10 Video Game Villains You Didn't Want To Kill (But Had To)

Every good story needs a good villain to add an opposing force for its protagonist to fight.

However, not every villain is actually deserving of their title. Some of them, for all the bad and evil they're associated with, are actually pretty sympathetic characters and can even make you feel sorry for them.

This type of villain is especially hard to deal with in the medium of video games. After all, since you are responsible for your character's actions, when a game asks you to kill a sympathetic bad guy, it isn't just the protagonist's hand that is stained with their blood—it's also yours!

To make matters worse, in some titles, you don't even have a say in killing a villain who probably deserves a second chance. The game simply forces you to do so, and if you want to progress through the story, you'll have to be ready to bear the guilt of taking them down.

From innocent souls forced into doing bad things to tragic anti-heroes and misunderstood outcasts, the following characters are villains only in name. The true monster of their story is actually you, who's destined to bring them to an undeserved end, no matter how much they might regret it.

Bloodwing is the bird-like alien companion of the hunter Mordecai from the first Borderlands game. Most who have played as Mordecai in the original title have a soft spot for the bird, as Bloodwing stays close by his master's side all throughout the story, and the hunter tends to talk quite a bit about him.

Unfortunately, like a lot of the original cast members in the sequel, Bloodwing doesn't get a happy ending. Handsome Jack eventually delivers Bloodwing to the great beyond, and worse of all, he makes you do it with your own two hands (plus guns, turrets, and all the other deadly toys kept in your pockets)!

You see, in the second half of the game, when your team meets with Mordecai, Handsome Jack mutates his beloved companion and transforms him into a mindless monster that you have to put down.

It's already bad when the villain takes out a legacy character. It's even worse when he makes you do it for him. But then again, this kind of diabolical mindset is exactly why we all love Handsome Jack.