10 Most Shocking Gaming Betrayals
Deception and duplicity from some of gaming's most memorable turncoats.
Unless they’re doggedly individualistic or just too darn powerful to need them, video game protagonists tend to get by with a little help from their friends.
Whether they assist us through combat, moral support, quest-giving, item drops, or just through not constantly trying to stab us, video game allies are always there for us, on the front lines or back at home base.
So, when they do finally decide to stab us in the back, they twist that knife in deep. You have a certain level of detachment when an actor pretending to be a character in a movie betrays another actor, but when it’s a character you’ve been controlling this whole time, somebody whose mind and body you've effectively been inhabiting, it stings that little bit more.
It’s likely you’ve shared some tender moments or dark secrets with these characters, or have been put through the ringer by them in order to achieve what you thought was a common goal, only to have the rug pulled out from you when it's almost too late.
Have some unresolved trust issues getting you down? You might be able to trace a fair few of them back to these rotten apples...
10. Big Bo - Binary Domain
Binary Domain is one of the best, most ludicrous games nobody played last generation. Part-Blade Runner, part-Gears of War, it was a robot smashing TPS extravaganza that dealt with trans-humanism and the very real questions posed by artificial intelligence.
Throughout the game, you’re surrounded by an initially very stereotypical cast of characters. There’s the snarky British guy, the butch woman, the strong, quiet, sexy Asian sniper, and of course, the black comic relief sidekick.
The latter is your right hand man, Roy ‘Big Bo’ Boateng, who starts the game as part of the ‘Rust Crew’, a group of soldiers tasked with eliminating robots that can pass as human. In fact, he’s been in the Rust Crew for four years prior to the events depicted in Binary Domain.
But Bo eventually reveals himself to be in the pocket of the US government, who actually wanted to keep the game’s final ‘big bad’ Japanese AI all to themselves. It’s possible for Bo’s betrayal to be revealed as a ruse, depending on whether the player has gained his trust throughout the rest of the game. If not though, he’ll hold you at gunpoint, before jumping in a mech to join the other side of Binary Domain’s final boss fight.
Believe it or not, your best friend going bad is only the second most shocking twist in Binary Doma, but I'll leave that one for you to discover.