10 Best Games Where You Play An Antihero

In a traditional narrative, an archetypal hero works exclusively in the interest of peace and justice. They don’t need any more of a reason to do so beyond it being the right thing to do.

An antihero, however, isn’t quite as cut and dry. Antiheroes may also have a vested interest in seeing wrongs put right, but not always for the right reasons.

They may be in it for themselves rather than helping others, or they may go about their task in morally or legally-questionable ways.

Giving us an antihero to play with in a game can add fun new wrinkles to what would otherwise be fairly generic stories and plotlines.

10 Devil May Cry 3

Dante

Devil May Cry’s Dante is a good example of what you might call a “protagonist by default,” particularly in his canonical first appearance in Devil May Cry 3.

While he does ultimately save the world from Arkham’s machinations in the third game, he didn’t do it for humanity.

Dante just wanted a chance to fight Vergil, not to mention keep his dad’s power away from Arkham’s grubby hands.

In this and other appearances, Dante makes it clear that he’s generally ambivalent towards demon attacks.

If no one was paying him or messing with his family’s stuff, he probably wouldn’t bother with the whole rigmarole.

9 Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem

Duke Nukem is one of gaming’s most prominent antiheroes, though it wasn’t until his third outing in Duke Nukem 3D that this became apparent.

Duke may be the primary force standing between the Earth and alien invasion, but he’s also kind of a tool.

The entire reason he’s fighting the aliens in the first place is because their invasion wrecked his vacation plans.

He also causes quite a bit of property damage, uses illicit substances like steroids, and wastes time in strip clubs.

If we had literally anyone else who could deal with all this, it’d be great, but all we have is Duke and his overinflated ego.

8 God Of War (2005)

Kratos

If you’ve only played the modern God of War games, you may know Kratos as a fierce, but ultimately levelheaded father figure character.

In his first appearance in the original game, though, Kratos was not a good person, to put it mildly.

Even before he swore vengeance on Ares, Kratos was an agent of unmitigated destruction and chaos, killing soldiers and innocents en masse.

While Kratos’s task was assigned to him by Athena in the interest of protecting Athens, Kratos didn’t particularly care who he had to hurt, as long as he got his pound of flesh from Ares in the end.

7 Saints Row (2006)

The Playa

In the original Saints Row, the entire reason the Third Street Saints were formed was to take down the three dominant gangs of Stilwater and preserve the overall peace.

It’s a “fight fire with fire” situation, and your efforts as the Playa are focused on defeating the other gangs more than other criminal enterprises.

All the same, you’re still a gang member, you’re still involved in a lot of shady stuff, and there’s almost definitely some innocents getting caught in your crossfire.

The Playa, later the Boss’s antihero status, only perseveres throughout the original Saints Row games because there’s somehow always a worse gang (or alien empire) to tangle with.

6 The Secret Of Monkey Island

Guybrush Threepwood

It might feel strange to assign a character as unassuming as Monkey Island’s Guybrush Threepwood with a cool title like “antihero.”

That said, while he’s not as overtly dangerous as some other antiheroes, Guybrush isn’t exactly a saint either.

He cares most about being a renowned pirate, i.e. a literal seafaring criminal, and either harmed or inconvenienced several innocent people in his original adventure.

Even going against the Dread Pirate LeChuck is mostly just a means to an end, that being picking up some pirate street cred and impressing Elaine.

5 Persona 5

The Phantom Thieves

While the parties of the modern Persona games are all definitely in the right of things, the Phantom Thieves of Persona 5 are in a bit more of a gray area.

Yes, most of their targets are severely distorted people subjecting innocents to cruelty and forcing them to confess is to everyone’s benefit.

However, they’re doing this by circumventing the law and using a method that, as characters point out in the story, is akin to brainwashing.

The ends do justify the means, more or less, but Joker and company are still technically criminals. Lovable, Robin Hood-esque criminals, but criminals nonetheless.

4 Sly Cooper And The Thievius Raccoonus

Sly Cooper

Speaking of thieves, Sly Cooper epitomizes one of the classic antihero archetypes, the gentleman thief.

It’s always been the Cooper Clan’s credo to steal from other criminals, not because they care much for ethics, but simply because it’s more entertaining.

In his original adventure, Sly does tackle and ultimately dismantle the plans of the Fiendish Five, all of whom were threatening and harming locals in their own ways.

However, in doing so, he also disrupted multiple ongoing police investigations and stole a lot of stuff that was probably supposed to be elsewhere.

3 Tales Of Vesperia

Yuri Lowell

Tales of Vesperia’s main protagonist, Yuri, cares first and foremost about the people living in the lower quarter of the royal capital.

He’s sick to death of people being oppressed by corrupt royals and military personnel, and engages in vigilantism on a regular basis to remedy problems they won’t help with.

More than that, on several occasions, Yuri personally assassinates high-ranking knights and officers.

Their deaths may have helped innocents, but as Flynn stresses, one person can’t be the judge, jury, and executioner, even if Yuri thinks he’s ultimately doing the right thing.

2 Darksiders

War

The plot of Darksiders revolves around the capital-E End of Days, the final apocalyptic showdown between Heaven and Hell.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, including our protagonist War, are meant to be agents of balance, ensuring neither side fires a shot until the appointed time.

When War is framed for starting the apocalypse early, though, the Charred Council imprisons him and charges him with finding out who prematurely pulled the trigger.

War isn’t fighting because he cares about the Earth, humanity, or either side of the cosmic conflict. Someone just messed with his job, and upper management made it his problem.

1 Pokemon Colosseum

Wes

Throughout the mainline Pokemon games, it’s an iron-clad rule that you absolutely cannot attempt to catch another trainer’s Pokemon.

Pokemon Colosseum’s protagonist, Wes, was the very first to break this rule, utilizing the Snag Machine to swipe Pokemon right out from their trainers.

In fairness, you can only Snag corrupted Shadow Pokemon, and their ultimate purification is an undeniable net positive.

That said, Wes is still stealing Pokemon, and he was part of the team that originally developed the Snag Machine, so he’s not exactly squeaky clean in all this.