Video games are generally seen as power fantasies, and it's hard to refute this analysis. This is because these games almost always cast the gamer in an ideal light, giving them the reins of a heroic character they can project themselves on.

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This isn't the case for all games, as some trick players by letting them play as a villainous character who just so happened to fit a disarmingly heroic mold. It's only by the midpoint or even the end that gamers realized who their character really is.

10 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 — The Player Was Ordered To Commit War Crimes

Joseph Allen Commits War Crimes In Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2

At its heart, the Modern Warfare sub-series are military conspiracies where the world is on the brink of mutual annihilation. As such, each game is filled with backstabbing and betrayals, but the most infamous villainous twists came in the second game. In brief, the player was given control of two characters who committed war crimes.

The first was PFC Joseph Allen, the star of the controversial opening mission "No Russian" where the player massacred a Russian airport. After Allen's death, players were given Sgt. Gary Sanderson (aka Roach), a member of Task Force 141 whose missions to bring certain people to justice were actually part of Gen. Shepherd's plan to instigate a war with Russia.

9 No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle — Travis Touchdown Is The Villain Of Jasper Batt Jr.'s Origin Story

Travis Fights Jasper In No More Heroes 2

In the original No More Heroes, players took on Assassination Gigs to earn extra money and points. The assigned targets ranged from the dangerous to petty, like the boss of a pizza restaurant. Little did players or Travis know that fulfilling this in-game distraction would turn them into the nemesis of the final boss and current number one-ranked assassin.

In Desperate Struggle, Travis fought Jasper Batt Jr., the only surviving son of the family that owned the Pizza Batt franchise. Specifically, Jasper wants to murder Travis for killing his father and two brothers. This act cemented Travis as an anti-hero who was just a few steps from full villainy since he became as amoral as the assassins he fought.

8 Shadow Of The Colossus — Wander Unknowingly Resurrected An Ancient Evil

Wander Gets Possessed By Dormin In Shadow Of The Colossus

Hoping to bring his dead lover Mono back to life, Wander brings her body to an ancient temple to ask the gods for help. A voice named Dormin promised Wander what he wanted, but first, he has to slay the sixteen Colossi that wander the ancient land. Wander does this in the name of love, not knowing that he was actually helping an ancient evil.

The Colossi all hold fragments of Dormin's being, and killing them meant restoring it to its full strength. In the game's final act, a fully powered Dormin possessed Wander's body in an attempt to escape the temple it was imprisoned in. Dormin was stopped at the last minute and Mono was revived, but these came at the cost of Wander's life. To this day, fans still wonder if Wander really was a hero or villain.

7 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain — Venom Snake Is Big Boss' Amnesiac Body Double

Venom Snakes Remembers Who He Is In Metal Gear Solid 5

Despite being made to create their own character at the start, players were given control of Venom Snake in the last true entry in Metal Gear Solid, a franchise so iconic that it overshadowed almost all stealth games. The twist was that both characters were the same, since the player's custom character was turned into Big Boss' body double after they barely survived XOF's attack on Militaires Sans Frontieres.

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While Venom Snake committing wartime atrocities was sadly not too surprising, what took gamers aback was that his descent into darkness was actually the origin story for the "Big Boss" that Solid Snake killed in the original Metal Gear. Though it took almost 40 years, the question behind Big Boss' apparent immortality was finally answered.

6 BioShock Infinite — Fr. Zachary Comstock Is Booker DeWitt From A Parallel Timeline

Comstock Takes Elizabeth In BioShock Infinite

Throughout BioShock Infinite, Booker fought his way through Columbia to free Elizabeth from the clutches of Comstock, the monstrous human embodiment of American exceptionalism. After killing him and escaping the doomed flying city, Booker is shown an existentially dreadful truth: he and Comstock are the same person.

BioShock Infinite's big divisive twist ending revealed that it takes place in a BioShock multiverse, and Comstock is who Booker would've become if he escaped his dark past by choosing religion instead of vices like alcohol and gambling. The only way to save countless worlds from Comstock's evil is to kill the original Booker, which is what a group of alternate Elizabeths does.

5 Silent Hill 2 — James Sunderland Killed His Wife & Was Haunted By His Guilt

Games James Confronts Maria In Silent Hill 2

In Silent Hill 2, James visits the haunted town after receiving a letter from his wife Mary, who died of a disease. James gradually remembers that while Mary was ill, she died because he suffocated her with a pillow. The town's horrors like the nightmarish Pyramid Head were shaped after his repressed guilt and desires, so much so that Maria was actually a sexualized version of Mary.

Depending on the player's actions, James will either come to terms with what he has done or not. The best possible outcome has Mary's spirit forgiving James, while James' bleaker ends include: suicide by drowning, repeating his mistakes by choosing Maria instead of acknowledging his sins, or trying to resurrect Mary via black magic.

4 BioShock — Jack Was Frank Fontaine's Unwitting Pawn

Jack Finds The Truth In BioShock

When Jack first descended into Rapture, he was greeted by Atlas, a friendly voice on the radio who begged for help. In the System Shock inspired BioShock's first half, Jack did what Atlas asked, thinking that they're helping Atlas defeat the villainous Andrew Ryan before escaping the underwater city. As it turns out, Jack has no free will and was conditioned to obey anyone.

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Specifically, Jack obeyed whoever uttered the key phrase "Would you kindly?," which Atlas (really Frank Fontaine) used to boss Jack into securing his control over Rapture. If the player harvested the Little Sisters, they can complete Jack's turn to evil as the game's bad endings show Jack merely replacing Fontaine instead of breaking the bloodshed.

3 Spec Ops: The Line — Capt. Martin Walker Was A War Criminal From The Very Beginning

Captain Walker Realizes His Sins In Spec Ops The Line

At first glance, Capt. Walker looked and acted like yet another derivative soldier protagonist from literally any modern military FPS game. But as Spec Ops: The Line wore on, it became clear that, unlike his patriotic contemporaries, Capt. Walker was not a hero or even an anti-hero. He was the villain, and players saw the world through his eyes.

With a misguided sense of duty and honor, Capt. Walker entered the ravaged Dubai and made things worse by merely being there. Through Walker, Spec Ops: The Line didn't just deconstruct military shooters and fiction, but questioned the player's desire to immerse themselves in what's essentially a war crime simulator for escapism's sake.

2 OFF — The Player Made The Batter "Purify" The World

The Judge Realizes His Errors In OFF

OFF starts off fairly simple: players are given control of The Batter, and they're tasked with the straightforward mission of killing monsters known as Spectres and their rulers, the Guardians. It's only after killing all of the Guardians to "cleanse" the Zones that players realize that they were essentially commanding The Batter to commit genocide.

The Guardians are directly linked with their respective Zones, and their death kills everyone living in the area. Worse, the one who's ultimately blamed is the player, not The Batter. The player was actually a part of OFF's reality, and they basically took on the role of a higher power that could've stopped The Batter at any point, but chose not to.

1 Undertale — The Player's LV & EXP Points Determine Who Lives & Dies

The Judge Realizes His Errors In OFF

Undertale is widely regarded as one of (if not) the best deconstructive video games ever made, as seen in how it used the medium's tropes and even user interface to tell its story. Case in point, LV and EXP (commonly understood to mean "Level" and "Experience Points") actually stands for "Level Of Violence" and "Execution Points."

If the player accumulated many LV and EXP points by always choosing confrontation and violence, they're revealed to be the game's true villain. In the "Genocide Route," the player killed so many characters that they ushered a world-ending scenario so devastating that it renders Undertale unplayable until the player answers Chara's questions correctly.

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