10 Iconic Video Game Villains RUINED By Developers
5. Skull Face - Metal Gear Solid
Skull Face was first introduced in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain's snappy prologue, Ground Zeroes. His Western outfit and ghoulish face, combined with a mysterious past (delivered masterfully by James Horan's vocal performance), set him up as the big baddie every player wanted to take down.
Sadly, what these players were served up was one of the biggest examples of a developer not knowing what they had until it was too late.
For starters, Skull Face is barely in the game. His screentime across Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain barely amounts to 30 minutes, a criminally low number made even worse by the decision to strip the series back from the glossy cinematic feel of its predecessors.
Instead of gradually dropping in revelations about said mysterious past and motives throughout the game, Skull Face notoriously dumps Snake in a jeep and dumps every last drop of exposition he has on him. His one big sequence with the player lasts over 10 minutes and then, to add further insult to injury, is brought to an end when he is crushed by Metal Gear Sahelanthropus.