10 Best Video Game Villains Of The Decade

Handsome Jack... better than all?

Borderlands handsome jack
2K

Behind every great hero is a great villain. Mostly because they're about to stab said hero and laugh maniacally while they writhe around on the floor bleeding out.

As long as there have been video games, there have been video game villains. Being a medium steeped in the mythologizing of combat, it makes sense that you can't really have a game without some kind of force standing in the way of you completing your goal. But with the advent of 3D and larger storage space came the introduction of story into gaming, and with it, complexity. And from that cocktail, came a new breed of villain.

Video game villains hold a special place because they aren't just hurting a character you're invested in, they are directly attacking YOU. And the best ones know just where to punch you to make you wanna punch back.

To find the best of all time is a herculean task. Which is why, now that we're approaching 2020, we've decided to list the best of the 2010's. The rules are simple, they have to have come from a game first, so no Joker from Arkham City. Otherwise it's free game, so let's celebrate the villains who made being bad look so good.

10. Jack Baker (Resident Evil 7)

Borderlands handsome jack
Capcom

Some men are born evil, some are made. And Jack Baker definitely fits into the latter category.

You wouldn't expect a Japanese company like Capcom to so fundamentally understand a thoroughly American horror from which Resident Evil 7 stems. And yet RE7 is one of the best entries in the entire series. And a lot of that comes down to its villains, the Baker Family. In particular, the patriarch of the household, Jack.

It's kinda hard to feel sorry for Jack when you first arrive, seeing as how he's seemingly kidnapped your wife and is now holding you hostage on his psycho death-zombie happy funtime farm. But the deeper you go into the lore behind the Baker house, the more you come to realize that this is just an after effect of the greater horror at play.

Long story short, the Bakers were a normal family, until Jack found a woman lying on the side of the road. It wasn't until he took her in to get her out of the rain, however, that he realized that the woman was an experimental bioweapon that proceeds to experimental bioweapon all over them. Taking these otherwise good innocent people and warping them into horrific shells filled with slime, hatred, and whatever that black gunk is.

Threatening, memorable and tragic, Jack Baker is the perfect start to our list of villains.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?