10 Video Game Villains Who Actually Killed The Hero

5. Edgar Ross (Red Dead Redemption)

Red Dead Redemption Edgar Ross
Rockstar Games

Ten years on, and the ending of Red Dead Redemption is still one of the most powerful and emotional moments in modern gaming.

After spending dozens and dozens of hours controlling protagonist John Marston, to watch him get gunned down by Edgar Ross and his cronies felt like losing a close personal friend, an incident that was made all the more devastating by the fact that he died to protect his family, giving his life so that they could ride away to safety.

After deciding to have Marston killed rather than letting him live in peace, Ross - with a massive firing squad in tow - corners our hero inside a barn, giving Marston one option, and one option only: to face his attackers and accept his death.

Exiting the barn, Marston is able to fire off a few bullets, but it's simply impossible for him to kill everyone. He's then absolutely shredded by well over a dozen guns, falling to his knees and dying in immense pain. Ross then smugly lights a cigar and departs the scene, leaving Marston's family to discover his bloody corpse.

If you didn't already resent Ross before this scene, you sure as hell hated his guts after it, so it was extremely satisfying that the game then let you play as Marston's son, hunting Ross down and exacting your revenge.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!