Villain protagonists in videogames - do they help or hinder your enjoyment?

The Game Room
1

I’ve been wanting to give Red Dead Redemption 2 another chance - when I first played I ragequit soon after the story took me to the New Orleans analogue. Partly for game mechanics reasons (children can rob me, but I can’t even lasso them or otherwise get my stuff back, so I felt punished for treasure hunting and exploring), but mostly because I had grown to despise all the main characters. The gang members were all simultaneously helpless, rude, murderous, incompetent, and utterly dependent on Arthur. Arthur himself felt irredeemable, despite the game’s title - every heist becomes a bloodbath, Micah should have been left to rot in Strawberry, and I disliked that there was no player agency on the path to take on that front. I realised I preferred hunting or just riding around enjoying the views to actually playing the game, so I quit, with my headcanon being that Arthur said “screw these guys”, rode to Oklahoma, set up a ranch, and lived to a ripe old age as an ornery, solitary, but peaceful old coot.

But… the game mechanics are so good, and the world so beautiful, that I kinda want to go back. I just can’t stand the characters, so I can’t bring myself to do so!

This came just after I had played Cyberpunk: 2077. The only bugs I had were graphics-related, but the major issue that keeps me from ever wanting to play the game again is that the protagonist and the Keanu Reeves character are both insufferable. I can shut down Keanu in most conversations, but the protagonist himself is at best a stupid criminal (in that for cutscene or story reasons V does really stupid stuff, like allow random software be shoved into his brain). At worst you can play V as a gleefully nihilistic sociopath.

Actually at the time the 1-2 combo of the above got me so frustrated with story-based gaming that I started playing with trains instead. (Railway Empire. Simple, addictive, and really fun!)

At the time I was wondering if this was a new trend in gaming/storytelling, and if so, how to avoid it. But thinking back now some time later, other villain protagonists worked better for me - the GTA series, especially Vice City, as well as the Saints Row games, come to mind, and I think they work because the antagonists and the game world in general are over-the-top absurd and played for laughs. The protagonists aren’t so much villains as mustache-twirling cartoon characters. The Mafia series tried to play its protagonists more sympathetically, and to me it worked - particularly in Mafia 3, where the events that set off the plot makes the protagonist’s quest for revenge feel justified.

All that said, I can’t nail down why I liked Mafia 3 and disliked Red Dead Redemption 2.

How do you feel about villain protagonists? Do they take you out of the story, or maybe you enjoy going on what is still an unorthodox path?

2

I enjoyed getting to play as Golbez in Final Fantasy IV After Years. He isn’t the main character the way Cecil was in FFIV, but he was arguably the lead member of the ensemble cast. Of course he’s not ridiculously overpowered like in FFIV, but he learns Meteo(r) at an early level, which makes the middle third of the game, when you’re limited to Golbez, Edge, Rydia, and Luca, lots of fun.

3

With GTA V, I was split 2/3 on the protagonists. I found Michael to be insufferable, whining about his unearned life of luxury after screwing over his friends. Trevor at least was self-aware enough to know he was a fucked up bad guy, and Franklin was just a kid who never had a chance other than crime to get ahead. But Michael? Screw that guy.

4

I don’t mind a game that has two sides, and you get to play as either. Being the baddie is fun, every once in a while. But I mostly want to play as a good guy. A game that’s just you as a villain? Not interested.

5

RDR2 is brilliant story telling. By far the best game I’ve ever played. There are a few moments particularly near the end of the game that are genuinely moving and cinematic. Yeah Micah sucks. I played Arthur to be as good as possible within the constraints of the game.

One of my problems with Last of Us Part II was being forced to play as one POV character when I just wanted them to die but I had to keep them alive to move the story along. Won’t spoil it.

6

I enjoyed Mafia 1 & 2 (never got around to 3) because they were entertaining stories and the protagonist remained at least semi-sympathetic even as they did terrible things.

Saints Row was too silly to feel bad about. Cyberpunk 2077 was in a world where everyone was shitty anyway so I never felt bad about my actions.

GTAV I couldn’t get into. Forget morality, everyone was so bad at being a criminal that it just wasn’t any fun to play. After the third round of “You plan a heist but lol you fucked up and now everyone screws you over and you’re just a trio of dumb assholes” I lost interest in spending any more time with them. At least Mafia and Saints Row made crime fun by letting you feel like a successful badass most of the time.

7

I had the ending accidentally spoiled, but if getting there is that good - is it worth powering through from where I was (just got to not-New Orleans, looking for a missing kid) or is the playtime mostly being surrounded by jerks acting jerkishly until the finale?

That’s my preference too. Sometimes I’ll play good-ish (e.g. Kingdom Come: Deliverance), and consequence-free mayhem like Saints Row is a blast, but in games that keep a clear good/bad split (Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR) I can’t stick with attempts at evil playthroughs because I just don’t find them entertaining.

8

There is that. I don’t have an issue with games where the entire premise is “Do crimes” but I’m really bad at playing an “Evil” character in an otherwise open game. I did so once in Fallout: New Vegas (which was disappointing because Karma is essentially meaningless) and, when I played Witcher 3, I responded to everyone’s sob stories with “Yeah, that’s tough – pay me”. I mean, would you call an exterminator to get the raccoon out of your attic then go on about how this $145 means your kids can’t eat (wink, wink)? But just straight up being a dick when given the option otherwise isn’t really fun for me.

9

I haven’t played RDR2 because I keep promising myself to buy it on the next Steam sale and every time I do I notice just how many unplayed games are still waiting… I’ll break down one day though.

I will somewhat disagree with the characterization of the player-protagonist (note the specification!) as an unqualified villain though. CP2077 is, or just shy of a Crapsack World - law is already nothing more than a tool to support greed, evil, and the corporate status quo. No one pays any attention to it (even those nominally at the top) when they can get ahead.

So all the “lawful” alignments are a wash. And those few who try to do better are generally screwed, with some literally suffering a fate worse than death (one of the best and undeveloped sub story). So our protagonist, V, can pretty much run the gamut of neutral or chaotic alignments, leaning towards good or evil as appropriate. Granted, the MAIN STORYLINE beats tend to be unspeakably stupid, which doesn’t work well with 1 of the three lifepaths, and if you take it ‘seriously’ it cripples any of the good parts of the game (chokes off rant).

So, the nature of the Main Story, really cripples role-playing during those stories. On the other hand, many of the substories are nuanced, fun, and allow a much wider range of moral and ethical choices (chokes off another rant about how fixing the main story would make the game much better).

Johnny on the other hand, is a freaking bastard. Horrible and a disaster to all who knew/know him, the most arrogant and blind individual in a story full of such. I found myself making choices to deal with him entirely based on the sort of ending I wanted, because I’m sure 95% of the people in the situation would END him with extreme prejudice and speed given any other possible choice.

He’s a villain that THINKS he’s a hero, and he’s so very wrong.

10

I enjoy the hitman series, but other than that I generally prefer to be the good guy. As it turns out, surprising to me, my favorite games are survival where I just do my own thing. If something attacks me I will end it with extreme prejudice, but generally I just peacefully build my little structures to create a nice survival life.

Last year I tried out a free game that I think was called destroy all humans, where you play as an AI or alien or whatever and your goal is to kill a bunch of humans. I lasted about 10 minutes before I realized that I didn’t really enjoy that concept even though the game mechanics were engaging and fun.

So it would appear I have become a big softie in my middle age.

11

If you don’t like it you don’t like it. To me I enjoyed all of the many layers. The storyline missions may be as you described but there are so many more missions. Some are silly and funny. Some less so. Hours and hours of gameplay and weird quirky details to the world. Brilliant use of a soundtrack by produced by Daniel Lanois at the more emotional junctures of the game. Near the end when Daniel Lanois’ “That’s the Way it Is” starts playing I had a stronger emotional reaction than I’ve ever had in a game.

12

I thought Cyberpunk 2077 had a pretty good set of villains. Their actions made sense within the context of the story. Johnny was an asshole, and a mass murderer, but at some point he was willing to step aside and let V drive, so there’s that at least.

What I came to dislike about being bad guys in a video game came about with Bioware’s Knights of the Old Republic. When it comes to light versus dark side choices, the dark side choices were mainly about being an asshole for no real reason. I might get something relatively minor, but a lot of times it was just twisting the knife for the purposes of twisting the knfie.

13

All that, and also a tragic figure: he decided to deal with Evil (i.e., run-of-the-mill) Corp by setting off a thermonuclear bomb in their downtown headquarters, and 20 years later their stock price was higher than ever, and he was dead. But that is precisely the theme of the game…

14

Both Max Payne and Jackie Estacado (from The Darkness) are arguably villains and I found both fun characters to play.

15

I don’t disagree. There are a number of characters who are doing their best, by their lights, although most are extremely selfish. It’s absolutely a game drawn in various shades of gray. But practically no one is clean.

And again, Johnny is still an absolute villain even if he doesn’t believe it. And all his friends have tried, failed, and often died trying.

16

I pretty much agree here. While CP2077 is pretty much a crapsack world as you say, some of the Nomads for example I’d call “chaotic good”. But you get a bunch of them killed. Maybe Goro Takemura could qualify as “lawful good” even though he works for EvilCorp? However, the only ending where you cooperate with him is pretty much chaotic evil.

IMO most of the main story missions in CP2077 tie you into being either evil or stupid - some, like freeing the Dolls, may have good outcomes but are typically half-assed or selfishly motivated. The side missions are much more varied, but (for good or bad) you never know if a mission is actually the fetch quest it appears to be, or if it might drop you into philosophical musings (Sinnerman). It’s a rare quest where V can go out of their way to do a genuinely good thing for no clear personal benefit (the suicidal neighbour, for example).

For RDR2 I agree a lot of the side missions are fun, entertaining, maybe even moving, and a lot of the world-building is fantastic even in just locations you find without necessarily a mission attached. But, for example, when a mission with Javier popped up, it could mean either going fishing or it could mean wiping out multiple generations of a backwoods family not bothering anyone in order to steal less money than I earned hunting the previous day, and then return to have Dutch yet again yell his canned “I know you’ll betray me one day, Arthur!”.

Loved Max Payne 1 & 2, how might you argue he’s a villain? Sure, there’s all the killing, but they’re all criminals and henchmen shooting at him.

17

Carrion is an excellent player-as-antagonist game. You’re not even human, you’re just a big bloody blob of tentacles and teeth. Your victims are literally faceless security guards and scientists. It’s one of the best games I ever played.

18

This is the main reason why I find RPG morality systems to be a little silly; most of the evil stuff is just pissing people off for no reason.

Not a villain protagonist, but I thought Mass Effect 2 was kind of stupid when they had the protagonist Shepard team up with the terrorist group Cerberus. Why would you take orders from a guy who’s essentially Dr. Mengele?

19

Maybe anti-hero is a bit more accurate.

The guy needs therapy. Big time. He is not in a healthy mental state at all. His grip on reality is frequently shown to be in question.

20

I think the theme is pretty consistent—in your example, there is no way the Dollhouse quest has a “good outcome”—you can either cooperate with the new gangster-affiliated boss, same as the old gangster-affiliated boss (so nothing changes for the better) or not, in which case gangsters attack and re-claim the Dollhouse, kill a bunch of people, and close it down.

There is a singular instance where you can rescue a man from a mugging, and you have the option of not taking his money. If so, he simply cannot comprehend that you would help a perfect stranger for no personal benefit, because it is the right thing to do—just does not compute.

But the way the game typically works is, e.g., you can intervene (for money and street cred) and save (or not) a poor old shopkeeper from being assaulted and killed by a street gang. It turns out he is a notorious war criminal responsible for grisly crimes the street punks could never match in a lifetime, and they had found him and were actually seeking vengeance/justice in the name of his victims.