5 Video Game Villain Archetypes (That We're Really Bored Of)

5. Insane Corporations

Notable Examples: CELL, Umbrella Corporation (and most other companies in Resident Evil), Armacham Insane corporations are the mad scientists of our time. They engage in morally dubious actions for questionable profits and wind up endangering tons of people, if not the whole world. Many times they come across as unimaginably stupid, even by the low standards of real life corporations, for missing the obvious warning signs that their actions might cause huge catastrophes (like the fact that using an alien sleeping under New York as a power source might wake up). For me, the insane corporation is a big neon sign shouting "Turn off your brain." It tells me that the writers either couldn't come up with a good villain or thought that making a company evil counts as social commentary (Crysis 3 is a good example). An old franchise like Resident Evil or Syndicate gets a pass, because the archetype hadn't been run into the ground when they started, but these days, it feels like a vestige of cyberpunk that never grew up. Yeah, corporations are big monolithic entities, but even they know that blowing up world isn't good for the bottom line... and neither is holding on to their private armies.