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4 Iconic Video Game Characters Who Would Be Villains If Their Stories Were Told Honestly
Video games have a way of turning us into accomplices to questionable moral actions without us even realizing it. Often because of the perspective of things, we root for characters who make impossible choices and justify their every action with the vague idea of doing what is right. We celebrate them as heroes because we experience their stories from the inside out, through their triumphs and heartbreaks. But think about it. Take a step back, strip away the emotional framing, and many of gaming’s most beloved protagonists would not look heroic at all from another angle. In fact, many of them would be straight-up villains in the eyes of everyone else involved.
That is what makes this topic so fascinating. The best video game characters are complex and often hide their darkness through a lens of false positivity. Imagine if their stories were told by someone else, not the companion or the ally, but the people left in the aftermath. From saviors who doomed humanity to explorers who destroyed entire cultures, these four characters would easily be portrayed as villains if the truth about their actions were told without character bias.
Joel Miller (The Last of Us)
Joel Miller is the perfect example of a “hero” whose story depends entirely on perspective. The Last of Us paints him as a broken man finding purpose again through Ellie, a surrogate daughter in a world that has pretty gone completely mad. As a player, you’re shown his and feel his loss. His desperate need to protect something in a landscape where everything has been taken from him is made extraordinarily apparent. But Joel’s actions, when removed from emotional context, reveal something far darker than and broken man’s desire to protect someone. His journey across America leaves behind a trail of corpses, many of whom are not infected monsters but human beings trying to survive in their own way. Many of these bodies are left due to self-defense, but arguably, many more are a result of Joel’s selfish actions; a concept that eventually leads to his death in the second game.
At the end of his story, Joel murders dozens of people and dooms the only known chance at a cure humanity has. The Fireflies, while certainly not saints themselves, were humanity’s last hope, and Joel chose his personal happiness over the survival of everyone else. His motivations make sense to him, but they are rooted in selfishness and fear. He makes a choice for the entire human race without their consent, and even Ellie herself, the one for whom he does all of this for, is lied to about the situation. If this were told from the Fireflies’ perspective, Joel would be remembered not as a father figure but as the man who killed the world twice: once with his gun and once with his heart.
Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher series)
Geralt of Rivia is an interesting case in this discussion because of his often neutral take on things. Often feels like the embodiment of stoic heroism. He fights monsters to protect the innocent and operates by a personal code he aims to rarely break. Yet that same code allows him to justify things most people would never forgive. He claims neutrality in a world burning from political conflict, yet his very presence influences those outcomes. Entire kingdoms rise and fall around him, and his so-called neutrality is just another way to avoid accountability for his power. Geralt’s decisions, whether intentional or not, often dictate the fates of others, all while he tells himself he has no stake in their lives.
In reality, when you strip away the romanticism, Geralt is a mercenary: a killer for hire, a man who decides which lives are worth more than others based on contracts and coin. The monsters he slays are often intelligent, even sympathetic, yet they die for existing in the wrong place at the wrong time. His line between justice and murder depends entirely on his client’s gold and his own moral whims. He claims to be above human cruelty, but his trade expounds it like a plague. Told from the perspective of those so-called monsters, Geralt becomes less a savior and more an executioner who hides behind a carefully crafted reputation of honor. Witchers and coin go hand-in-hand, so it makes total sense for Geralt of Riva, Witcher for Hire, to end up on this list.
Commander Shepard (Mass Effect series)
Commander Shepard’s story is one told through a lens of human-based unity and heroism, at least on paper. However, if you look, instead, through to the side of the lens and not through it, Shepard’s record is riddled with devastation. Planets are destroyed, species are wiped out, and cultures are manipulated to align with a single human-centric worldview. These things already are, obviously, highly questionable, but it gets more interesting the more you look. Even when acting as a paragon, Shepard makes decisions that would be considered war crimes by any other standard. They broker peace through coercion and force alliances through fear, using diplomacy as a weapon rather than a bridge.
If the story of Mass Effect were told by the Reapers or even by the alien species Shepard supposedly saved, things would look very different. Shepard enforces their will through violence or persuasion, leaving countless dead in their wake. They decide who lives and who dies, often based on limited information, emotional bias, or the fact that he is a Spectre. Every mission leaves behind collateral damage, and every victory is built on tragedy, but it’s considered “okay” due to his position. The galaxy’s so-called savior is also its greatest manipulator, a soldier who unites the stars under one moral banner simply because no one else has the power to stop them. In another narrative, Shepard would not be a hero but a tyrant who won the war by rewriting history in their own image. Classic humanity.
Lara Croft (Tomb Raider series)
Lara Croft has been celebrated for decades as the ultimate adventurer, a fearless explorer uncovering the mysteries of the past. Yet beneath that image lies a darker truth. Her adventures often begin with discovery but end in destruction. She desecrates sacred tombs, steals priceless artifacts, and kills the very people protecting them, all in the name of research and survival. Lara’s heroism relies on the colonial myth that ancient cultures exist to be conquered or understood by outsiders. Her actions, though wrapped in the excitement of adventure, mirror the destructive tendencies of explorers who justified theft and violence in the name of progress throughout actual human history.
Reimagine her story through the eyes of the locals whose temples she raids, and the perspective changes entirely. Often, she becomes an intruder who storms sacred grounds and takes what she wants. The fact that Lara’s violence is often reactive does not atone for the fact that she is in places she does not belong. Her so-called survival instincts are often the reason conflict starts in the first place. She may tell herself it is for the greater good or for historical preservation, but in the end, her legacy looks less like that of an explorer and more like that of a plunderer rewriting history to glorify herself. She is the villain of most cultures she claims to protect.
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