10 Best Star Wars Villains Who Debuted In Video Games

10. Darth Malak - Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic

If nothing else, Darth Malak proves the importance of a strong visual hook when it comes to good villain design.

There's a cutscene in 2003's Knights of the Old Republic - the game where Malak makes his villainous debut - where we see what the follically-challenged Sith Lord looked like before he had his cybernetic collar attached, and the difference is striking.

Without the metal mouthplate, Malak looks like one of the generic goons you spend the game much of the game slicing through. With his jaw replaced by a cybernetic mouthpiece however, the Sith Lord looks far more intimidating - and the reveal of what his face looks like without the plating is still an effective slice of body horror 20 years later, original Xbox graphics be damned.

And while Malak may be overshadowed by Knights of the Old Republic's other Darth (who - spoiler alert - will be making an appearance later in this list), he's an effective antagonist in his own right. His very first act is to destroy an innocent planet by carpet bombing it from orbit, and his last words ("and in the end, as the darkness takes me...I am nothing") are a perfectly pathos-ridden crescendo to his relationship with the main character.