Most video games have either one protagonist or a gaggle of protagonists all generally moving in the same direction, toward the same goal. However, a story doesn’t always have one protagonist, and in some cases, one story’s protagonist could be another story’s antagonist.
Many video games have given us the opportunity tocontrol not just the story’s designated hero, but its villain as wellon an adventure of their own.
10 Games Where You Never Fight The Main Villain
They may be bad, but they’re not strong enough to fight you themselves.
This can manifest in a handful of different ways. Maybe a larger-scope villain has necessitated cooperation between the hero and their usual nemesis, or maybe the villain is working on their own schemes independent of the hero’s activities.
Maybe we only get a brief moment to control the villain while they do something cool, or maybe we were controlling the villain the whole time and didn’t know it. However they go about doing it, these are our favorite games that let us play both sides.
Warning: We’ll be covering spoilers for some of the following games.
9Injustice 2
Batman V Superman
Injustice 2
Fighting games, by their very nature, let you control both sides of a conflict. However, since the characters fighting are entirely dependent on who gets selected by players, it doesn’t really count from a narrative perspective. However, there are more story-centric fighting games, particularly those made by Netherrealm, that have you shuffling perspectives between factions quite a bit.
One of the most overt examples of this is inInjustice 2, wherein you constantly change perspectives amongst not just the members of Batman’s Insurgency like Black Canary and Blue Beetle, but the remnants of Superman’s Regime like Cyborg and Wonder Woman.You may even find yourself duking it out with characters you were just playing as.
The advent of Brainiac does necessitate some temporary alliances in the story’s climax, but once he’s dealt with, it’s ultimately on you to decide who wins the final conflict between Batman or Superman. Whomever you select, they’re the one who assumes control of everything in the end.
8Sonic Adventure 2
“Better Not Let The Dark Side Win!”
Sonic Adventure 2
The original Sonic Adventure tinkered with having multiple character campaigns with stories running concurrently, but barring perhaps Gamma, all of these characters were of a strictly heroic disposition.Sonic Adventure 2, however, took things in a slightly different direction: rather than individual stories for each character,the game was split up into two sides: Hero and Dark.
The Hero side story followes Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles in their efforts to stop Dr. Eggman from gathering up Chaos Emeralds to power his giant moon-destroying space laser. The Dark side, meanwhile, followes Eggman himself alongsidethen-new characters Shadowand Rouge as they commit crimes and threaten the world with annihilation.
Amusingly, both sides are at odds with the world’s militaries, though in Sonic’s case, it’s only because he’s been mistaken for Shadow.
Ultimately, both sides of the conflict team up for the Last story, unlocked after completing the other stories, where they need to stop the ARK from crashing into the Earth and killing everyone. It’s actually a rather heartwarming bit of cooperation, especially for Eggman, though obviously it doesn’t last.
7Live A Live
Oops, All Odio
Live A Live
For the majority ofLive A Live, the individual stories you’re playing through don’t seem to have much in the way of a common thread beyond the fact that each of their villains have a name similar to “Odio.” After you complete the initial seven scenarios, though, an eighth scenario is revealed, wherein you play as the knightly hero Oersted in the middle ages.
This seems like a typical “hero of light beats up a demon lord” situation, but suddenly takes a hard left turn when Oersted is framed for killing the land’s king and ends up a friendless pariah. Enraged, he takes up the demon lord’s empty throne and declares himself the origin of evil, Odio.Whoops, you’ve been the bad guy all along.
What happens in the game’s final arc depends on you. If you choose one of the seven heroes, they’ll team up and go toe-to-toe with Oersted, now Odio. However, you’re able to also choose to make Oersted your protagonist, having him assume direct control ofhis incarnations throughout timeto wipe out the heroes retroactively.
6Shovel Knight
One Hero, Three Villains
Shovel Knight
WhenShovel Knightoriginally launched, the game was exclusively about the titular knight and his quest to rescue Shield Knight from the Tower of Fate. However, over time, the developers added three additional campaigns to the game, wherein you control three of the villainous knights from the Order of No Quarter.
All four of these campaigns are canon;King Knight’s comes first, then Specter Knight’s, then Plague Knight and Shovel Knight’s run concurrently.
Obviously, when you’re playing as Shovel Knight, you do battle with these knights and the other members of the Order of No Quarter. However, the other three also battle the other knights for their own reasons, as well as Shovel Knight himself, either in their own respective levels or elsewhere.
It’s interesting to experience these particular battles from the other side, as Shovel Knight has all of the items and abilities that he would by that point of the game to use against you.
5Devil May Cry 5
V For Vergil
Devil May Cry 5
Devil May Cry 5has three primary playable protagonists: Nero, Dante, and the enigmatic V. The latter is the one who originally contracted Devil May Cry’s services in defeating the demon “Urizen,” and uses his summoned demons to fight alongside Nero and Dante as they work to dismantle the Qliphoth.
You play as V for a decent chunk of the game, splitting most of the first half between him and Nero.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, V is not quite what he appears to be. Specifically,he’s the cast-off human remains of Vergil, created when he separated his demonic essence from himself using the Yamato. After Dante defeats Urizens, V reunites with him, restoring Vergil to his full, former glory to assume lordship over the Qliphoth’s blood-drawn power.
Devil May Cry 5: Best Weapons, Ranked
The fitting tool of a Devil Hunter to slay Hell’s minions.
If you want to get into the semantics of it, V is only half of Vergil, so he might not be a full villain. However, you do get to play as Vergil properly in the game’s non-canon DLC, so either way, you’re getting a nice, big dose of his edgy vibes.
4Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Just about all Spider-Man games run through a gaggle of different villains before ultimately settling on the story’s primary threat. You gotta show off the whole rogues gallery when you can, after all. InMarvel’s Spider-Man 2, the ultimate villain of the day is Venom, but before we get to fight Venom, we get to control him in his… youthful state, let’s call it.
Midway through the story, afterthe Venom Symbiotetransfers itself from Harry Osborn to Peter, you get a chance to use its destructive, tendril-y powers to battle against Kraven and his hunters.
While the being we know as “Venom” is technically two individuals, the suit and the host, it would not be unfair to say that the suit is the dominant aspect of the character, soplaying as this Symbiote-enhanced Spider-Man is more or less the same as playing as Venom.
Ultimately, after a punch-up with Miles, Peter is freed from the Symbiote, which reunites with Harry and assumes its full Venom form. Thanks to his brief connection with it, Peter is able to create the Anti-Venom Suit, the linchpin in defeating Venom once and for all.
3Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story
Bowser Punches The World
Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story
Bowser is the Mushroom Kingdom’s official terrorizer, and he gets really pouty when someone else tries to horde in on his turf. He’s offered his assistance to the Mario Bros. on several occasions to get other villains out of the picture, especially intheir various RPGs, but perhaps the first time he really took matters into his own hands was inMario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story.
After being tricked into inhaling Mario and Luigi with a tainted mushroom,Bowser unwittingly becomes the last line of defense between the world and the machinations of returning villain Fawful. Bowser doesn’t really care about the world, he’s just really annoyed that someone else is copying his shtick, and sets out to punch any and all threats in the face.
Mario and Luigi are having their own adventure in Bowser’s disproportionately large innards this whole time. Even after they find their way out, though, they regularly return to covertly help Bowser from within when it becomes clear his rampage is a net positive for the Mushroom Kingdom.
2Batman: Arkham Asylum
Joker’s Prison Antics
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Obviously, your only playable character inBatman: Arkham Asylumis Batman. Unlikein subsequent games, Batman was the only one on the scene when Joker started making mischief, so he’s the only one available to handle everything. However, all of that is only for the game’s actual story. Go beyond that, and we have one more surprising guest to play as: Joker himself.
In DLC for the game (which was exclusive to the PS3 for some reason),you can play as Joker in a handful of challenge maps, wherein he needs to elude and incapacitate the guards of Arkham Asylum.
He’s not as mobile as Batman or as loaded with gadgets, but he does have a few tricks up his sleeve, such as X-Ray Specs, exploding chattering teeth, and even a straight-up pistol if you want to forgo the quiet approach.
Since we see Batman wheeling Joker into Arkham at the start of the story, these challenge maps probably aren’t canon. Considering how often Joker breaks out of Arkham, though, you could probably assume most of his attempts are like this.
1Heavy Rain
The Big Reveal
Heavy Rain
Heavy Rainhas four protagonists: Ethan Mars, Norman Jayden, Madison Paige, and Scott Shelby. For most of the game, these four characters are each pursuing their individual investigations of the Origami Killer and the surrounding mystery.
Gradually, their stories start to intersect, as it seems like one or more of them are right on the killer’s heels. Whoever catches the killer first, it seems like they all have it out for them.
However, this is a deliberate lie the game tells you, becausethe Origami Killer is, in fact, Shelby, and has been the entire time.
At multiple points during his own story sections, usually when you’re not in direct control of him, he’ll take actions that seem innocuous but are instead deliberate efforts to destroy or muddle evidence. As the game reveals, there are even instances that you weren’t shown during these story beats where he takes more drastic moves.
Once Shelby is revealed as the Origami Killer, you don’t get to control him again, with Ethan, Jayden, and Paige picking up the slack. Assumingyou don’t get them all killed, all three will eventually go toe-to-toe with Shelby to determine the final outcome.
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