Sometimes a game gives you that villain without letting you know ahead of time, or you'll slowly slide down that path throughout the campaign, making the transformation into full-blown antagonist feel inevitable. It's an effective trope, one that raises a lot of expectations about what it means when we play as a “hero”.
Other games do not work around. These next FPS titles cast you as the villain right from the start. You may not know it at the time, but as you play through the game, you are the antagonist the entire time. It doesn't matter what decisions you make, or how good your intentions are; in these first-person shooters, you are definitely the villain.
Click on the game with higher OpenCritic rating.
The darkness 2
Neither Jackie nor his “birthday present” are heroes
Look, in the world of The Darkness 2, there are no heroes. Jackie, the “protagonist”, is now the boss of the Franchetti crime family and hosts a demonic force of nature known as The Darkness. He suppresses this demonic power for a time, but when attacked by a rival gang, he unleashes it and shows very little restraint in using it.
Between the Darklings he summons and the black snake tendrils that emerge from his back (which prompt Jackie to inflict as much violence as possible), it's clear from the first moment that Jackie is an anti-hero at best. That's certainly the role he took on in the first game, wrestling with his dark powers while trying to save his love interest. IN The Darkness 2, Jackie's motivation is almost entirely based on revenge, and later, stopping people from taking The Darkness from him. There isn't much altruism here other than maybe stopping worse people from using The Darkness. Beyond that, Jackie Estacado is just a bad dude, and he's not shying away from it anymore.
Far cry 4
Every single character is a villain, including you
Far cry 4 does everything in his power to convince you that Pagan Min, the game's antagonist, is an evil dictator who must be stopped in order to free Kyrat. In his place, a rebel group called the Golden Path will take over and lead Kyrat back towards peace. As Ajay, your job is to depose Pagan Min and choose which of the two potential leaders of the Golden Path can take his place; either that, or take the role for yourself.
The scenes where Pagan Min gleefully tortures people are all you need to know about the kind of ruler he is. But if you choose to side with Sabal, he turns Kyrat into a theocracy and executes all non-believers. Accompanying Amita turns Kyrat into a state funded entirely by drug running, where she nurtures all the children in the country to become soldiers for the golden road. The other option is to kill both Sabal and Amita, spare Pagan Min, and become ruler of Kyrat himself. It's… not good either. No one in Kyrat suggests that Ajay be their ruler (except Pagan Min, who seems almost too happy about it), but he takes it by force anyway. Even worse, we really only know one thing about Ajay: he's an excellent killer. That's not exactly the benchmark for a benevolent leader.
Monday 2
You're a professional bank robber, does that even matter?
This one is pretty self-explanatory; despite being a multiplayer game, there are no heroes you can play as Monday 2. Instead, you can play as one of the 22 members of the Payday Gang, a group of criminals who specialize in heists. You take part in a variety of heists, from robbing banks and armored cars to stores, as well as manufacturing and selling drugs on occasion.
There is actually a story in it Monday 2, but it does nothing to redeem its characters, instead elevating them from typical criminals to senior criminals. The game never tries to dispel the fact that you're playing a villain; if anything, it begs you to revel in it. It even gives you the option to betray your teammates and walk away with a bigger chunk of the loot. Being bad is the name of the game, and it does Monday 2 so fun
Entropy: Zero 2
Half-Life from the perspective of the combine
Entropy: Zero 2 is not a full game release, although it plays like one. Instead, it is a detailed Half-Life 2 mod where you play as a Combine soldier in search of Dr. Judith Mossman in the Arctic. However, to call this a mod is reductive. Entropy: Zero 2 features a seven-chapter campaign with fully voiced characters, new weapons and enemy variants, and the ability to issue commands to your fellow Combines. The highlight is the Xen grenades, which consume an enemy target and create a Xen creature in their place.
If you are at all familiar with Half-life lore, you know that the combine is an absolutely terrifying interdimensional alien force that conquered earth in what is known as the seven hour war. While they would usually just eliminate humanity, harvest Earth's resources and move on, Dr. Wallace Breen convinced the Combine that humanity could still provide benefits if they were enslaved. As such, combine soldiers like Bad Cop, the “protagonist” of Entropy: Zero 2, are not the combine themselves, but enslaved people brainwashed by the combine and made to serve them without question. With that in mind, while there's some nuance to Big Cop's desire to be a straight-up villain, there's little doubt about his role as you play through the game.
Change
It's not really Morgan Yu
Some final spoilers here too Change, but unfortunately that's the only way to explain why it's undeniable that you're playing as the villain. Throughout the game, you play as Morgan Yu and explore the Talos I space station as it is overrun by aliens known as Typhon. Typhon are mimics, meaning they can take the form of any object in the world. This often manifests itself in a Typhon pretending to be a coffee mug or a chair and jumping out at you as you walk by. But they can mimic other things too. Do you see where this is going?
When you reach the end, Morgan's brother, Alex Yu, reveals that you haven't actually played as Morgan at all. Instead, you are also a Typhon. You are part of an experiment to determine if the aliens can understand empathy. What is the reason for the experiment? Well, Typhon hasn't just taken over Talos I; they have already invaded earth and they are winning. Alex experiments with them to see if an empathic Typhon can be sent as a representative to begin building relations between the aliens and humanity. Lucky you're that Typhon. Assuming you passed the empathy tests, that is. If not, well, they'll just destroy you and run the experiment again.
Haze
No matter who you fight for, nectar will never be used for good
Haze shares some thematic elements with Far Cry 4, despite the latter being by far the more popular game. Here you play as Shane Carpenter, a Mantel soldier who takes mandatory doses of an enhancement drug called Nectar. Shane and his squad are tasked with taking out the Promise Hand, a rebel group opposing Mantel. As the battle continues, Shane misses a few doses of Nectar, and suddenly he witnesses a completely different engagement. His fellow soldiers torture prisoners, and some of them die of Nectar overdoses.
Disillusioned by what he has seen, Shane defected and joined the Promise Hand, this time fighting Mantel and using their nectar against them. Naturally, he is successful, destroying Mantel's supply of nectar and sending its troops into fits of insanity as the drug's effects wear off. But instead of declaring victory, Promise Hand continues the attack, slaughtering Mantel and claiming the remaining Nectar stores for themselves. Granted, Shane didn't exactly know he was the villain in either case, but no matter which side he chose to fight for, he ended up doing more harm than good and helping those who wanted to continue using Nectar to gain power.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!
Every starting character is either a villain in other games, or they are pats
Just like everyone else Borderlands the game you choose from one of four playable characters to start Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! While they're all more or less anti-heroes this time around, each of these characters has appeared in other games, and three out of four were outright villains. The fourth, Claptrap, is not a villain in the traditional sense, but he is the most despicable of the bunch. Do you really want to play as him?
Athena is the most morally gray of the group. She initially worked for Handsome Jack as an assassin, a role she had performed since childhood. But she eventually breaks up with Jack and begins to redeem herself. Nisha is Handsome Jack's ex-girlfriend. IN Borderlands 2, she is the sheriff of Lynchwood and is also a boss fight. Wilhelm, meanwhile, starts out mostly human, but through an endless series of cybernetic enhancements he eventually becomes a cyborg and serves as Jack's enforcer in Borderlands 2. He also plays in a boss fight to finish the mission “A Train to Catch”. This one is a bit sticky, as these characters are obviously not villains in the The prequel. But their roles in later games (chronologically) portray them as villains, so if you're familiar with Borderlands 2 when you enter, you'll feel like you're playing as the villains no matter who you choose. And if you choose Claptrap, maybe it is you who is the villain.
