10 Video Games That Let You Be An Utter Scumbag

7. The Last Of Us

A controversial pick now, perhaps, but hear us out. Naughty Dog's masterful survival horror classic pits the player as Joel, a bereaved father eking out an existence in a post-apocalyptic landscape, as he attempts to escort a teenage girl, Ellie, across the ruthlessly violent United States.

The game does a magnificent job of building a rapport between Joel and Ellie, and cementing their co-dependence in a harsh world with few true allies. And yet, Joel's actions at the conclusion of the game cast doubt over his already heavily ambiguous character and motivations.

The Last of Us of course ends with Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, preparing to perform surgery on Ellie in the hope of creating a vaccine - surgery which will remove Ellie's brain and, naturally, kill her. Joel cannot abide this and ends up rescuing Ellie, while killing Marlene in the process.

And the kicker? Joel lies to Ellie about what happened, claiming that the Fireflies had other immune survivors to work from and that none of them were able to produce a vaccine.

Joel acted out of pure self-interest, putting his own desire not to be alone - or experience the loss of a daughter surrogate character - above the potential for humanity's salvation.

It's fair to say that the Fireflies were also scumbags in their own right, and there was no guarantee that Ellie's death would in fact lead to a cure, but robbing both Ellie and the human race of a fair chance is undeniably abhorrent behaviour.

But the beauty of the story and characterisation is that it makes you question this fact, even if at the end of the day Joel denied the potential salvation of the human race because, ironically, he didn't want to lose his only remaining tether to humanity.