Most people start a game with a very simple mindset: they assume the character they are controlling is a hero. This expectation comes from years of stories in which the main character always does the right thing to save the day. However, some games do not follow this model. In fact, some titles hide the truth until the very last moment, leaving players to realize that they have been the source of the problem the entire time.
8 Open-World Games Where You’re Treated Like The Villain
The characters in these open-world games treat you like a villain; whether it's for good reason or not is for you to discover.
The coolest thing about these games is how they use the player’s own actions to turn them into an accidental villain. Players might later realize that the monsters they fought were actually innocent bystanders or that the person giving the orders was lying all along, or maybe it's as simple as trying to do the right thing and not realizing who they were hurting along the way.
This list contains spoilers.
Braid
A Stalker Posing As A Savior
- Makes players believe Tim is a brave knight trying to rescue a princess from a terrible villain.
- The final level moves in reverse to show that the Princess is actually terrified of Tim and is setting traps to escape his obsessive pursuit.
Braid appears at first to be a bright, thoughtful puzzle game about a character named Tim chasing after a princess to rescue her from an evil knight. Players use time-manipulation mechanics to rewind time and undo mistakes as they solve puzzles. This clever design makes thinking and experimentation part of the fun.
However, there’s an unexpected twist towards the end. The princess at first appears to be trying to escape the evil knight with Tim’s help, but once time reverses again, that perspective flips. Instead of waiting to be saved, the princess is shown running away from Tim, not the knight. In fact, the knight is trying to help her. This means that Tim was not the hero the player assumed; he had been the threat the princess feared. She was setting traps not to stop a monster, but to stop Tim. The "monster" Tim thought he was saving her from was actually a knight who was trying to help her escape Tim’s grasp.
NieR
The Shades Are Not The Enemy
- Players kill shadow-like creatures called Shades to find a cure for Nier's daughter, viewing the violence as a necessary sacrifice for his family.
- The second playthrough reveals that the Shades are actually the souls of humans, meaning the protagonist is a mass murderer who eventually causes the extinction of mankind.
The story of NieR is famous for how it manipulates the player’s emotions with its plot twists. The main character, Nier, is a man driven by a single goal: protecting his young daughter, Yonah, from a deadly disease. The world is falling apart and is filled with strange, shadow-like creatures known as Shades. Nier spends the entire game hunting these creatures down with extreme prejudice, believing they are mindless monsters that threaten what remains of humanity. The player feels a sense of righteousness while killing these enemies because they are protecting an innocent child.
However, NieR is designed to be played more than once to see the full picture. In a second playthrough, it’s revealed that the Shades are not monsters at all; they are the souls of the original human beings. Long ago, humans separated their souls from their bodies to survive a plague. The people Nier is trying to protect are actually empty artificial bodies known as Replicants, who have gained their own consciousness. The Shades are simply trying to return to their original bodies, and Nier is wiping them out.
Spec Ops: The Line
Orders Followed, Atrocities Committed
- Captain Walker leads a team into a ruined Dubai to rescue survivors, but he ends up using chemical weapons on innocent people to finish his mission.
- The story reveals that Walker hallucinated his orders to hide the fact that he was committing war crimes, just so he could feel like a hero.
Spec Ops: The Line is a game that starts like a standard military action story. Captain Martin Walker and his small team of soldiers enters the city of Dubai, which has been destroyed by massive sandstorms. Their mission is to find a legendary colonel named John Konrad and see if there are any survivors. At first, Walker thinks he is a hero who is there to help. However, as things continually go wrong, he starts making more and more violent decisions. He tells himself that he has no choice and that he must keep moving forward to save the city.
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One of the most famous moments in the game is when Walker uses white phosphorus, a chemical weapon, to attack a large group of soldiers. After the attack, he walks through the burning ruins and finds out that he didn't just kill his enemies; he also burned innocent civilians to death. Instead of taking responsibility, Walker blames Konrad for the tragedy. He starts hearing Konrad's voice over the radio, mocking him and challenging him to keep going. The player continues to follow Walker’s orders, killing hundreds of people in a desperate attempt to reach the end of the mission and "fix" the situation. The ending reveals that Colonel Konrad has been dead for a long time. He committed suicide before Walker even arrived in Dubai. The voice Walker heard was a hallucination created by his own mind to hide the fact that he was the one causing all the destruction.
Silent Hill 2
A Journey Through A Murderer’s Mind
- James Sunderland explores a haunted town to find his deceased wife, fighting monsters that he believes are external demons.
- The town is actually a mental prison where James must eventually admit that he killed his wife because he could no longer handle her illness.
This psychological survival horror game shows how far someone can go to lie to themselves. Players are James Sunderland, a man who receives a letter from his wife, Mary, calling him back to their "special place." The strange thing is: Mary has been dead for three years. James travels to the town of Silent Hill to find out if she is somehow still alive. Throughout Silent Hill 2, James fights disgusting and terrifying monsters in a town blanketed by a thick fog. The player views James as a victim of a supernatural nightmare and a man who is grieving a terrible loss. James seems like a good person who is simply lost in a world of horror.
As the story goes on, it becomes clear that the town is not just a scary place; it is a mirror reflecting James’ own mind. Every monster he fights is a physical manifestation of his own guilt and dark thoughts. For example, the famous Pyramid Head is a symbol of James's desire to be punished for something he has done. The big reveal happens when James finds a videotape in a hotel room. The video shows James killing his sick wife by smothering her with a pillow. He did not lose her to an illness three years ago; he killed her because he was tired of taking care of her while she was sick.
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic
Discovering You Were The Sith
- A soldier works with the Jedi to save the galaxy from the Sith, slowly gaining power and fame as a champion of the Light side.
- The narrative exposes the truth: that the player is actually the former Dark Lord, Darth Revan, whose memory was wiped and replaced by the Jedi.
In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, players begin as a soldier with no memory of their past. They find out that they have a strong connection to the Force and are trained by the Jedi to help stop a massive war. A Sith Lord named Darth Malak is using an ancient space station called the Star Forge to build an army and destroy the Republic. Players travel to different planets to find Star Maps that will lead them to Malak's secret base. For most of the game, players feel like they are the Republic’s last hope for survival.
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However, the game features a massive twist that changes everything the player knows about their character. During a confrontation on a Sith ship, Malak reveals the truth: the player character is actually Darth Revan. Revan was the original Dark Lord of the Sith and Malak’s master. After Revan was captured, the Jedi Council decided to wipe their memory and give them a new, fake identity. The Jedi hoped that by doing this, they could use Revan’s skills to find the Star Forge and stop the war they started.
Golden Sun
Saving The World By Breaking It
- Isaac and his friends try to keep a group of people from lighting magical lighthouses because they are told that releasing Alchemy will destroy the world.
- The sequel proves that the world is literally falling apart because it needs Alchemy to survive, making the original heroes the ones who almost let the world die.
The saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is true, and Golden Sun is a reminder of this. In this RPG fantasy, Isaac and his four friends are trying to stop a group of people seeking to light four elemental lighthouses and bring Alchemy back. Isaac believes that he is a hero saving the world from destruction. He fights hard, defeats powerful enemies, and feels like he is doing the right thing by keeping the lighthouses dark.
The second game, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, changes everything by switching the story's perspective to Felix, who was an enemy in the first game. As the player controls Felix, they learn that the world of Weyard is actually dying because Alchemy was sealed away. Without the energy from the lighthouses, the world would fall apart. Isaac and his team were actually the bad guys in the first game because their success was causing the end of the world. By the time the two groups meet, players realize that the villains from the first game were actually the only ones trying to save the world.
Shadow Of The Colossus
Colossi Are Mostly Peaceful Creatures
- Wander enters a forbidden land to bring a girl back to life, hunting down sixteen peaceful colossi that have done nothing wrong.
- Each kill corrupts Wander’s soul and appearance, pushing him further towards his own doom.
Sometimes, to do good, someone has to do something bad first, and that’s how Shadow of the Colossus plays out. The protagonist, Wander, enters a forbidden land to save a girl named Mono. He makes a deal with a strange voice named Dormin to bring her back to life. To do this, Wander must kill sixteen massive Colossi.
These giants are mostly peaceful, but Wander’s job is to hunt them down and kill them. As the game goes on, Wander begins to look sick and cursed. His skin turns pale, and his face becomes veiny, and eventually, he sprouts horns from his head. Wander does manage to kill every Colossi in an effort to save Mono, except all this does is unseal Dormin from his prison, after which he possesses Wander's body. Therefore, while trying to save someone, this open-world game unknowingly turns players into the villain.
Papers, Please
The Agent Of A Cruel Government
- A border guard must follow strict laws to earn enough money for his family’s survival, often leading to heartless decisions at the inspection desk.
- Players become the villain by choosing to ignore the suffering of refugees and innocent people, just to follow the rules and protect their family.
It’s pretty hard to know where to draw the line between following the rules and being evil, and Papers, Please forces players to do just that. They find themselves in the shoes of a border security officer in a fictional communist country called Arstotzka. Their job is simple (at least on paper): check the documents of people coming to the border and decide who can enter and who must stay out. The player has a family at home who needs food, heat, and medicine, and so earning money is paramount.
Every time the player makes a mistake at the border, they lose money for the day. This creates a situation where the player must choose between being a kind human being and being a perfect government worker. If the player stops to listen to a sad story from a refugee, they might work too slowly and not earn enough money to keep their own children from getting sick. Over time, most players find themselves becoming cold and cruel. They start to ignore those who really need help just because they are following orders, and they are following orders because they're desperate to save their loved ones.
Heavy Rain
The Investigator Working For The Killer
- Scott Shelby is a private detective who helps the families of murder victims, and the player believes he is a kind-hearted man seeking justice.
- The mystery ends with the reveal that Shelby is the actual serial killer, and the player has been helping him destroy evidence and silence witnesses the whole time.
Heavy Rain is one of those games where players have to make tough moral choices and face the consequences. Players control four characters who are all trying to stop a villain called the Origami Killer. This killer targets young boys, leaving them to drown in rainwater while placing a small paper figure in their hands. The playable characters include Ethan Mars, a father whose son has been kidnapped; Madison Paige, a journalist looking for a big story; Norman Jayden, an FBI agent with high-tech glasses; and Scott Shelby, an older private investigator. Because the player spends so much time as Scott Shelby, they begin to trust him more than the others. He seems like a kind, helpful man who is visiting the families of previous victims to gather information and perhaps find some justice for them.
The huge twist in the story is that Scott Shelby is the Origami Killer. He is the very monster that the other three characters are trying to find. This reveal is particularly shocking because the player has been controlling Shelby for hours. When Shelby visits the homes of victims to investigate, he is actually searching for any evidence he might have left behind so he can destroy it. The game tricks players by showing Shelby’s actions in a way that makes them look like helpful detective work, even though his real goal is to cover his tracks.
BioShock
Obedience Disguised As Free Will
- The player follows commands without question, believing they are acting by choice.
- A major plot twist shows that players were never truly in control, only programmed to obey.
BioShock is the kind of game that keeps a huge plot twist waiting for players who blindly follow commands. After a plane crash, Jack finds himself in the underwater city of Rapture and is guided by a man named Atlas over the radio. Atlas seems like a good person who is trying to help Jack survive while fighting against a cruel man named Andrew Ryan. Throughout BioShock, Atlas uses the phrase "Would you kindly" whenever he asks Jack to do something. Players follow these instructions because that is how video games usually work: the player goes where the game tells them to go. Jack fights off monsters and does everything Atlas says, believing he is the hero of the story.
The truth is revealed when Jack finally meets Andrew Ryan. Ryan shows Jack that he is actually a brainwashed person who was created in a lab. The phrase "Would you kindly" is a hypnotic command that Jack is forced to obey. Jack has no free will; he is just a tool being used by Atlas, who is actually a criminal named Frank Fontaine. Players realize that they were never playing as the hero and making choices; they were just a puppet doing exactly what they were told. The truth is that Jack was a killer who murdered people simply because a voice on the radio asked him to.
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When being the hero is too much responsibility and being the villain is too much work, these games let players be the villain's sidekick instead.