8 Games that Let You Be an Evil Bastard

Editor’s Note: Looking for a game to let your inner bad guy shine through? These should have you covered!

Sometimes you just want to be bad. That’s not as easy as it sounds, especially in the world of video games. Most games cast the player as the hero – the savior. But some games turn that on its ear, and let you step into the shoes of the bad guy – the one who’s creating all the fuss in the first place. Some even make you think that the bad guy is actually the hero, or let you make that determination for yourself. If you’re looking to get your “I’m an evil bastard” fix, these eight games suggested by our community should do the job.

Special thanks to sagitel for starting the thread!

Don’t see your favorite? Tell us what it is in the comments!

Alpha Protocol
First mentioned by Mutant1988

Obsidian’s spy story leaves a lot of choices up to the player, and depending on how you play through it, you can be quite evil indeed. Not only can you be a self-serving psychopath with no conscience at all, you can also be a rude, annoying bastard. The game doesn’t have a traditional morality meter. Instead, it offers up options that are all some shade of gray, and then makes those decisions stick to you, unlocking even more dialog options that match your attitude, and enabling you to be just as evil as you want to be.

Maybe no game has given players the option to be evil better than Postal 2. The main character, “Postal Dude,” is given a series of tasks to perform. Most of them are mundane, but the real challenge is the other people in the world. You’ll be mugged, attacked, harassed, and otherwise provoked by pretty much everyone in the game, and there are weapons to pick up everywhere. You can play the game as peacefully or as violently as you want, and you can be awfully evil, including picking up stray cats to use as silencers.

Evil Genius offers a campy take on being evil. Instead of true evil, it’s more like Bond-villain evil with an Austin Powers aesthetic.. It plays a lot like Dungeon Keeper, in that you have to expand your own base, capture invading agents, and send your minions out into the world to wreak havoc. While everything has a humorous slant, you can expect to engage in all sorts of evil activities, from capturing an torturing enemy agents to constructing a doomsday device of your choosing. It’s evil in the spirit of Dr. No.

God of War III
First mentioned by FPLOON

When the God of War series began, Kratos was almost a sympathetic character. He’d been shafted by the gods and was out for a little payback. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop there, and by God of War III, he’s gone completely around the bend. He’ll kill anyone and everyone who gets in his way, even when they try to help him. He kicks puppies, and even gouges out the eyes of his opponents while you watch in first person. He’s really go no redeeming qualities left, and it shows.

Dungeon Keeper
First mentioned by WouldYouKindly

Dungeon Keeper drops you into a dungeon, and tasks you with expanding it. Once you’ve done that, you need to outfit it to lure in heroes that you can then exterminate. You can also send your minions out in to the world to destroy various locations on the world map. You can also torture enemies to death to created ghosts that will fight for you, or to create a vampire by burying a dead enemy. It’s a reversal of the typical dungeon crawl mentality, and one that works quite well.

Saints Row 2
First mentioned by Evonisia

While the Saints Row series has become well known in recent years for its zany take on the open-world formula, Saints Row 2 was quite a different animal. In that game, The Boss was little more than a sadistic crime lord. He’s out to either take over or eliminate all the gangs in the city, just because he’s looking for a way to occupy some time. Outside of the main story missions, you can dress as a police officer and brutalize citizens, and you can protect drug dealers from the cops. While much of the game is humorously styled, there’s no denying how evil The Boss really is.

Peter Molyneux’s Black and White gave players the freedom to be whatever type of deity they wanted, including a vengeful one. You could choose how to impress your villagers, either by assisting them or by terrifying them. Throwing fireballs, tossing villagers into the sea, and even creating plagues were all possible, and you could use these tactics to force your villagers to work, even driving them to their deaths. Your temple reflected your evil, turning black and sprouting spikes, and your creature would do the same, with an evil creature manifesting glowing eyes and massive fangs. If you’re looking to terrorize an entire population, Black and White is your game.

Few protagonists are as evil as Prototype’s Alex Mercer. Mercer, a powerful shape shifter, awakens with no memory in a New York City that is rapidly succumbing to the Blacklight plague. He has amazing powers that result in large amounts of casualties when used, and his disregard for innocent bystanders is on display throughout the game. Even worse, he regains his memory only to learn that he was the one who loosed the virus on the city. His actions are completely irredeemable, and yet he persists in thinking of himself as a hero. It’s a perfect game to top this list.