10 Utterly Sadistic Video Game Villains

For almost as long as there have been video games with playable characters, there have been villains programmed to try and oppose them.

From Pac-Man and the ghosts, Sonic and Dr. Robotnik to Mario and Bowser, a lot of these villains were initially just designed as bigger enemies with a bit more bite, to act as a suitable boss battle. However, as video games have grown into huge cinematic story-telling behemoths, the role of a video game villain has steadily changed.

With writers able to flex their creative muscles more freely, more and more layered and complex villains have popped up right across the video game spectrum.

And whilst some have continued to embrace the arcady feels of their predecessors, there have been more and more video game villains popping up with some truly horrific characteristics to their name.

Some of these villains have become as iconic as some of their counterparts in the television and film industries, and entire franchises have now built their legacies off of being able to write the most sinister baddies in the industry.

With all of that in mind, here are 10 of the most sadistic video game villains of all time.

Colonel Volgin is one of the most infamous faces from the Metal Gear Solid series and has developed a reputation for being one of its most hard-hitting antagonists. Making his debut in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Volgin is shown as being a Stalinist GRU colonel attempting to overthrow Nikita Khruschev as leader of the USSR and impose his own totalitarian regime.

Right from the get-go, Volgin is entirely void of basic empathy, and more than willing to eliminate anyone he deems to be in his way without a second thought.

He's able to enjoy torturing and inflicting as much pain on people as possible, with everything from beating Solid Snake to a pulp, electrocuting a woman, and kicking a man inside a barrel to death being used to demonstrate exactly how far this Russian's sadism extends.

There were also hints around Volgin being a potential sexual predator that Kojima Productions only ever dared leave on the surface level and in the game's concept art.

Nevertheless, there are more than enough scenes from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater to leave Volgin looking like one of the most deplorable figures the gaming world has thrown up.