20 Smartest Video Game Villains Who Deserved To Win
Be honest - their plans were absolute genius.
The most basic cornerstone of storytelling in video games and really all media is that the hero triumphs over the villain at the end - more often than not, anyway.
It should be a triumphant moment for players to savour a job well done after potentially dozens or even hundreds of hours of play, but sometimes the Bad Guy's scheme is so damn smart, creative, and downright cool that it's tough not to kinda feel like they basically deserved to win.
Sometimes an antagonist puts so much work in to get the job done that they really deserve to have all that hard graft rewarded, and in some cases the hero's quest doesn't seem nearly as clever or put-together.
And so, while these video game villains were ultimately felled for one reason or another, they would've been absolutely deserving of the win in terms of planning, execution, and all-around swagger.
Far beyond the most generic, braindead baddie plans we've come to expect over the years, these villains all went the extra mile and got so agonisingly close to pulling it off, too...
20. Liquid Snake - Metal Gear Solid
You really have to hand it to Metal Gear Solid's Liquid Snake - the first of several Hideo Kojima villains on this list, and who touted one hell of a brilliant Machiavellian scheme.
Liquid's plan involved blackmailing the U.S. government for both $1 billion and the remains of Big Boss by threatening to launch a devastating attack against them with the nuclear-capable mech Metal Gear Rex.
From here, Liquid kills Solid Snake's mentor Master Miller and poses as him, feeding Solid false information that serves his own goal of activating Rex.
Ultimately, "Miller" convinces Snake to prime a PAL card he believes will stop the launch of Metal Gear Rex, but in actual fact this is the very card that Liquid needs to activate Rex, much to Solid's surprise when he uses it.
In the end Solid manages to narrowly destroy Rex and defeat Liquid, but damn if his evil clone brother didn't get within a mouse hair of pulling off his entire insane gambit.
And frankly, with the amount of effort he clearly put in, he totally deserved to.