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''Overlord'' is a 2007 third-person ActionAdventure video game about, as its name implies, an EvilOverlord.

You've just been awakened from your dark slumber by a handful of loyal minions, and find - to your chagrin - that when your predecessor fell to a group of seven do-gooder "heroes", they ransacked your Dark Tower, stole most of the magic objects, emptied the armoury AND treasury, and generally made a mess of things. On top of that, said heroes have fallen to corruption and are now besieging the very land they once protected.

Well, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get up to some serious evil! Rebuild your Dark Tower, recruit a fresh army of suicidally-loyal Minions, regain your magical powers, forge new equipment imbued with the lifeforce of mortals, terrorize the peasantry, slay the heroes that thus inconvenienced you, and [[TakeOverTheWorld CONQUER THE WORLD]]!

Or, you can choose to be a benevolent overlord, help the peasants, and conquer the world... in the name of good. Well, a happy populace is an obedient populace!

An expansion called ''VideoGame/OverlordRaisingHell'' was released on February 15, 2008. Portals open up around the Overlord's conquered lands which lead to the "Abyss", a hell version of the normal world.

There's a sequel: ''VideoGame/OverlordII''

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!!This game provides examples of:
* AdiposeRex: King Melvin has managed to become a spherical body.
* AdjectiveAnimalAlehouse: Spree has The Happy Mule.
* AmnesiacDissonance: [[spoiler:Your character is actually one of the heroes that slew the previous Overlord, but got left for dead by his comrades, and lost his memory.]]
* AntiVillain: The player villain, especially if you follow the "Less Evil" path. Given that he turns out [[spoiler:to have been the Eighth Hero and the one who destroyed the previous Overlord by a HeroicSacrifice]], his actions in the game could be seen as a willingness to use evil to fight evil, turning the resources of the Dark Tower against the Fallen Heroes, which would technically make him an AntiHero. It's mainly the fact that he doesn't give up his position and control over the Minion Horde after he defeats all of the Seven that slots him into AntiVillain.
* BarBrawl: You can earn corruption points for starting one in Heaven's Peak in the first game.
* TheBerserker: Kahn, the Fallen Hero of Wrath.
* BigBad:
** The Wizard is the leader of the corrupted Seven Heroes and leading them in terrorizing the land, [[spoiler:though he is possessed by the previous Overlord]].
** [[spoiler:The Forgotten God]] is the main villain of the expansion.
* BittersweetEnding: In the expansion the Overlord [[spoiler: successfully saves the world from the Forgotten God but is separated from his mistress Rose and his unborn son. All of his accomplishments will also be undone by the Glorious Empire's Emperor.]]
* BlackAndGrayMorality: If you go down the AntiVillain path the game becomes this, as the Overlord is a villain in name only mainly fighting genuinely evil and psychotic [[FallenHero Fallen Heroes]]. For reference the latter are so bad the peasants will initially ''cheer you on'' when you fight them [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter and consider you a hero]].
* BlackKnight: Your armor starts out metal-colored, but as your Corruption-level rises, it gradually darkens. With maxed-out corruption, you ARE a BlackKnight. And yes, the armor and helmet are permanent fixtures.
* BloodlessCarnage: Every death is clean and EverythingFades. In cutscenes centered on a death, the vanquished simply glow with red light.
* BoringButPractical: Need a bunch of Life Force in order to raise a lot of Minions for your Forging? Go to the Tower Dungeon and pick Beetles to fight. Each Beetle drops three Life Force essence each, so you get a substantial amount. Sheep don't fight back, but they only drop Brown Life Force. The Beetles come with each type.
* BrokenBridge: Each Abyss opens up as soon as the relevant boss is defeated, but it's not necessarily possible to complete them. The biggest stand-out is Melvin's abyss, which contains the cutscenes that set up the abysses in general, but you can't accomplish anything worthwhile until you have the Blue minions - which become available a good five hours and three bosses later.
* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Sort of. The Forgotten God is a LoadBearingBoss. When you kill him he destroys the portal leading out of Hell.
* ButThouMust: You have to choose between saving the elves or taking the dwarf gold. However, at this point in the game you almost certainly have a high enough minion cap that there's no mechanical reason not to do both.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: [[spoiler:The Jester is a textbook case. In the main game he starts worshiping the Wizard within seconds of his arrival, then he conspires to free the Forgotten God in the [[VideoGame/OverlordRaisingHell expansion]].]]
* CripplingOverspecialization: The Reds are your ranged combat troops, and if you summon a horde of nothing but them, there are very few non-boss enemies that can handle having dozens of fireballs being thrown at them without dying quickly. But though they ''will'' engage in melee combat if enemies get close enough, they are extremely vulnerable to it (with only the Blues being weaker) and often die in one hit from even minor enemies.
* CuttingOffTheBranches: The "Raising Hell" expansion assumes that the Overlord took the [[NobleDemon Path of least corruption]] and that he chose [[spoiler:Rose]] as his mistress.
* {{Deconstruction}}: Of the fantasy genre. The former heroes, having nothing left to fight for after defeating an Overlord, go back to their homes and become complicit in their fame and power as they have little else to live for, causing them to easily become corrupted. Meanwhile the generic EvilOverlord the player controls can manage to prove much more likable than them after their fall because of his PragmaticVillainy. [[InvertedTrope It's essentially the fantasy genre turned on its head.]]
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: At the end of the "Raising Hell", you [[spoiler: kill the Forgotten God]].
* DoomyDoomsOfDoom: In the Evernight Abyss, you can find a mold for the 'Mace Of Doom'. Gnarl cheerfully comments that he hasn't seen an 'Of Doom' weapon in years, before explaining its powers.
* TheDragon: In the first game, [[spoiler:the playable Overlord serves as the unwitting Dragon to the Old Overlord.]]
* ElvesVsDwarves: Following your previous 'fall', and prior to your awakening, the Dwarves attacked the Elven forest of Evernight out of sheer greed, nearly annihilated the entire Elven race, and took the last survivors as slaves.
* EnemyWithin: [[spoiler:The Wizard was possessed by the evil spirit of your predecessor, and was slowly taken over by him. By the time you face him, The Wizard is long gone, and the True Overlord basically just wears his body 'till he can find something better.]]
* EnslavedElves: The homeland of the elves is a haunted forest littered with ruins, and the elven populace has been dragged off to slave for the dwarves. It's possible to free the elves, or ensure their extinction.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Paraphrased by Gnarl when describing the poor hygiene of green minions.
* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler:The Wizard, the Overlord you're technically usurping]] gets his own brand of Minions, darker and meaner than your own. Being attacked by hostile Blues is kinda sad, though.
* EvilVersusEvil: The ending epilogue lampshades this.
--> '''Gnarl:''' And so the Evil Overlord defeated [[spoiler:the other Evil Overlord]]. And the land rejoiced...
* EvilerThanThou: The Wizard tries to pull this at the end, but of course, since YOU'RE the player character, you win anyway.
* ExactWords: Gnarl, the minions, and all the Tower's power are loyal to the Overlord. [[spoiler:You might notice that Overlord is a title, something that can change hands rather easily.]]
* ExcessiveEvilEyeshadow: One of the consorts.
* ExtremeOmnivore: Melvin in the first game, who is even implied to [[ImAHumanitarian have a taste for humans]]. Note that in his particular case this isn't actually cannibalism, since he is a halfling.
* FaceHeelTurn: All of the heroes who defeated the original Evil Overlord. Including [[spoiler:yourself]].
* FallenHero: Worth special note, as an very unusual example of [[spoiler:a TomatoSurprise, with you being one of the original heroes who lost his memory. Also see AmnesiacDissonance.]]
* FatBastard: "Melvin ain't so small now! Squish food! Eat food!"
* {{Fireballs}}: There's a Fireball spell that allows you to throw fire.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The initial impetus behind invading the Infernal Abysses in ''Raising Hell'' is because your peasants in Spree are running off to escape your "horrible and tyrannical reign", and their dialogue is constantly talking about how oppressive your rule is and how terrified of you they are... this is even if you're been firmly a AntiVillain 0% corruption Overlord who is basically just holding a domain he conquered without abusing or harming the locals at all. Granted, it is made very clear that the peasants of Spree are both incredibly stupid yet surprisingly progressive and they probably think that any amount of exerted control at all is horrific tyranny.
* GlassCannon: Large numbers of Reds can take down an enemies HP quite effectively by bombarding them with possibly dozens of fireballs, but even fully geared-up, they often go down with one hit. The Browns are the only group of Minions who have a chance at surviving for more than a few seconds against most enemies.
* GracefulLoser: Sir William seems to be the only Hero to accept his IronicHell, most likely this is due to him being a Paladin.
* GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler:The Wizard got GTM'd by the previous overlord.]]
* GreenEyedMonster: Jewel doesn't actually ''need'' to steal things; she just can't stand other people having them.
* HeavySleeper: Oberon, the Hero of Sloth.
* HellHasNewManagement: Upon defeating the boss of the DLC, [[spoiler:the denizens of that fiery pit swear their allegiances to you - you have successfully taken over hell! Which is probably a good thing, considering that you're STUCK there.]]
* HostileShowTakeover: [[spoiler:The climax has the Wizard steal the Overlord's title, tower, spells, Minions, Gnarl, and finally the ''main theme music''. Granted, they all technically belonged to him from the beginning, but finder's keepers.]]
* HulkSpeak: Kahn the Warrior drops into this whenever he gets angry. Which is most of the time, since he's an embodiment of the Sin of Wrath. His Southern American accent makes it sound absolutely ridiculous, but given the tone of the rest of this game, that's probably intentional.
* IKEAErotica: Of the visual kind, up to the point where the scene with Rose suggests your tower is merely shaking from a headache or something. The implications were there, but the visuals didn't carry it - and the orgasmic 'pincer maneuver' was unadulterated {{Narm}}.
** Then again, with Rose being the stuck-up, stiff as a board mistress that she was, that was probably the joke.
** Compare her sister, who just says it's time to get you out of your armor. Rose spends the whole time ''going over spreadsheets''.
* InfinityMinusOneSword: ''Five'' of them, one for each category: Armour, Helmet, Sword, Axe and Mace. They're all very nice, but especially in the case of the armor and helmet, they're unlikely to compete with fully upgraded Arcanium equipment although the helmet in particular is useful for getting enough lifeforce to upgrade your Arcanium equipment since it doubles your lifeforce gains.
* IronicHell: All of the Abyss-levels are ironic hells, targeted at the races in general, and the heroes you killed in particular. So the gluttonous Halflings ends up in a hell of exploding sheep and killer pumpkins, the lecherous Paladin and his cronies end up in LadyLand, etc.
* JabbaTableManners: Melvin's eating habits [[EvenEvilHasStandards disgust even your minions]]'', who are pretty crude themselves.
* KarmaHoudini: The Jester gets away scot-free for betraying the Overlord twice. [[spoiler:The last thing the Overlord sees is his Jester teleporting out of the Abyss just before its destruction, having successfully woken the Forgotten God AND sealed his master away forever.]] Although considering that he's replaced in the sequel, he may have gotten his comeuppance offscreen.
* KarmaMeter: Depending on your choices, your Overlord can range from [[AntiVillain Benevolent Tyrant]] to Incarnation Of Pure Hatred. Overlord II ranges from Domination to [[OmnicidalManiac Destruction]].
* KarmicDeath: Subverted. [[spoiler: The Overlord's death in the expansion actually makes him ruler of Hell.]]
* KickTheDog: If you want to achieve 100% Corruption, you'll have to kick a LOT of (metaphorical) dogs. Committing an entire race to extinction for a bag of gold? Done. Wrecking every house in the peaceful farming village? Check. Killing hundreds and hundreds of innocent civilians? On it. Stealing the uber-holy Statue of the Mother-Goddess from the Tombs of the Elvish Warriors just 'cuz it'd look good in your foyer? Been there, done that.
* LadyMacbeth: Both of the possible Mistresses fit the trope, each in their own way.
* LastLousyPoint: The (probable) last requirement for 100% corruption requires a genocide of 1000 generic human [=NPCs=] around the cities. This isn't necessarily hard, but it's very time consuming, requiring a constant back and forth between your tower and whatever place you decide is a good grinding spot.
* TheLegionsOfHell: In the Raising Hell expansion, you fight them, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu slay their god]], and [[spoiler:[[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu get stuck in Hell]]. [[HellHasNewManagement As their ruler, thankfully]].]]
* LesCollaborateurs: When Kahn takes over the first village you conquered, most of the peasants switch sides in a hurry. Mostly because the dude is twice your size and you're big to begin with. Once you've beaten back the invading forces, it's up to you what to do with them...
* LifeMeter: There's a red meter that tracks your health, divided into sections that represent how much health is healed by sacrificing a minion.
* ManaMeter: There's a mana meter that tracks your mana in blue.
* NobleDemon: An uncorrupted Overlord might actually qualify in the first game, with all the former heroes corrupted by one of the SevenDeadlySins, while the Overlord aims to conquer the world by defeating the corrupted heroes and freeing the populace so they will be happy under his rule.
* NoCanonForTheWicked: The Overlord canonically chooses Rose and spares the lives of the Elven Race. It seems you did not take the corrupt route. Or at least not 100% corruption. You can get up to 80% without contradicting the sequel.
* NoNameGiven: We never do learn the [[spoiler:Forgotten God's name, which kinda is the point since the Mother Goddess cursed him so that no-one could remember him, thus removing [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly source of power]].]]
* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: [[spoiler:Used verbatim by your former 'comrades' during a flashback, after you fell off a cliff.]]
* NumericalHard: If you purchase the Raising Hell DLC, you will have the option of playing the game on Legendary Difficulty. Enemies deal and take more damage, while the Overlord and his Minions are weaker.
* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Dwarves are basically angry beards on legs. Angry, ''beer-soaked'' beards on legs.
* OurElvesAreDifferent: They're whiny emos. They return in the second game as a bunch of hippies trying to protect the magical beasts from the Empire.
* OutOfCharacterMoment: You're introduced to the expansion's content by a group of peasants finding a gate to the Abyss and believing it divine salvation from the Overlord's rule. Their dialogue remains unchanged even if you've freed the slaves from the Halfing Camp, killed Melvin and given the food back to the villagers, which has everyone in town stating you're a hero.
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: The Dungeon, which can create any enemy you've slain at least one of[[note]]Except for Sandworms, Magma Giants and Beholders, since you can only beat those using GeoEffects.[[/note]]. You can't actually get experience there, since Overlord has no experience mechanic, but fighting beetle mobs there is an excellent way to grind for Lifeforce.
** Also, a series of places, including Understreets 2, The Brewery and Ruborian Desert that become great sources of Minion Equipment when cleared.
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Playing as a corruption-free Overlord, you really only have Gnarl's word that you're doing anything evil at all. Freeing slaves, deposing corrupt leaders, sealing off gates to the Abyss to prevent them from claiming any more victims, you're basically DarkIsNotEvil incarnate.
* ThePlan: The Wizard and your predecessor, [[spoiler:who are one and the same have pulled off a truly impressive gambit.]]
* PlanetHeck: The expansion adds several "Abyss" levels for you to explore and conquer, including a boss fight at the end.
* PragmaticVillainy: Gnarl justifies the good choices as such (feeding a village for regular sheep for more minions, staying faithful to Rose to exploit her planning abilities, etc.). This is also Rose's whole schtick, to the point that most of her relationship scenes (including the consumation scene) involve going over spreadsheets or otherwise discussing resource efficiency off-camera.
* {{Satan}}: The Bonus Boss, [[spoiler:The Forgotten God]] is essentially Satan. [[spoiler:You then kill him and take over hell.]]
* SealedEvilInACan: Could describe you, prior to your awakening at the start of the game. [[spoiler:Or so it would seem...]]
* SevenDeadlySins: In addition to optionally succumbing to each yourself, each of the 7 Fallen Heroes represents corruption by one of the Seven Sins. In order:
** [[VillainousGlutton Gluttony]]: Melvin has let his status as the hero of the halfling go to his head and has turned his kingdom into a massive serving line of food funneled right to his chambers, becoming a horrific, disgustingly obese boulder who's [[WeightTaller bigger than the Overlord]]
*** You can return the stolen food supply to the villagers or keep it all for yourself.
** {{Sloth}}: Oberon was simply so tired of ''everything'' that he fell asleep until a massive living tree enveloped and fused with him. He did nothing to stop the Dwarves from raiding his forest and massacring his kin, spending his days in apathetic and despair-driven slumber that spawns hostile living nightmares.
*** Defeat a group of bloody unicorns without harming the uncorrupted grove or take the lazy approach by just burning the whole place down with a single fireball.
** {{Lust}}: William forsook every oath and virtue he had a paladin and dove head over heel into every flavor of hedonism you could think of, with a particular focus given on sex, starting a cult devoted to it [[spoiler: and unleashing a Succubus Queen onto the city who caused a ZombieApocalypse via a magical STD she gave the people that slept with her.]]
*** Stay loyal to your mistress Rose or dump her in favour of her far more {{stripperiffic}} and evil sister.
** {{Greed}}: Goldo decided to pillage the Elven forest driven by his greed, ransacking the sacred temples, stealing every bit of loot he could get away with and making off with the elves he didn't kill, the men to be slave workers in Dwarven gold mines, and the women as his consorts.
*** Save the elven race or leave them to die while you grab the dwarven treasury.
** [[GreenEyedMonster Envy]]: Jewel's consumption by envy lead her to start a tribe of bandits who are focused on stealing everything that matters to someone. It doesn't even matter if it has any pragmatic or monetary value, if it's something that someone has a measure of value in, she wants to take it from them.
*** Return the Mother Goddess Statue to the elves or keep it for no other reason than to furnish your tower.
** [[RevengeBeforeReason Wrath]]: Kahn is so lost in his wrath he has almost no characterization or reasoning besides living for Jewel and going along with her schemes. The slightest setback or offense (real or imagined) can send him into a murderous rage that not even his own men are safe from.
*** Forgive the villagers for their betrayal or kill them in revenge.
** {{Pride}}: [[spoiler:The wizard/old overlord shows his pride constantly, bragging about his power and how flawlessly his plan went off, taunting you about how he corrupted the other six heroes. At 100% corruption, the Overlord will have had to have gone out of his way to commit every sin that the heroes fell to as well as massacring thousands of people just for the hell of it]].
* ShoutOut: To Diablo, possibly. The plot is extremely similar to that of Diablo II, only with a different protagonist. The weapon and armor names are also reminiscent of the series.
** There is quite a number of references to Creator/JRRTolkien in the game. The developers didn't even try to hide the fact that the Halflings' home village is based on [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings the Shire]], and with the human town next door being called Spree, it gets even more obvious.
** The Dark Tower bears more than a passing resemblance to Orthanc.
** And also (humorously enough) to ''Franchise/StarTrek'', what with the ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Wrath of Kahn]]''...
* SlaveToPR: If you choose to go down the 0% corruption route. Inverted with 100% corruption, in that all your choices have to be evil ones to get there (slave to Evil PR?). Ironically, it's a lot easier to redeem prior evil choices with good ones than it is the other way around.
* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler:Just when the Wizard/Second Overlord's victory seems assured, your Mistress and the Browns turn the tide.]]
* SpeakingSimlish: The halflings and dwarves (although that might actually be {{Angrish}}).
* SpikesOfVillainy: You actually grow more and bigger spikes as you do evil things, as does your Dark Tower.
* TragicHero: All of the villains to some extent [[spoiler:except the Wizard]], but [[spoiler:Oberon]] really fits this trope. Unlike the rest, he still tries to act for a good cause, but commits evil because he's not entirely in control of himself. He is also the only one to realize how his selfishness has destroyed him, while the others revel in their fatal flaws. This makes him the only antagonist that is [[SympatheticPOV portrayed sympathetically]].
* TrainingDummy: The Jester.
* UnholyMatrimony: [[spoiler:Having a Mistress doesn't just help you decorate your Dark Tower in various stylish ways... she'll also help you by upgrading your Minions, thus making you stronger, and towards the end whichever Mistress you chose will save your life when the one you scorned helps The Wizard ambush you and drain all your powers.]]
* {{Unicorn}}: The first unicorn you run into is eating a dwarf. They are vicious and will kill a great deal of minions without careful maneuvering. Oberon's forest has messed with the Unicorns quite a bit.
* UnusableEnemyEquipment: Your minions can pick up the things of whatever they kill, but you can't. Justified in that you, as an Evil Overlord, deserve better than what Gnarl refers to as "old steal-me-downs." Besides, you're an Extra Ominously Large being and your foes range from Small to Medium (and then skip right to colossal), so nothing the Minions can equip would be scaled to you anyway.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: Amazingly this is very much an option. You can go through the game without killing any innocents and do all the good options when they come up, essentially making you at worst an AntiVillain and at best a dark AntiHero.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: You can kick your court jester in the face. Repeatedly. Oh, so therapeutic.
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Try this on any of the tower females, mistresses or servants though, and you get knocked back.
* VillainProtagonist: That would be YOU. Maybe not so much of the former, but still...
* WelcomeBackTraitor: Humorously inverted by Gnarl who, [[spoiler:in the act of betraying you, calmly states that he'll gladly take you back if you beat the old Overlord]].
* WelcomeToCorneria: If the player lets the battle drag on long enough, the FinalBoss of all people does this, [[spoiler:spending the entire fight incessantly saying the same exact story about how he corrupted the 7 heroes over and over again and nothing else.]]
* WhamLine: Somewhat spoiled by the subtitles, which are on by default.
-->'''Gnarl:'''[[spoiler:"All hail the return of the Overlord. The one true Evil... Oh no, not you. The ''real'' Overlord."]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler: It's never explained what happened to Jewel, Rose or Velvet (based on whoever is rejected as Mistress by the player), and The Jester]].
* WholeCostumeReference: Guess what the Overlord's armor is based on. But [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope for legal reasons]], you can't say it out loud.
* YouKillItYouBoughtIt: The Overlord's preferred method of expanding his Dark Realm is to roll in, find whoever is in charge, and kill them stone dead. [[spoiler:This is also how he became the Overlord in the first place.]]

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