14 Greatest Video Game Villains Of The Decade (So Far)

A hero's only as good as their villain, and these guys are unstoppable.

Why should the good guys get all the praise, huh? Because they fight the good fight? Bah, that's total rubbish - if there were no villains to fight, they'd all have given up years ago. Every well-realised hero needs an equal to play off of, and that's why the delinquents present on this very list are of a high enough calibre to be worth talking about. In fact, many of the anti-social, murderous and psychotic degenerates I'm celebrating are arguably more complex, interesting characters than their respective game's protagonist. There's so much more freedom to write a good villain than a hero. The latter almost always has to follow the rules of the world and do the right thing - usually at the behest of the player. Indeed, the protagonist's motives are - more often than not - a result of the player's own investment in their plight, but villains? They can be as off-the-rails and nutty as their creator wants them to be. Not having to adhere to a rigid frame for the sake of the player has led to some amazing villains since the start of the current decade. Read on to see who (and what) has earned the right to be called the best of the worst...
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Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.