9 Video Games Heroes Who Completely Failed At Their Quest

6. Walker - Spec Ops: The Line

Now this is stretching the definition of 'hero' a little bit, and Spec Ops: The Line's main character, Walker, has shown up on a bunch of our own video game villains lists, but that's a revelation saved for the climax.

For the bulk of the runtime, you're supposed to assume he's your average gaming hero. After all, he's an all-American solider who defies orders in order to take down Colonel Konrad, who's acting as something of a makeshift dictator in Dubai. The moral lines seem pretty set in stone, and Walker's unwavering desire to take out Konrad and the rest of his "Damned 33rd" battalion comes across as heroic.

Well, that is until the soldier bombs a bunch of civilians with white phosphorous and goes completely mad. Whoops.

From that point on, the protagonist becomes increasingly narrow-minded about killing the Colonel, a man who he blames for the innocent deaths he's responsible for and who taunts him over the radio. When he finally tracks him down though, killing blow in sight, it turns out Konrad has been long dead, and Walker has hallucinated the version he's been speaking to to rationalise his own actions.

He didn't get his man, and only contributed to the chaos he was supposed to be containing.