Video games often feature the player getting caught up in a complex conflict featuring opposing ideologies and ways of thinking. Sometimes these are straightforwardgood versus evilconflicts, while others are more nuanced. Due to this, the main character often has to recruit allies and develop friendships.
Related:Best Plot Twists in Nintendo Games
This is why it’s heart-breaking whencharacters who players think are on their side suddenly turn around and reveal that their intentions lay with the villains after all. This is usually a major twist that adds additional emotional stakes to the story and this betrayal can lead the player to be even more determined to take down the villain. Due to the nature of these reveals, all of these examples are spoilers for their respective games.
10Kor (Jak 2)
After Jak and Daxter escape from prison at the start ofJak II, an old man named Kor approaches the duo. He encourages them to join the underground resistance movement against Haven City’s ruler Baron Praxis, kicking off the events of the game. The duo continue to interact with this wise old man throughout the game, working with him on behalf of the underground.
However, his real identity is the leader of the Metal Heads, an antagonistic alien race persistently attacking the city. He’d been manipulating Jak to disrupt the fragile truce between the Baron and the Metal Heads and obtain a powerful ancient artifact. The duo ultimately take him down in a final boss encounter, ending his reign once and for all.
9Hilda (The Legend Of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worldsexpands onA Link to the Past’s dark world by turning it into a parallel Hyrule, a shadow kingdom known as Lorule. Hilda is the princess of Lorule, the shadow equivalent of Zelda. When Link first arrives in Lorule, she informs him that her kingdom is in danger and needs a hero. Naturally, Link steps up to help.
Related:The Strongest Versions of Zelda, Ranked
Hilda’s motivations aren’t as pure as they might seem, however, as she ultimately hopes to use Link to steal Hyrule’s Triforce, replacing the destroyed Lorule Triforce, a move that would prove disastrous to both kingdoms. Fortunately, after a battle she learns the error of her ways and puts things right.
8Kazuya Mishima (Tekken Series)
Fighting games often feature protagonists with noble goals, wanting to stop someone dangerous or merely testing themselves by challenging the best of the best. At first,Tekken’sKazuya Mishima is similar to characters like Ryu or Akira Yuki,especially with his beginner-friendly moveset. Even his goal of enacting revenge could be seen as noble as his target, his father Heihachi, is portrayed as a corrupt villain.
Tekken 2reveals that Kazuya possesses the Devil Gene, which allows him to transform into a powerful demonic entity. His reason for taking down Heihachi was to seize his power for his goal of world domination. Since then, he has been a major villain for the series, withTekken 7seeing him and Heihachi facing off one final time, but not before causing a significant amount of death and destruction along the way.
At the start ofDead Space, Isaac Clarke heads to the USG Ishimura with a small rescue team, and while some of this crew were picked off at the start of the game, two others – Zach Hammond and Kendra Daniels – work together with Isaac as an effective team to figure out what happened on the doomed spacecraft.
However, Kendra isn’t honest in her intentions, as she is secretly working for Earth’s government with the goal of securing the Marker, the source of the Necromorph outbreak, for nefarious ends. She betrays Isaac and flees before suffering a karmic death at the tentacles of the Necromorph Hive Mind her actions helped to unleash. It’ll be interesting to see how this betrayal is going to be handled with amore talkative Isaac in the upcomingDead Spaceremake.
6Maria (Silent Hill 2)
There aren’t many friendly faces waiting for James Sunderland inSilent Hill 2. One of the few is a charming woman named Maria, who looks strangely like his late wife. James and Maria keep each other company in the dark foggy town, and James does his best to keep Maria safe, as the horrors chase her down.
Related:Horror Games That Have Incredible Sound Design
However, after watching her get killed repeatedly by the monsters of the town, it becomes obvious that something isn’t right about Maria. By the end of the game, we learn she isn’t real, and was constructed by the town to torment him about his guilt over his wife’s death. A horribly mutated version of Maria makes for the game’s final boss.
5Lucy Stillman (Assassin’s Creed)
TheAssassin’s Creedseries revolves around the centuries-long fight between the Assassins and Templars. In the first game, Desmond Miles, a descendant of the Assassins, finds himself captured by Abstergo, a Templar corporation. However, he soon finds a friend in Lucy Stillman, who reveals herself to be an assassin spy who breaks him out and inducts him into the Order.
However, skip ahead to the end ofAssassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and Desmond finds himself possessed to kill Lucy. This is because what she told Desmond wasn’t entirely true – she is, in fact,a Templar spy hiding within the Assassins. This is a rare example where she was taken out before her true goals could be implemented, but it’s still a reveal that left players shocked.
4Captain Qwark (Ratchet & Clank)
In theRatchet & Clankseries, Captain Qwark was introduced as the great famous hero of the galaxy. However, throughout the first game it quickly became obvious that he was little more than a washed-up celebrity willing to sell his appearance to the highest bidder, happily working as a PR man for that game’s villain, Chairman Drek.
He would later turn out to be the main villain behind the events ofRatchet & Clank 2, resentful that the titular duo had effectively ended his career. He’s gotten less villainous as the series has gone on, even making an appearancein the latest PS5 game,Rift Apart, but his image as a heroic figure remains tarnished.
3Atlas (BioShock)
When the player first arrives in Rapture inBioShock, they find themselves staring down a Splicer in a faulty Bathysphere. A call from a mysterious figure named Atlas, however, changes their fortune, and this friendly Irish man becomes a valuable ally, guiding the player through the dangers of the underwater city.
Related:Best Plasmids in Bioshock
BioShock’s big twist reveals that the player has been manipulated the whole time, and Atlas is Ryan’s political rival Frank Fontaine, a con man who wants to take control of the city and extend its influence back up to the surface, a task the player ultimately puts a stop to.
2Tohru Adachi (Persona 4)
The plot ofPersona 4revolves around a series of murders with supernatural connections. While the protagonist and his friends investigatethe supernatural angle in the shadow world, his police detective uncle Ryotaro Dojima investigates the murders in the real world with his partner, Tohru Adachi.
Adachi exhibits poor investigative skills and blurts out sensitive information to anyone in earshot, but these turn out to be a front for his real motives. Adachi is behind everything, his nihilism pushing him towards destroying the world by pushing unsuspecting victims into the shadow world. This leads to a confrontation with the party towards the end of the game that ultimately decides the fate of everyone in Inaba.
1The Player (Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic)
InKnights of Old Republic, the main character is an amnesiac Jedi who joins the Galactic Republic who are fighting against attacks from the Sith Lord, Darth Malak. Forming a party, the player hops across the galaxy in search of information about Malak and his military resources, to bring peace to the galaxy.
Unlike other examples on this list, the reveal here is that the player themselves is the villain, and the identity they’d forgotten was another deadly Sith Lord, Darth Revan. This naturally doesn’t lead to a grand confrontation, the player is instead offered the direct choice – do they redeem themselves and continue with their new identity or do they return to the Dark Side?
More:Cool Villains Who Are Not Given Enough Screentime in Their Games
