10 Incredible Characters Wasted In Terrible Video Games

One critical thing video games and movies have in common is how many disparate elements need to be brought together, cohesively, to make something great.

Just like we see a lot of movies with bad scripts but great performances, we see games that are total train wrecks on a technical level, but packed with quality writing and great characters. Heck, Obsidian has practically built their whole brand on this.

Sometimes, all of a game's pieces come together to make an instant classic, like, say, The Last Of Us. Other times, the developers end up in something of a square-peg-meets-round-hole situation designing the technical elements of a title while, one office over, the writing team is hitting a perfect game of unique and compelling characters to fill it with.

A really good character can make suffering through an otherwise catastrophic experience worth it. Just dial the difficulty down to the easiest level and enjoy the ride as smoothly as possible. And hope that, like some entries on this list, your beloved character returns later in a better sequel.

Until that wish comes true, here are some of the characters who carry entire games on their backs.

Bioware has fallen hard in recent years. Both in terms of game quality and the troubling stories about the treatment of their employees. In hindsight, we can see how Dragon Age II spelled the beginning of the end for the formerly beloved studio.

Dragon Age: Origins began development in 2002 and wasn't released until 2009. In that time, Bioware was bought by Electronic Arts, justifiably worrying everyone. So when its sequel was released just two short years later, it confirmed most of our fears.

Dragon Age II was a stripped down version of the original - largely linear, not nearly as complex or challenging, and threadbare in terms of content. The game often had you returning to the same areas repeatedly, just with different enemies.

DAII also dropped the backstory options of the original in favor of a single protagonist - Hawke. But surprisingly, Hawke quickly became the game's best selling point.

Over the years that pass in-game, we get to guide Hawke from naive refugee to prominent political figure and a total badass, champion of the people. This is a role playing game, so your experience may vary, but one thing every Hawke has in common is undenyable swag.