10 Awesome Video Game Villains That Died Too Early

Vaas, we hardly knew ye.

By Jack Pooley /

Ubisoft

The very best video game antagonists are typically those who we love to hate: those colourful characters with unique designs who are brought to life by fantastic acting, such that the player relishes eventually getting the opportunity to kill them at the end of the game.

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But not all games save these marquee showdowns for last, often killing off memorable villain characters earlier than fans expected, and not always for the better.

Though there's something to be said for subverting player expectations, in the case of these 10 games, the developers clearly underestimated just how freaking cool their disposed-of villains were - and just how much fans would miss their presence.

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Bar perhaps one self-aware example, all of these games struggled to fill the void left by their prematurely-dispatched antagonist, making it clear that the dev team had no idea just how desperately fans wanted these characters to stick around.

Did all these deaths tank their respective games? Not quite, but they certainly left players with a deflated sense of disappointment that one of their major selling points was taking a hastened dirt-nap...

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