil Village, she had an absolute chokehold on the entire internet. (I’m not judging, okay, I was not immune.)

Many gamers were disappointed that she’s only in the first quarter of the game, especially since Resident Evil fans were quite pleased to have her relentlessly stalk them through her castle while they explored as protagonist Ethan Winters. Her larger-than-life design and Maggie Robertson’s equally grandiose VO work made Lady D an instant favorite. Now, players can even step into her undoubtedly enormous shoes and cut down swathes of enemies in RE8’s Mercenaries Mode.

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Odin

God of War Ragnarök

God of War players expected to see Odin in Ragnarök, but they certainly weren’t expecting the version of Odin they got. Voice actor Richard Schiff’s disarming, smooth-talking mafia don is worlds away from the imposing tyrant that fans all assumed the character would be — but it made him all the more sinister for it.

After more than 60 hours of watching him bumble and sweet talk his way through life, it’s easy to see how Freya, Mímir, Thrúd, and even Atreus all found themselves bewitched by the All-Father despite knowing his reputation for selfishness and cruelty.

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Goro Akechi

Persona 5 (2016), Persona 5 Royal (2019)

If you’ve not experienced P5 or P5R, go do that right now. But prepare to have your feelings hurt by Robbie Daymond, the voice actor for Goro Akechi in this recent entry to the Persona series.

Akechi is a character who players love and then hate and then love to hate … and then love to the point of tears and heartbreak at his inevitable downfall. Persona 5 Royal goes even further to develop Akechi’s character and provide Robbie Daymond with more opportunities to remind everyone that he’s very, very good at his job. Especially when his job is making you feel your feelings entirely too much. Akechi is a study in the phrase “hurt people hurt people” — he really makes you think about the effects of trauma and neglect on children, and you might even wonder whether or not anyone is ever too far gone to be saved.

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Sylens

Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), Horizon Forbidden West (2022)

Sylens is a baddie in the same vein as Ragnarök’s Odin: He wants knowledge and doesn’t care what he has to do or who gets hurt in his acquisition of it. That callousness causes a whole lot of trouble for Aloy on more than one occasion, but he’s so smooth even as he’s completely infuriating.

Played brilliantly by the late Lance Reddick, Sylens is a man who knows he’s smarter than everyone else around him and finds great satisfaction in making sure everyone knows it.

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Takuto Maruki

Persona 5 Royal (2019)

The prompt circulating at Atlus’s studio during development of Persona 5 and its enhanced re-release Persona 5 Royal was apparently “antagonists that make you think and also make you cry.” While Akechi is a fascinating baddie because it’s completely understandable why he went wrong, Maruki is fascinating because … well, because he’s not wrong. He’s not even bad. In fact, witnessing Maruki’s story unfold leads a lot of players to begin questioning the righteousness of their own actions throughout the previous two-thirds of the game. He’s doing exactly what the protagonist Joker and his Phantom Thieves have been doing all along, after all, with equally honorable intentions.

Maruki is beautifully brought to life by yet another actor that we lost far too soon. Billy Kametz’s stellar voice work will have you falling in love with the character the moment he first appears on screen, and the sentiment only increases as the game continues on to its heartbreaking conclusion.

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Vergil

Devil May Cry 3 (2005), Devil May Cry 5 (2019)

The oldest son of Sparda has been the antagonist of two of the five games in the Devil May Cry series. Along the way, he has leveled two cities and caused tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of deaths in pursuit of power. But you try to tell me that’s not the coolest anime swordsman you’ve ever seen, and I’m going to tell you you’re lying. Vergil is such an interesting character to watch because he is Dante’s opposite in almost every way. Capcom made it abundantly clear with the characters’ designs, using easily identifiable tropes like dressing them in blue and red and slicking back one’s hair and leaving the other’s to fall naturally in his face to mark them as foils.

Their personalities and, more intriguingly, the way they’ve each dealt with the trauma of their childhood are also direct opposites. The discordance caused by their very natures being at odds is what makes them so entertaining to watch, but it’s also what makes their decades long feud so sad. Dan Southworth’s subdued and almost regal delivery of Vergil’s lines adds so much attitude to a character whose design and combat style were already bursting with it.

So is Vergil the coolest character in all of video games? …Honestly, yes. Probably.

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Sephiroth

Final Fantasy VII (1997), Final Fantasy 7 Remake (2020)

Check out any compilation video of reactions to the Game Awards trailer revealing this man’s inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2020, and it’ll be abundantly clear how well known and well loved Sephiroth is. Before he even appears on screen, the first few notes of his iconic theme “One-Winged Angel” begin, and people lose their minds. It’s not surprising though; he is one of gaming’s most iconic characters for a reason.

His presence in the original Final Fantasy VII is menacing and elusive, and while he’s much more present in the remake than fans of the OG game expected, he’s no less intimidating for it. It’s clear that he is as dangerous as ever, perhaps even more so, but answers to what he could possibly be up to are coming soon enough. Square Enix finally revealed a release date for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Sephiroth, and his long hair and his long sword, will be back to haunt Cloud and bless all of us in February of 2024.

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There’s a reason that people always say a story is only as good as its villain, and that’s as true in video games as it is in any other medium. Without a well-crafted baddie, the hero can’t shine, can’t wow us with their power, their humility, or their kindness. The best heroes need the best villains – hasn’t The Joker been telling Batman that for years? I’d hate to say the Clown Prince of Crime is right about anything, but he’s really got a point.

Who are your favorite video game villains? Join the conversation with other video game fans over at Sideshow Social Network or at side.show/geekgroup, and don’t forget to Let Your Geek Sideshow!

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