Blood Knight / Video Games

Blood Knights in Video Games.

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• 100% Orange Juice!: Kae and Star Breaker (from SUGURI and sora, respectively) had their Blood Knight tendencies translated to this game, where they appear as DLC.
  • Kae's Hyper Card sets herself, and anyone who's close by, on fire, allowing her to gain +2 Attack, at the cost of -2 Defense, making it easier to defeat opponents, but easier for other players to defeat her.
  • Star Breaker has 5 HP and +2 Attack, which lets her go into a fight more frequently, as she can't pick star norma, so she relies on defeating opponents to win. Her Hyper Card allows her to place invisible bombs at random panels, damaging whoever steps on them, and bringing their HP down to 1. Even the achievement for playing ten times with her is called "Champion Of War". Her tendency were mitigated a little in her campaign, where Sweet Breaker shows her that she can use her fire powers for anything other than just burn things, such as for example, bake sweets. Star Breaker is so please about the idea that she decides to stop using her powers to destroy, and instead, use them to keep baking cakes and cookies.
• A3 has Ryuga from SK∞ the Infinity × A3! and Spider from Midnight Chinatown, who are both played by the kind-hearted, affectionate Homare Arisugawa. Both of them are villains who just love a good fight; Spider is thrilled at the sight of a Worthy Opponent, while Ryuga makes his entrance by picking a fight with Touma and Akito, as in, starting a skateboarding duel just to deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Ryuga also prefers strong over weak opponents similar to Spider.
• Abyss Crossing: Both gods of the True World turn out to be eager to cut their teeth in battle. Siro requested Kuro to concentrate the magical elements into the Astras in order to distort the multiverse, which will result in heroes who have to fight the Astras and confront Siro. After her defeat, Siro tells the party where to find Kuro so that the latter can fight them too. Kuro herself employs five wardens to guard her so that the party will be forced to become strong enough to challenge her.
• Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown:
  • Champ of the Spare Squadron is always itching for a fight. Going so far as to cut off fellow Spare Pilot, Tabloid so that he can force a take-off, and tells the Air Traffic Control Tower to ‘Go to Hell’, after they called him out on it. He even tries to pick a fight with Mihaly, and gets blasted out of the sky with no effort whatsoever.
  • Mihaly himself, is also always looking for a good fight. After shooting down Champ, to his dissatisfaction, he goes after Trigger, and he gets rather excited after finding out that Trigger will not go down so easily, and actually manages to land a hit on him.
  • Matias Torres from the SP DLC Missions ultimately turns out to be this in the final SP Mission. Despite his insistence that his plan to kill a million people to ‘save’ ten million more will bring about an end to the war, it ultimately turns out that he doesn’t care about saving lives, as David North calls him out on it, and that he’s just looking for an excuse to kill a lot of people.
• ANNO: Mutationem: Absalom is one of The Consortium's field agents who harbors powerful skills and attacks that he only brings out when the opponent he's fighting puts up a good fight. After being beaten by Ann, he teleports out with a promise that he isn't done with her yet.
• Armored Core:
  • Many, many characters fit this: (Berlioz, Old King, Chief and Jack-O spring to mind), but the most interesting take on the concept in the series is the Reaper Squad Leader known only as 'J', the Final Boss of Verdict Day. Standing distinct even in a series filled with this trope, J seems to legitimately believe that he cannot physically exist without war. Later subverted. Given his implied origins as a clone, his lines actually come off more as a Tear Jerker than anything else, in retrospect.
    J: There is no place for me but the battlefield. To live as I please, and die a senseless death.
  • This forms a very stark contrast to his employer/creator, 'The Foundation Man', who appears obsessed with the idea that War Is Glorious - the only part of Blood Knight he doesn't fit is that he's never seen on the battlefield personally.
• Augus from Asura's Wrath is this trope, to the point he believes his pupil and protagonist Asura is the same but just in denial. This, however, turns out to be Psychological Projection: Asura might enjoy a good scuffle at times, but his will to fight comes from his desire to protect his family, and later on to avenge his dead wife and rescue his suffering daughter. Asura looks down on Augus' hedonistic battlelust and refutes any similarities in why they fight, and it's only when Augus lies beaten and dying that he admits he was wrong.
  Augus: You fight, and eat good food. You fight, and drink fine wine. You fight, and sleep with beautiful women. Hell, fight with beautiful women! That is what it means to live.
• Giacomo from Baten Kaitos, as well as his flunkies Ayme and Folon, exhibit definite shades of this. Giacomo LOVES fighting and is obsessed with being the strongest, to the point that he once he marks Sagi as his Worthy Opponent in the prequel, he spends the rest of his appearances in the game stalking and challenging him. As for Ayme and Folon... they're pretty much just professional sadists who enjoy picking on the weak just as much as they enjoy fighting a challenging foe.
• BlazBlue:
  • The third edition introduces Azrael, a fist fighter from Sector Seven, who (at least according to Jin Kisaragi) has gone as far as attacking his own allies and committing GENOCIDE to slake his thirst for battle. Additionally, the Tattoo that covers his body acts as a Power Limiter, which he put on himself so he wouldn't kill his enemies outright. That way, he wouldn't get bored with them.
  • An even darker addition is Yuuki Terumi who makes no secret of the fact that he loves fighting. Or rather, he loves satisfying his sadistic urges by beating the crap out of others. Though he seems to prefer it when his victims resist, he also doesn't seem to mind if "fight" becomes another word for "stomp on their heads until their skulls cave in and keep going".
• Bloodborne: The Old Hunters in the Hunter's Nightmare are like this, which is why they got sent to the Nightmare. They succumbed to their bloodlust, and can no longer distinguish between friend and foe. They will attack you on sight, shouting things like "MORE BLOOD!"
• Bomberman 64: Regulus only interests are fighting strong opponents and getting stronger. In The Second Attack!, this, along with settling his score with Bomberman, is the only reason he even worked for Rukifellth in the first place.
• Practically every Vault Hunter in the Borderlands series loves a good fight and will happily laugh and scream while massacring countless bandits, alien creatures, or anyone in their way. In fact, oftentimes a primary motivation of theirs is either a worthy challenge for their skills.
• Monk Barras Lehr from Bravely Default most definitely qualifies. Nearly every line of dialogue from him either talks about his love of fighting, how good he is at fighting and how upset he is when he doesn't get to fight. In fact, when you beat him in battle, he's not so much angry about losing as he is disappointed that he can't fight you anymore.
• Brigador: Among the recruitable pilots (almost all self-interested military turncoats, Rebellious Rebel Bomb-Throwing Anarchists, and/or violent sociopaths), Dieudonné Rem stands out for his unsophisticated desire to be in the thick of the fighting. Another character notes in his profile writeup that he stayed in field service with the NEP for 50 years, always volunteering for the most dangerous missions available, refusing promotions to staff positions, and becoming beloved among field troops. When the military brass tried to force him into a desk for good or retire, he unleashed a legendarily profane "The Reason You Suck" Speech at them on open comms that made his name a byword among the troops, then stole his mech and defected to the aforementioned Bomb-Throwing Anarchists.
• Implied at the end of CarnEvil. The player character Jacob enjoyed shooting his way through the Circus of Fear so much that he places the magic token into its slot again over Betty's protests.
• Civilization:
  • The Aztecs are a whole faction of these. That is at least how they will be played due to their faction ability in V, which grants the civilization a bit of culture for every kill. Combined with the fact that their iconic unit heals after killing, means they will always want war.
    • This has long been the Hat of the Aztecs, who have been "militaristic" since Civilization III. It's particularly pronounced in IV, in which the Aztecs are probably the single most annoying neighbors to have, as they will attack given the slightest opportunity, regardless of the chances of victory. This is also true of the Zulus.
  • In Civilization V, India (under Mahatma Gandhi of all people) is surprisingly Blood Knight-like as it is more nuke happy than even the Aztecs, as a throwback to a since-discredited myth that Gandhi would become similarly nuke-happy in the first game after adopting Democracy.
  • The Huns in Civilization V: Gods and Kings are more likely to become this since their unique ability "Scourge of God" is highly relevant to world conquest.
  • Of particular note in Civilization V is Shaka. Most civilization, even the other warmongers as aggressive as him, get Dark Reprises of their peace themes for their war themes. Shaka gets a cheerful Bragging Theme Tune instead.
• Crystal Story: Phoebe. Nearly everything she says involves smashing something or someone. And she's okay with smashing her comrades...
• A Dance with Rogues has several companions that exhibit these traits - Vico and the siblings Bran and Norah. While Norah's love for battle is downplayed and only mentioned in passing, Vico and Bran both revel in fighting, albeit for different reasons, since the two are counterparts. Vico is the more violent one, who loves fighting and killing his opponents, as well as butchering people and creatures from other races just for fun. Bran is a barbarian and has been taught to be a warrior since childhood, but he enjoys only the fighting aspect of battle and strongly dislikes picking fights with and killing non-hostile people for no good reason, and is willing to let his opponent go at the end of the fight. His greatest pleasure comes from battling monsters and extremely hostile and dangerous creatures, like orcs, dragons, demons, and undead.
• Dark Souls: Siegmeyer of Catarina loves a good adventure, which usually includes a good fight. Thankfully, he's on your side. Sadly, the repeated realization that there is Always Someone Better (a.k.a. you) is enough to make him Hollow out.
• In Dark Souls II, Vengarl of Forossa was a warrior from a fallen kingdom famous for its warriors, who belonged to an order of knights infamous for their savagery in combat. Even among them, Vengarl was kept at arm's length; his stylized snarling lion helmet was emblematic of the bestial brutality he demonstrated on the battlefield. Even after being decapitated, his body continued to rage and kill mindlessly for years after the war he had been defeated in ended, and the kingdom he had been fighting for had literally crumbled. His severed head became rather more genial and philosophical, however.
• The Mound-Makers covenant in Dark Souls III appeals to those who simply want to fight something, anything. Unlike the other covenants, they don't really need a reason to do battle - Rosaria's Fingers are ruthless and loyal to Rosaria, the Watchdogs of Farron and the Aldrich Faithful seek to prevent intrusion on their home ground, and the Blue Sentinels/Blades of the Darkmoon and Warriors of Sunlight fight out of loyalty and/or companionship, but the Mound-Makers simply do battle. In the Road of Sacrifices area, you can summon a Mound-Maker mad phantom in the form of Holy Knight Hodrick, who will cross swords with whatever he sees, allowing him to be used as a barely guided missile against tough enemies like the giant crabs, Yellowfinger Heysel or the Exile Watchdogs.
• Morrigan, Demitri, and Bishamon from Darkstalkers. Can't forget Pyron either, he scorched his own planet after becoming its champion and then traveled to Earth and waited billion years of years until there were strong enough warriors to challenge him.
• Sgt. Avitus from Dawn of War II. "He wields his wrath as his most powerful weapon". Granted, the 100-caliber heavy machine gun probably helps. How khornish of him. Canonically, his bloodlust caused him to become corrupted and fall to Chaos, betraying Commander Vanilla Ice.
• In Demon's Souls, Yurt The Silent Chief is one, his existence is to murder every single human, should you bring him to Nexus after listening to his "advice", he proves it.
• Dante from Devil May Cry is "a bit" of a Blood Knight, but at least everything he kills deserves to die, him being a demon hunter. Unlike some Blood Knights, Dante is not obsessed with fighting; he doesn't go out and kill for fun, but fighting is such a part of his life that he makes it fun. In fact, the point of the combat isn't to kill the enemy so much as to kill them stylishly, which he demonstrates constantly in cutscenes.
  Dante: So bring it on! I love this. This is what I live for. And I'm absolutely CRAZY about it!
  • Vergil, Dante's Evil Twin, is a Blood Knight too, albeit a more subtle one, as Vergil smirks when taking down Beowulf and his taunt while fighting his Worthy Opponent brother is "Now I'm motivated!". By the time of Devil May Cry 5 Vergil's sole purpose in life is to take down his brother Dante to "even the score", hell the ending of the game is just him and Dante sparring in the Underworld until some unfortunate demons interrupt them.
  • Nero while not quite as extreme as Dante and Vergil still greatly enjoys a good scrape, it's telling in his first game that Nero despite being late to church takes his time fighting some demons, and after he does get to church afterwards he's bored stiff.
• Diablo III:
  • The Templar seems to indulge in this, no reason he can't enjoy purging demons from the land, right?
  • The Barbarian class is this as well; amusingly enough even they are uncomfortable with the Templar's zeal as shown in Act 4.
• Special mention goes to the Blood Knights from Digimon World 2. Yes, that's their real name in-game. And the game actually came out in July of 2000, meaning that they had the trope name before this trope even existed. They live up to their name by being psychotically over aggressive conflict-creating people who manage to cross the Moral Event Horizon before we even meet them by treating digimon like pieces of data to be used, abused, deleted, and traded as they see fit. And if that didn't make you hate them enough, they also employ Child Soldiers and mind control to meet their ends.
• Adell from the Disgaea series qualifies as well. He's more of the cheerful sort that only kills when he has to tough (though his chief target certainly deserves it).
• Don't Starve: Wigfrid is lost deep within the role of a warrior, and she gets healthier and more sane the more she kills.
• Doom (2016): There is literally not a single thing that the Doom Slayer would rather be doing than slaying the demons around him.
  Samuel Hayden: "They will not allow access to the well without a fight… but I'm sure that's what you're looking for, isn't it?"
• Dragon Age: Qunari, as part of their culture, take pride in their class, so soldiers and warriors want nothing more than to be soldiers and warriors. Also, the dwarven Legion of the Dead, who take dedication of their life to battle to its logical conclusion, and get a head start on the inevitable, by holding their funerals right after they take their vows. Dwarven warriors in general display a positive attitude towards prospects of combat, though it may be more complicated in their case; victory in battle leads to greater social standing in their profession, and one's degree of social standing is very important to how one is perceived in Dwarven society.
  • Dragon Age: Origins:
    • Shale is a definite Blood Knight. When her true past is revealed as a dwarven woman, she suggests that she would like to do something "girlish" like smashing something soft and squishy and then watch it fountain blood.
    • Oghren is a Deconstruction. He fell out of favour in Orzammar after his berserker training caused him to accidentally kill a man in a friendly Proving, but his victories in the Deep Roads made him too popular to execute or exile. The Assembly decided to strip him of his weapons and forbid him to carry them in city limits, making him a warrior banned from fighting. Coupled with his wife leaving him along with the rest of their noble house, he sought solace in the bottom of a glass and has remained there ever since. Part of the reason he joins the Warden's party is the excuse to be able to fight and feel useful once again. In Awakening, Oghren is revealed to have abandoned his new wife and child to join the Grey Wardens, knowing that his warrior tendencies couldn't let him settle down into civilian life and that his life was a mess between all the drinking and fighting. The Warden can convince him to make amends with his wife and keep in touch with his child, making them proud of him serving with the Wardens.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition:
    • The Iron Bull, though he also serves as a mild Deconstruction. The Bull loves fighting; some of his biggest approval gains come from bringing him to battle high dragons, and much of his banter with other party members consists of comments about their fighting style. However, the Bull was sent south to Orlais after he suffered a breakdown from years of serving in Seheron. After years of failing to keep order and seeing his comrades fall, the final straw was seeing an entire school of children murdered by Tal-Vashoth. In this case, there was just too much blood for even a Blood Knight.
    • Played for humour with the qunari Inquisitor's former companions, a band of mercenaries. You can hire them to fight demons, and they'll send back a cheerful little note:
      Adaar, Demons. You got us demons. Some of them were on fire. You're the best, Adaar.
• Dragon Quest IV: Hot-blooded, tomboyish Princess Alevna is one of the game's physically oriented fighters, and she really enjoys a good brawl.
• Shezar and Mudou, two of The Psycho Rangers from Duel Savior Destiny are obsessed with killing, especially Shezar. Mudou has to divert some attention to rape, you see.
• Considering how the heroes in Dungeons gain Spiritual Energy by fighting and getting hurt in battle, they're probably this.
• Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress periodically receive a happy thought: "He/she took joy in slaughter lately." When people will use their own children as improvised weapons, you know you've got a Blood Knight on your hands.
• Lu Bu in Dynasty Warriors as fighting and looking for worthy opponents is his entire driving motivation.

E-F

• Elden Ring: Before he became the First Elden Lord, Godfrey was a ferocious warrior possessed of unparalleled bloodlust. Upon becoming Queen Marika's consort, he took the Beast Regent Serosh upon his back to suppress his lust for battle so that he may conduct himself as a proper Lord. Once the player reaches phase two of his boss battle, Godfrey kills Serosh and bathes in his blood in order to unleash his full power, upon which he returns to his original identity as Hoarah Loux, Chieftain of the Badlands.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Hircine, the Daedric Prince of the Hunt. He has a particular interest in Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, and actually likes situations where The Hunter Becomes the Hunted because it is such a good representation of his sphere. In the Bloodmoon expansion to Morrowind, you get to take part in one of his hunts. He is also always looking for the most worthy prey to add to his realm, the Hunting Grounds.
  • Boethiah, the Daedric Prince of Plots (as well as a litany of high crimes including Murder and Treason), has an intense love for competition and battle, and is known to hold tournaments among mortals to determine the strongest. His (sometimes "her") usual appearance is as a Black Knight wielding either a massive battle axe or a Cool Sword. Boethiah's quest in Oblivion is the "Tournament of Ten Bloods" on his plane of Oblivion. What's the tournament's purpose? None. He's just bored.
  • The sword Umbra is a recurring artifact weapon which appears in several games in the series. In addition to dealing colossal damage, it also steals the souls of those it slays. However, Umbra has a mind of its own and, over time, takes over the mind of its wielder until they lose their individuality and start calling themselves Umbra. Once this happens, they show Blood Knight tendencies. Logically, this makes sense for the blade, as if a stronger foe can slay its current wielder and take up the sword for themselves, the sword gains a stronger host. (Thankfully, this never happens to the Player Character, no matter how much the sword is used.)
  • Both the Nords and Orcs are Proud Warrior Races with elements of this in their cultures. Nords live for the thrill of battle and hope to enter Sovngarde if they fall in battle, while Orcs actively seek out worthy opponents to end their lives when they feel themselves weakening with age.
  • Dremora are an intelligent race of lesser Daedra who are most commonly found in the service of Mehrunes Dagon as his Legions of Hell. They practically exist for combat and fighting, and seek to kill any mortals or other lesser Daedra in their quest to prove themselves as the Master Race.
  • Frandar Hunding was a legendary Redguard/Yokudan Ansei, also known as "Sword Saints", and quite possibly the greatest Master Swordsman in the history of Nirn. He traveled Yokuda as a Knight Errant in his youth, slaying all manner of men and monsters, while testing his skills in 90 duels. He was never once defeated, leading him to believe that he was invincible, so he retired to Mount Hattu and wrote the Book of Circles to pass along his insights. He was later called back into battle as a warrior at age 60, leading the Ansei to victory over the much more numerous forces of Yokudan Emperor Hira. Frandar would then be one of the first Yokudans to arrive in Tamriel and was still acting as a Frontline General at age 90 when he finally fell in battle to the giant goblins of Hammerfell.
• The End Times: Vermintide and Vermintide II: All the Ubersreik Five are happy to cut down the forces of Chaos, but the battle wizard Sienna especially is an unabashed Pyromaniac who's addicted to Playing with Fire and loves having enemies she's allowed to slaughter. The others worry about her self-control.
  Lohner: You look disgustingly cheerful, Sienna.
  Sienna: And why not? So many enemies to set ablaze! Life is good.
• Hyde from Evolve. He's a veteran who joined up because the alternative was prison time and takes a little too much joy in melting the monster's face off.
• The Fallout series:
  • Fallout 3:
    • Fawkes is like this, but only in combat. After blowing away an enemy with his Gatling Laser, he'll laugh and shout, "Too fun!" But outside of combat he's surprisingly gentle and polite; also, he will only be your follower if you have high Positive Karma.
  • Fallout: New Vegas: Multiple characters:
    • Legate Lanius. He openly mocks Caesar's Frumentarii (the intelligence and assassination division of their forces) as cowardly and underhanded, preferring direct and spectacular action, and is correspondingly viewed with wariness by both Caesar and Vulpes (the head of said Frumentarii). In all but one of the game's endings, he serves as the Final Boss. And he is tough. He also claims that his ideals will "free people in ways they can't see". His proof? You.
    • Joshua Graham is something of a deconstruction. He claims he takes no pleasure in violence and killing, it is just a chore he must do to protect his home, but it's clear these are Blatant Lies (which he is probably telling to himself more than anyone else). Depending on the Courier's actions, he can have a Heel Realization and work to overcome his rage, fully embrace his brutality and become Caesar 2.0 with his own Legion, or calm down his bloodlust just enough to make his earlier claim more or less true.
    • Boone, whose only goal and purpose in life is massacring as many Legionaries as possible, and Cass who frequently got into barfights when she was younger and has plenty of fun killing those who have wronged her in the main game.
  • Fallout 4 has two companions who revel in fighting. One is Strong, a Super Mutant in a similar vein to Fawkes from Fallout 3: introspective and oddly moral, but whose interests only go about as far as fighting and eating humans. He is also the only companion who approves of murdering innocents. The other is Cait, a self-centered pit fighter whose interests center mostly around fighting and drug abuse. While she disapproves of wanton murder, she approves of solving problems with violence.
• The Far Cry games run on the rules of War Is Hell, but Violence Is Cool, so naturally there's more than a few Blood Knights among the cast.
  • Far Cry 3:
    • Jason Brody, the Player Character, initially is not one of these. The first time he kills a pirate, it disturbs him deeply, and he initially refuses a gun that Dennis offers to him. As the game goes on, however, he gradually gains the will to kill, and he becomes a lot more eager to fight and kill pirates. Played for Drama, as the game makes it clear that the more Jason starts enjoying violence, the more he loses his grip on reality, and depending on the player's decisions, his blood lust can eventually cost him his life.
    • Jason's ally, Dennis Rogers, is a member of the Rakyat, so you'd better believe he likes to fight. He's first introduced tattooing an unconscious Jason's arm, and when Jason defensively reaches for his knife, Dennis holds a machete to his face and warns him that he has a right to kill him, but Dennis will also take his life. He then laughs and swings the machete around so the handle is facing Jason instead of the blade. He's also the person who instructs Jason on learning how to fight to fit in with the Rakyat.
  • Jason's ally Sam Becker, a supposed German Deep Cover Agent who works with Jason against the Privateers occupying the Rook Islands. When he and Jason are attacking enemy encampments, he describes it as "the best day of my life" and is disturbingly loud and cheerful throughout the entire raid. He even bungles the initial stealthy infiltration by raising his machine gun and sprinting around the corner screaming "BLITZKRIEG!!"
    • On the villains' side, we have Bambi "Buck" Hughes. An Australian mercenary who used to be in the army before his predilection for sadism got him dishonourably discharged. He then found work as a Psycho for Hire on the Rook Islands, and spends his days drinking, researching ancient Chinese weapons, and thinking about ways to hurt people. In addition to being a Depraved Homosexual who's keeping Jason's friend Keith as a Sex Slave, Buck is drawn to men who fight- and more so men who kill- and once Jason finds his knife for him, he cheerfully decides I Have You Now, My Pretty, so if Jason won't submit to Buck, he'll force him to.
      Buck: This is some fucked-up foreplay, eh?
    • And finally, we have the Big Bad himself- no, not Vaas, however much people like him- Hoyt Volker. Apart from being a Bad Boss who likes to Make an Example of Them, Hoyt also relishes torture and murder in his downtime, and he's the best fighter in his entire organization- as Jason finds out when Hoyt cuts off one of Jason's fingers and then challenges him to a Knife Fight. Despite Hoyt insisting he doesn't take any pleasure from forcing Jason to fight, he looks all too eager to stab and slash at Jason, including whenever he sweeps his feet from below him and tries kicking him while he's down.
      Hoyt: I've been doing this long before you were born, kid.
  • Far Cry 4:
    • Ajay Ghale, the Player Character, is somewhat over-eager to assist the Golden Path at the start of the game once they come to rescue him from Pagan Min.
  • He raises his hands in triumph to the audience at the Shannath Arena after he wins his first fight. Right after being drugged, stripped of his clothes, chained, tossed several feet onto his back, and forced to fight trained soldiers alone.
    • Pagan Min at the end of the game accuses him of deciding to be "the lunatic who has murdered his way to the top of my mountain" instead of staying and waiting at Pagan's dinner table for them to scatter the ashes of Ajay's mother together. However, Min may be subjecting Ajay to Psychological Projection: while Ajay is eager to fight and kill, he does it to defend the people of Kyrat from Pagan's soldiers or the local wildlife. If nothing else, Ajay is Good Is Not Soft.
    • Recurring character Hurk Drubman Jr. is a Half-Witted Hillbilly who behaves like a Frat Bro touring the world in search of countries in conflict, hoping to join the local resistance. He first appears in the third game working for the Rakyat. He doesn't do much fighting by himself, relying on Jason to do it for him, but he's very eager to watch Jason shoot and blow pirates up. In 4, he's more hands-on, joining Ajay in Co-Op Mode with an armed buzzer helicopter, a Harpoon Gun, and riding War Elephants. In Far Cry 5, he's a Gun for Hire who follows the Deputy with a BFG and heat-seeking missiles, and openly admits that he loves shooting things. Sadly, Hurk's Trigger-Happy mood means he's as likely to shoot you as he is to shoot your enemy.
    • Hurk's cousin Sharky, also introduced in 5, is pugilistic like his cousin. His gameplay trailer includes him saying "Taking down Peggies with you is going to be a hoot!" He especially loves burning cultists alive with his flamethrower, Flipping the Bird as he goes.
    • Jess Black, the Stealth Expert, admits that she's addicted to killing Peggies (makes sense, since they killed her parents), but at least they're not drugs, right? Headshotting cultists with her bow is the rare occasion she can be heard actually raising her voice.
  • Far Cry: New Dawn:
    • Vince, the founder of the Highwaymen, was a violent, brutal man. His daughters Mickey and Lou are even more violent, having killed their father when he started going "soft in the head" and therefore became unfit to lead the Highwaymen. Lou is the more violent of the two, compared to the more level-headed Mickey. If you hear her laughing, that's never good. It usually means she's going to hammer your face to a pulp with her own biker helmet, or break a plate and stab you with it. Under Mickey and Lou, the Highwaymen spend their time when they're not killing people, stealing things, or eating dogs going on violent derby tournaments.
    • Gina Guerra and Nana, two new Guns for Hire in New Dawn, also qualify as this. Gina is a former Highwayman soldier who's only happy when she's fighting, and if the Player Character stops fighting, she starts complaining. Nana is a Friendly Sniper who's perfectly cheerful whenever she's blowing off Highwaymen's heads with her shots.
  • Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon:
    • Sergeant Rex "Power" Colt, being a parody of 80's action heroes, is perfectly happy to shoot people, as you can tell by the numerous Bond One Liners he rattles off every time he kills someone. He's positively elated by the final level when he gets to go riding around the battlefield on a literal laser-shooting dragon.
    • Rex's former boss, Colonel Ike Sloan, is even more of a Blood Knight than Rex, planning on bombing the entire world so that only the strong will rule. And at the start of the game, he proves he's not willing to leave the fighting to his men, as Rex's friend Spider finds out at the cost of his life when Sloan carries out a Hoist Hero over Head.
  • Far Cry Primal:
    • Urki, Hurk's ancestor, is this in addition to being pretty dense. At the start of his second mission, we see him eagerly hammering an Udam to death with a Boulder Bludgeon, and he's so elated that he doesn't even notice the Udam stuck a spear through his stomach before he died.
    • Karoosh the Warrior is a Boisterous Bruiser. The first time Takkar meets him, he's squaring off against a whole horde of Udam warriors by himself. After he wins, with Takkar's help, he goes around cheerfully screaming about the "good fight", then gives Takkar a very violent Headbutt of Love. The skills he teaches Takkar are new ways to do takedowns and increasing his chances of surviving in the Udam home turf.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy: Garland, the Tin Tyrant, is given a more philosophical take on this characterisation in Dissidia Final Fantasy; he believes that all existence is a repetition of "the cycle of battle", and that all attempts to bring peace to the world are futile. He actually gets offended when his nemesis, Warrior of Light, promises to rescue him from the Cycle. Later on it's shown that the reason Garland loves fighting is that the cycle of the war of Chaos and Cosmos has gone on for so long, he's lost all hope of it ever ending and has resigned himself to an eternity of fighting. Taking delight in doing so is Garland's way of adapting to the "Groundhog Day" Loop he's stuck in.
    Garland: [to the Warrior of Light] It is time for you to accept the cycle and embrace combat's grim pleasure!
  • Even better, Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V is another obvious example, while also being a collector of rare weapons. While travelling The Multiverse, he wound up right in the middle of the conflict, solely to find Bartz for a rematch!
  • Shadow from Final Fantasy VI is another example of a character who likes to fight for its own sake. Or at least, "it's the only thing I know".
    • From the same game there’s also Sabin, a Boisterous Bruiser who lost the chance to rule the kingdom to his brother Edgar in a coin toss and happily went to go train in martial arts instead. What Sabin didn’t know is that Edgar rigged the coin toss knowing full well his brother would be miserable as king.
  • Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII as shown in Dissidia is implied to have Blood Knight tendencies, such as, shortly after fighting the Warrior of Light to a draw, Sephiroth implies while trying to give him a "Not So Different" Remark that he himself is in the conflict because he enjoys the fight. In Final Fantasy VII Remake Sephiroth actively encourages Cloud to become stronger so they can have a better fight later on.
    • Barret in the remake is definitely this. While his other party members have confident one-liners during battle most of Barrett’s dialogue consists of “HELL YEAH!” and “BRING IT!” all while Gatling Good.
    • Reno also displays this behavior in the remake during his fights against the heroes. Unfortunately (to his shame), he bites off more than he can chew with Cloud leaving him more than eager for a rematch. Even Rude is implied to be this, as when Reno interrupts his fight with Cloud with a call, Rude looks annoyed and Reno in an apologetic tone says "I know you're probably having the time your life, but we're needed on standby for a job".
    • Roche a Canon Foreigner 3rd Class SOLDIER from the remake, makes the previous examples look tame in comparison. Roche loves fighting and racing on his Cool Bike, laughing in utter glee throughout the entire encounter with him. Heck he even heals Cloud to full health! Before engaging him in a sword fight, so their fight can be totally fair.
    • Azul from Dirge of Cerberus has the most Blood Knight tendencies of the rest of the Tsviets, calling Vincent his 'worthy opponent' and constantly talking about the thrill of battle, etc.
  • The Mithra in Final Fantasy XI have shades of this. We have not yet seen their homeland, but the Mithra we do see are predominantly mercenaries who are spoiling for a good brawl or just lazing about and enjoying good weather... similar to normal cat behavior in a way. So yes, Mithra are more on the mellow end of the Blood Knight scale, content to enjoy life, but if the chance for a fight picks up, the bravado quickly kicks in. This is all especially visible in the Wings of the Goddess expansion when you see the Mithran role in the Great War.
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2: When you fight Caius, expect him to say "Lose yourself in battle, and rejoice!"
  • Zenos from Final Fantasy XIV only feels alive when he's fighting and killing, and his greatest desire is to find someone strong enough to give him an actual challenge (to which end, he rules with terror, in the hopes that the hate his reign fosters eventually creates a Worthy Opponent). He takes an interest in the player character as they grow stronger and, when they finally defeat him, he admits that this is the first time he's ever felt such transcendent joy. He then bids a fond farewell to his first "friend" and enemy before committing suicide. Upon coming Back from the Dead, Zenos murders his own father to prevent him from using a Deadly Gas against the Eorzean Alliance, as he wants nothing to interfere with his upcoming rematch against the player.
• Cody Travers from Final Fight became this when he appeared in Street Fighter, the backstory explains that after beating Belger, he just kept fighting until he was jailed, breaking out whenever he gets bored. During his storyline, he plainly tells his old friend Guy that he doesn't consider himself a hero, just a dude who only feels complete when he's kicking ass, though his ending does imply that he still has some heroic spirit in him. This happens again in Super Street Fighter IV, complete with him and his somewhat-estranged friend Guy having another tussle. There are several strong hints that Cody is simply a Knight in Sour Armor. Even after reforming and becoming mayor of Metro City in Street Fighter V Cody still takes time out of his busy schedule to beat up hoodlums, to the annoyance of his secretary.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade:
    • Karel is a wandering, half-crazed swordsman whose only goal is to seek out the most powerful fighters on the continent and cut them into tiny little pieces. He killed four of his family members, threatens to kill both his younger sister Karla and his apprentice Guy if they ever dare to grow strong enough to make for a decent fight, and bribes Dart the pirate for gossip about the toughest fighters in the land, only to discover he's already beaten them all. This characterization actually came about as a result of Karel's appearance in the previous game, The Binding Blade (which follows Blazing Blade chronologically). The designers possibly wanted the young Karel to contrast the saintly Warrior Poet personality he sported in the latter game as much as possible. It's implied that he was mellowed by the death of Karla to illness during the timeskip between the two games. This becomes particularly clear if he's forced to retreat:
      Karel: Death cannot be bested with a sword... My skills are not yet honed to such a level. I should take my leave of this battle.
    • Karel's future brother-in-law Bartre plays the trope mostly for comedy. His daughter Fir from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is also one, although she's a little more stable than both her father and her uncle.
    • Karla seemed to be a much less extreme version than her brother, and somewhat less than Barte or Fir. While she isn't obsessed with killing like Karel is, she has dedicated her life to swordsmanship and seems to get some enjoyment out of fighting, going to arenas only in the hope of finding her brother.
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones:
    • Valter wants to kill protagonists Eirika and Ephraim solely for the thrill of fighting them. However, he focuses on Eirika quite a lot.
    • Ephraim himself is definitely this. He loves fighting; hell, in his conversation with the Fire Emblem: Awakening Avatar in DLC, he admits to sounding like a warmonger. This personality trait is eventually deconstructed, as he gradually learns that there's more to being a ruler than just fighting.
  • And then there's Skrimir from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. If he doesn't qualify, no one does.
    Skrimir: Run down all who get in your way! Make your path of blood and bone! Advance! Advance! Advance!
    Skrimir: Bah! Is that it? I still crave blood! Find me more humans to kill!
  • Both Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn have the Black Knight aka General Zelgius. Aside from his loyalty to Sephiran, his primary goal in life is to test his sword against worthy opponents.
  • Henry from Fire Emblem: Awakening joins Chrom's army instead of his own nation's simply on the basis that the latter has far more soldiers, meaning he'd have more people to fight that way.
    • Also from Awakening, we have Noire, whose split personality includes a Blood Knight who takes delight in slaying her enemies and a Shrinking Violet the rest of the time.
  • Fire Emblem Fates has two female examples: Peri is Cute and Psycho with a Dark and Troubled Past and one HELL of a Blood Lust case that also influences her Personal Skill^note (Bloodthirst: If Peri initiates the battle and KOs an enemy with their attack, Strength, Magic, Skill and Speed +4 for one turn), while Charlotte wears the most devilish grin when she's about to bring her axe down on an enemy.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a few, too.
    • Lord Gwendal is called the Gray Lion and fights the player's army to the death on every route he's encountered. He cares only about serving his lord and getting a good fight out of doing so, whether that means he ends up facing off with other lords of Faerghus (potentially including the actual king) or not.
    • Felix develops into this on story routes other than Azure Moon, seeking battle for the sake of fighting powerful opponents. In Verdant Wind, he's even one of the few characters to explicitly look forward to battling the Fell King, Nemesis, and his epilogues in most routes involve him haring off into the sunset, making his way through the world as a wandering swordsman/mercenary. Only in the Crimson Flower route does he realize this makes him not so different from Dimitri.
    • Then there's Dimitri himself. "Combat" is listed among his likes in his bio, and in his S-rank Forging Bonds convo in Heroes, he mentions he enjoys the battlefield because he doesn't have to be troubled by his thoughts there. Even Felix is disturbed by how much Dimitri enjoys battle, considering him something inhuman after seeing the nightmarish glee Dimitri derived from slaughtering his foes while suppressing a rebellion.
    • Jeritza/The Death Knight has basically one type of interaction with Byleth: Asking to fight, or, to cut out the middleman, actually fighting them. He fixates on Byleth early on and goes as far as to dismiss other combatants in the middle of full-scale battle.
• The Edge and The Burst, from Furi:
  • The Edge is a Samurai with unparalleled strength and skill when it comes to melee combat. He's literally done nothing but train for years - specifically for the day you break free from your cell and make it to him, just so that he can fight you, and improve himself even more. His dialogue during the fight is unique in that he never taunts you, like The Scales or The Chain, nor does he urge you to stop like The Line and The Song - instead, he encourages you, urging you to "let it out" so you can "truly shine." He wants nothing but your best, and beating him requires exactly that.
  • The Burst is a bit of a tamer example, mixed in with a dash of Egomaniac Hunter; with her high-tech stealth gear and a seemingly bottomless supply of attack drones and land mines, she traps you in an arena and hunts you down from a distance with her instant-kill Laser Rifle. Her dialogue during the fight moves from the standard taunting to praising you for making the experience more fun for her, only turning desperate at the end of the fight, once she realizes you're winning.
• Captain Falcon's theme song in F-Zero GX seems to be from the point of view of a Blood Knight that idolizes Captain Falcon.

G-K

• Red Arremer, also known as Red Blaze or Firebrand, in Gargoyle's Quest and Demon's Crest.
• Childe from Genshin Impact. As a teenager, he fell into the Abyss and spent months fighting for his life under the tutelage of a mysterious warrior, emerging completely changed by his experience in the darkest corners of the world. He was nearly unrecognizable to his own family, and his newfound bloodlust caused such problems for them that he was eventually sent to enlist with the Fatui in hopes of straightening him out. Instead, he would attract the attention of the Harbinger Pulcinella, and climb (or fight) his way through the ranks until he was granted the 11th Seat as the youngest-ever Harbinger. As Tartaglia, he serves as the Fatui's vanguard and is a warrior feared across the world for his mastery of weapons and unending thirst for battle. While his fellow Harbingers primarily engage in politics and scheming, Tartaglia prefers to deal more directly with his enemies and challenge the strongest of opponents. After losing a duel to the Traveler, Childe considers this to cement their friendship and becomes a valuable if extremely dangerous ally.
• Kratos from the God of War series delves into this at varying times in his life. It definitely applies in his backstory in the first game, as well as the interim between the first and second. During the games, he seems to have a definite cause he's fighting for, but between them, he's more than happy to just go out and kill whatever the gods point him at.
  • The Stranger aka Balder from God of War (PS4) delights in combat and picked a fight with a jaded and mellowed out Kratos (who just calmly asked him to leave repeatedly) just because, learning Kratos is a fellow god simply excited him. Balder is like this due to being able to Feel No Pain thanks to his mother Freya cursing him in a misguided attempt to protect him, Balder simply wants to "feel" again and revels in violence. It's also fitting that Kratos should be his main opponent as he was just like Balder in the previous God of War games until he mellowed out.
  • Thor in God of War Ragnarök is one of these: he spends most of his first boss fight goading Kratos into fighting harder, gets genuinely excited when Kratos activates Spartan Rage, and actually kills Kratos halfway through the fight, before promptly resuscitating him with Mjolnir because he's not satisfied yet. He also gets in Bar Brawls for fun.
• Grand Theft Auto:
  • Tommy Vercetti from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Unlike other protagonists of the series, seems that his hobby is killing, either for money or revenge, without remorse, without mercy, and without excuses.
  • Luis Lopez from Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony.
  • Trevor Phillips from Grand Theft Auto V seems to make a hobby out of goading people into fighting him.
• Guild Wars 2:
  • Most Norn love a good fight. It's not enough for them to seek adventure, in some cases, but to seek adventures with a potential to kill them, and then have the skaalds sing and drink of their exploits afterward (even if they die). They don't often do this without some sense of honor or pragmatism, or even a sense of right and wrong- but glory is almost always on the table for them.
  • The Charr haven't known peace in over 300 years, not even after having reclaimed most of their homeland from human invaders- this has led to militarism and industry with a heavy emphasis on destroying anything that could potentially threaten them unless there's a good reason not to, so as a result most Charr (a race naturally hot-blooded and violent) that are active members of the Legions love (or learn to love) the combat and discipline from being on the front lines. More pragmatically, however, their deeds are never forgotten. They do not worship gods, and so they derive inspiration, strength, and confidence from historical figures of great strength and honor (but mostly strength). It's so ingrained in their culture that a soldier who fails to die along with the rest of his/her warband is looked upon as a gutless coward- even hinting at the fear of death will get you chewed out.
• Guilty Gear has Raven. An immortal masochist who revels in pain as it's the only physical sensation he still feels, he's more than happy to drop his polite facade for a fight when given adequate reason to. This extends even to his fighting style, where he attempts to goad his opponents into attacking him to make him excited about the fight before savagely attacking back; and to his profile, where one of his likes is listed as "People that make him want to kill them" or "People who make him feel threatened" depending on the game.
• Doctor Colette Green of Half-Life 1 Expansion Pack 3: Decay is a rather extreme female example, if her dialogue is any indication. Notable for being a rare female Player Character example.
• Hellbound"' sees you playing as a demon exterminator who's revived from the dead to deal with a Hell on Earth scenario, and naturally you love your job. You even lampshade it aloud at one point (I'm the best at what I do. And what I do is kill motherfuckers''.)
• Hollow Knight:
  • This is Tiso's defining character trait. Plenty of characters are itching for a fight, but Tiso seems to have a particularly one-track mind, showing up in several different places just to comment on how much he'd rather be fighting. Ironically, you never get to fight him in the Colosseum of Fools where he ultimately ends up.
  • Zote is similarly aggressive, although since he's about as threatening as dandelion fluff it mostly only serves to earn him ass-beatings from which the Knight saves him.
  • The Hunter kills creatures both for the meal and for the challenge. He is strongly implied to be one of the most dangerous creatures in Hallownest, having casually hunted all the deadly creatures in the journal. If the player completes his journal, reading his thoughts will reveal that he hopes to fight the Knight someday, who has become very powerful by this point.
  • This is the ideal state of being for a mantis. The Mantis Village has a plaque at the entrance warning outsiders that entering is tantamount to a death sentence. Mantises are among the few enemies that will attack you despite not being infected; that's just how they are. Ironically, they're doing the best out of any society in Hollownest; their warrior code demands a hard-line stance against the infection, so the instant the Traitor King intentionally infected himself and his followers, the Mantis Lords kicked the lot of them out, sparing them the worst damage.
• Horizon Zero Dawn: Nil joined the army of the Mad Sun-King solely because he wanted to kill people. After the Mad Sun-King was overthrown, Nil was declared a war criminal and sentenced to prison. He went without complaint, and when he got out a few years later, he had made a decision: He would only kill bandits. When Aloy praises him for saving people, he shamelessly says that he doesn't do it for that. He just really likes killing people, and no one complains when he kills bandits. He also mentions that he kinda likes killing animals, but people get mad when he just leaves the meat to rot. After you clear all the bandit camps, he challenges Aloy to a death duel in a pseudo-romantic fashion that looks suspiciously like a marriage proposal.
• Kenshin Uesugi from Ikemen Sengoku views fighting on the battlefield as the only time he truly feels alive and constantly complains of boredom whenever he can't engage in a fight. Unlike Nobunaga's other enemies who all have deeply personal grudges against Nobunaga, one gets the impression with Kenshin that he wants to go to war with Nobunaga just because it would make for an epic battle.
• Lazarus in I Miss the Sunrise. He is relentlessly obsessed with fighting and power, and characters mention that if he ever had the opportunity, he would annihilate every superpower in the galaxy while laughing.
• Black Whirlwind from Jade Empire most definitely counts.
  Black Whirlwind: I won't stop until I'm ankle deep in blood, standing on my head!
  Black Whirlwind: [while waiting for an army to arrive] Why wait? We should just charge them now.
• In Kid Icarus: Uprising, Dark Pit really enjoys fighting and will take every opportunity to try and pummel you. At least until the last few chapters of the game where he joins forces with Pit to help save Palutena, and then to fight Hades — given he's an enemy to all living things.
  • Even then, Friendly Fire is in effect and he can (and will) still attack you if you get in his way. What makes it notable is that the only other Guest-Star Party Member, Magnus, will never invoke Friendly Fire, intentionally or accidentally.
• According to Master Xehanort's reports in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, this is one reason that the Keyblade War got so bad. Every Blood Knight in the universe flocked to it and started fighting both sides indiscriminately.
• Rugal Berstein, Gato, and Shen Woo from The King of Fighters. To be more specific about Rugal, he holds the tournament in the first game because he was BORED about not having any strong enemies. As for the others, Gato has left everything including his little sister to dedicate himself to fighting, and Shen is extremely boisterous and always ready for a fight. For a female example, look no further than Rugal's ex-Sexy Secretary and membress of the Orochi clan, Vice. Leona can come up as such sometimes, but she's more of a Sugar and Ice girl.
• Kirby: The only wish of Meta Knight is to become stronger and fight a worthy opponent. Given the opportunity to wish for anything, he requests a battle with the most powerful warrior the universe has ever known... which he then wins. In the Anime, he also states that he's encouraging Kirby to fight monsters because his nature is too kind to seek out opponents on his own.
• Knights of the Old Republic:
  • Canderous is a perfect example of this trope. (He does eventually decide he needs some kind of cause to fight for but doesn't seem to care very much what that cause is.) In fact, most of the Mandalorians seem to be that way.
  • The Mandalorians aren't the worst, though. In one level you meet an Iridorian whose worldview makes the Mandalorians look like the Care Bears. Like he said:
    Honor comes from slaying your opponent, and the true reward of any job is the taste of your foe's drying blood on your tongue.
  • HK-47 is programmed as an assassin droid Revan's personal assassin droid, and loves his job. So long as the meatbag in charge provides maintenance and gives him something to shoot, he's happy. That being said, he's annoyed by his even more bloodthirsty HK-50 successors, viewing them as both shoddy knockoffs and sloppy about their carnage. HK-47 considers himself designed for precision targeting of specific enemies, not wanton and attention-getting slaughter.

L-O

• Left 4 Dead series:
  • Bill misses 'Nam and is actually glad that the zombies have given him an enemy to fight. He eventually grows out of his Blood Knight tendencies as he spends more time with the other survivors; he sees Louis as a very helpful guy to have around (the comic reveals that he created the pipe bombs), Francis as a tolerable son of a bitch that can kick some ass, and Zoey as a granddaughter. He vows to protect the fellow survivors at all costs and stays true to his word in The Sacrifice campaign where he sacrifices his life to restart the generator to raise the bridge so the other survivors can escape the horde of zombies and then get away to some remote islands.
  • Francis treats the Zombie Apocalypse like "the world's biggest barfight."
  • Ellis in the sequel is a more naive version of this trope, but he still views the zombie outbreak as a way to have some fun, especially going to an abandoned carnival.
• Legacy of Kain: Kain has shades of this. He certainly seems to be enjoying himself when he shouts out his battle cry after impaling an opponent.
• The Legend of Heroes - Trails:
  • Trails in the Sky: Walter Direwolf exposits to Estelle on the joys of fighting and not knowing if a battle is going to be the one either do or don't come back from. Estelle is suitably creeped out.
  • Trails to Azure: Shirley's combat prowess is exceptional, and she is feared throughout Western Zemuria as "Bloody Shirley". When she pushes herself to the limit just to take on who she views as her strongest adversary, she overexerts and passes out.
  • Trails of Cold Steel: Ash really loves to wreak some havoc, even at school. In Cold Steel III, he brings out his weapon, points it at Bardias and wants to fight the guy.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In the spin-off Hyrule Warriors, the Original Generation character Volga is a Dragon Knight serving the apparent Big Bad only to fight strong opponents and being disappointed to those who can't stand up to him. The DLC later reveals that he was just the leader of the Lizalfos tribe who was brainwashed by Cia to be this way. From the same game, Ganondorf, the true Big Bad, is characterized as one as well, himself relishing in battle and being disappointed if he finds his opponent too easy.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Ganondorf's personality is reimagined this way on top of his usual insatiable ambition. During his first appearance in the intro, he states that he finds Link to be an unsatisfying opponent after destroying the Master Sword, and right before his Final Boss battle, he states that it would be more satisfying to overcome a worthy foe, while midway he states that he had almost forgotten the thrill of battle before entering his second phase.
• Lie of Caelum: Downplayed with Kyou. While he's a disciplined martial artist and doesn't intentionally seek out fights, Miyu believes he and Hitoshi are in a contest to see who can blow a hole in the planet. Kyou's response is to half-jokingly approve of that goal.
• Like a Dragon:
  • All of the Mr. Shakedowns in Yakuza 0 seem to enjoy fighting to various degrees, but none more than Yuki Sato, who doesn't actually have much of a reason for continuously targeting Kiryu other than enjoying the fact that he finally found someone capable of fighting back against him. After four losses against Kiryu, however, he realizes that Kiryu's been taking his money after each win, and gains a secondary purpose in fighting Kiryu to get his money back (even though that money was taken from other people, and he himself was trying to mug Kiryu the whole time.)
  • Also in 0, Homare Nishitani loves fighting as much as he loves feeling up cabaret girls.
  • Yakuza 2's Ryuji Godo sets up a war between the Omi Alliance and the Tojo Clan seemingly just to fight Kiryu.
  • There's one in every Yakuza game. His name is Goro Majima.
  • Even Kiryu himself shows shades of this. Most notably in Yakuza 5, when he, Saejima, Watase, and Katsuya are preparing to duke it out amongst themselves.
    Kiryu: You think you're itching for a fight? You've forgotten one thing. Amongst the lot of us, nobody's waited to fight longer than me. Who's going first?
• In Lords of the Realm 2, any noble is capable of this, especially if they own several counties and can afford to send huge armies against you or rival lords.
• The Second Circle of Elder Gods in Lusternia is a whole pantheon of these. Shikari is regarded as a Blood Knight even by their standards, though, prolonging fights and playing with his prey for the pleasure of it.
• Manafinder: Octavius constantly tries to goad the manafinders into fighting him and spits on any attempt to negotiate with him. After Lambda kills most of the other nomad leaders, Octavius acknowledges her strength and orders Azain not to destroy the manastones yet, since he knows Lambda will have no reason to fight him if the manastones are destroyed immediately.
• Mass Effect:
  • The krogan are a living, breathing, walking, and talking example of this trope. It even carries over to krogan multiplayer characters, who can often be heard laughing in the midst of a heated battle. In the second game a crew member, Grunt, born via test tubes has a good laugh over brutal imagery from his tank and cites that there's no joke to what he's seen only that, "It was a good fight."
  • Grunt makes this even more clear if he's the one who radios you during the final boss sequence. Every other party member will say they're being overrun when ordered to fall back, whereas Grunt...
    Grunt: Shepard! You're missing it! It's goddamn glorious! I'll climb out on their bodies!
  • Wrex is a much wiser and more reasonable krogan who recognizes that there are things more important than fighting... but whenever he does fight, it's obvious that he's having the time of his life. In the Citadel DLC, he even reveals that he's always wanted to have a fight through the Normandy's CIC, for no reason other than that he's Wrex. Shepard is not amused.
  • In the sequel, Garrus has shades of this, though he keeps up certain standards:
    Garrus: Hospitals aren't fun to fight through.
    Shepard: What is fun to fight through?
    Garrus: Gardens, electronics shops. Antique stores, but only if they're classy.
    • Despite his above snarky approach to it, during gameplay if you have Garrus in your party during a firefight, he will loudly announce his kills with childlike glee.
      Garrus: Scratch one!
  • The third game has Kai Leng, a Canon Immigrant from the novels. His back story is that he enlisted in the military at age 16 using false credentials, and made it as far as N7 - the same program that produced Shepard and Anderson - before showing his true colors in a bar fight. He was discharged and thrown in jail, only to be broken out by the Illusive Man, who put him to work as an assassin.
    Shepard: [while your squad point their guns at Leng] Three against one. Now it's over.
    Kai Leng: No. Now it's fun.
  • A Renegade Shepard definitely comes across as one. Unlike Paragon Shepard, they don't go around the Galaxy because there is always someone who needs saving but because there is always someone who needs their head smacking together or taught a lesson. And these lessons often involve bullets.
  • Jack is constantly hopping back and forth between this and Ax-Crazy, enjoying fighting and violence on an almost erotic level, and having barely any moral boundaries regarding who she hurts, if at all. There is a reason for this: the Cerberus scientists who made her this way would put her in pit fights with other children and pump her full of drugs every time she killed someone, leading her to associate pleasure with violence. She does manage to come down from Ax-Crazy as shown in Mass Effect 3, but it's clear her love for fighting hasn't really gone anywhere.
  • From Mass Effect: Andromeda there's another krogan example in Nakmor Drack, who took off from the krogan colony of New Tuchanka looking for a fight, and it's why he sticks with Ryder. However, there's another reason as well - he believes his people need more than that and was disquieted by the younger krogan hero-worshipping him, seeing his own past as an example of what they need to move beyond.
• In one of the numerous mods for Medieval II: Total War, amongst other new factions, you can play as the Principality of Wallachia. Yes, the same Wallachia that the infamous Vlad Tepes came from. And while you can turn any faction into an Evil Army of Blood Knights, Wallachia is almost this by default. Their peasants, the supposed Cannon Fodder, wield axes, have unusually high morale, and may charge without orders. Their description also notes "they have a taste for fighting". The most awesome peasants in the game.
  • The Scots in the regular version of Medieval II manage to come pretty close, though. Most of the other factions have the bog-standard peasants. The Scottish equivalent are Highland Rabble: unwashed, kilt-wearing, and extremely fast-moving painted Highlanders wielding big knives. That's before you factor in the regular Highlanders, who carry axes and shields, and the much nastier Highland Nobles, who are armed with giant claymores. And all of these Highlanders are fast-moving infantry who work best blindly rushing the enemy. The Scots are an infantry army built to CHAAAAAARGE!
  • Blood Knight tendencies are an actual trait that generals can pick up, usually as a direct result of personally charging their bodyguards into the fray. It starts with the "Fine With Blood" trait, which gives a bonus to dread, Command, and Morale. It progresses to the "Sanguinary" trait, explicitly describing the general as actively wanting to charge into combat and kill people, increasing Dread and Command, but unnerving the troops and causing a small penalty to Morale. The last level of the trait is "Bloodthirsty", in which the general is so balls-out demanding for blood and violence that while he gets a big boost to Dread, he suffers a penalty to Command and the troops are so terrified of him that they suffer a huge Morale penalty.
• Mega Man:
  • Zero in the X and his own series display moments where he enjoys fighting his enemies despite his cool-headed personality and some of the Mavericks in both series even accused him of the enjoyment of slaying his enemies more than delivering justice and being a hero. Zero in the climax of Mega Man Zero 4 himself admitted to his companions that he's no different than Weil in terms of the enjoyment of causing bloodshed and that fighting is the only thing he's ever good at as a 'Reploid designed for war' as he mentioned to Craft after their fight which resulted in the death of the latter. Averted in his final battle against Weil with his famous speech that he has always fought for the people he believed in, doesn't care about justice nor being a hero and will not hesitate to destroy his enemies as he always has throughout his long life.
  • Bass leans this way. He's largely unconcerned with his creator's (Dr. Wily's) goals and fears, and in the arcade games and Mega Man & Bass, he'll stand against Wily if Wily annoys him enough. His primary goal is simply proving he's the strongest robot around.
  • Three out of the Four Guardians (Harpuia, Fefnir, and Leviathan) in Mega Man Zero are like this. Upon discovering that Zero is a Worthy Opponent, they tend to shirk their other duties in favour of fighting him and rapidly escalate the whole business to Foe Romance Subtext levels. Even Harpuia, who is able to keep his battle lust under control compared to Fefnir and Leviathan and doesn't gush about the thrill of battle, admits that fighting Zero makes him feel more alive than anything else.
  • Plenty of Mavericks and hostile Reploids that you fight say they were looking forward to fighting the protagonists. Even when the world is ending all around them. Magma Dragoon from Mega Man X4 is the best example, as he caused the plot of the game, and the resulting deaths of millions, just to fight the protagonists.
  • Axl from the X series is equal parts this and Tagalong Kid. When asked why he fights, his most common answer is that he enjoys it. The fact that he's fighting for justice is largely a fringe bonus (although X7 explicitly shows that he doesn't enjoy being an asshat).
  • Omega-Xis in Mega Man Star Force can be like this. He wants nothing more than to cut loose and go buck-wild on assorted viruses, villains, and so forth, and his default response when presented with any piece of human technology he doesn't immediately recognize is to ask "Is it a weapon?" In the backstory, the Zerker tribe from 2 are described as "living only for battle".
  • Atlas from ZX Advent is a darker take on the subject, as she's a soldier from a war-torn country who believes only struggle makes people stronger, and so intends to spark a Forever War. Fittingly, her Biometal is Model F(efnir).
• Metal Gear:
  • Big Boss originally founded Outer Heaven because he only ever felt truly alive when he was on the battlefield, and wanted to create his own independent warrior nation of mercenaries that would participate in conflicts all over the world. It is not so much that Big Boss wanted a world of eternal conflict; in his mind soldiers would always be needed and wars will always be fought so long as there are people. He simply wanted to create a system where soldiers are respected for their talents and not manipulated by corrupt political forces in the government as he and the Boss had been. True warriors like them have no allegiances to nations or ideologies; war is their home and what they believe in.
  • Big Boss explains to Snake his reasoning for Outer Heaven; not only does he enjoy conflict but he has fought in so many wars (his career as a soldier started in 1950 during the Korean War so by 1999, he had been a soldier for almost 50 years) that he has spent the majority of his life on a battlefield of some sort and civilian life is foreign and intolerable (he mentioned at one point that, if a soldier like himself who was living a civilian life was even lucky, he'd get an interview from a two-bit tabloid, at best). Big Boss needs war; a world without conflict is absolutely inconceivable to his very existence. He knew from the moment he had a taste of war and had awoken the warrior spirit within he could never go back (an optional Portable Ops conversation has Big Boss tell how he tried to put the warrior spirit to rest, he tried to be a combat instructor or a hunter, but despite his efforts, ended up back on the battlefield again). Big Boss craves ever bigger thrills and ever bigger tensions; he is not satisfied by money, power, or even sex... only war. Big Boss then states that as a warrior Snake realizes all of this already and has the same killer instincts, something Snake tries to deny.
  • What Big Boss tells Solid Snake about his true nature later becomes a big part of his Character Development in the first Metal Gear Solid and is later reinforced by Liquid telling him the same thing, he comes to the conclusion that they are right. Snake tries coming to terms with the fact that being a mercenary meant that he was a Blood Knight, and realising that he could use his Blood Knight tendencies for the forces of good.
  • Raiden was raised to be a Blood Knight, as he was a child soldier. He's apparently still a full-fledged Blood Knight now, going by his comment about "having some fun" shortly after his superiors at a PMC told him that he has to take out a Cyborg that ambushed them. In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, he's mostly lost that part, preferring to fight for other purposes. Until an ill-planned Breaking Speech went and woke ol' Jack the Ripper up again, at which point his Blood Knight self and his more purposed self tend to have to fight for control.
    • All of the Desperado's Winds of Destruction (bosses) Mistral, Monsoon, Sundowner, and Jetstream Sam are Blood Knights and greatly enjoy fighting Raiden. Then there's Senator Armstrong is someone who thinks very highly of fighting, and believes battling and clashing against others for what you personally believe to be the highest ideal one can strive for. Once the Final Boss battle against him truly begins, he has a grand old time from beginning to end.
  • Quite a lot of the soldier characters in the Metal Gear series qualify, actually. Other than Big Boss, Solid Snake, and Raiden, there is also Gray Fox, Olga Gurlukovich, several of the FOXHOUND members, and possibly Solidus Snake.
  • The Boss claims to be a blood knight as well, but it seems her trip to space and assassination of her own lover made her want to unite the world rather than fight it. Still, whether she is acting or not, she says she wants to make her final fight with Naked Snake the "best ten minutes" of her life.
• Mortal Kombat: Much like Street Fighter, everybody and their mom is a Blood Knight.
  • Kano is probably the foremost example being a Cyborg Psycho Knife Nut from Land Downunder, he gleefully rips hearts out and when he isn't working for money, Kano and his organisation Black Dragon clan commit crime and work for the villains simply out of bloodlust and For the Evulz. This is best seen in Kano's ending in Mortal Kombat 11 where he uses the Hourglass to grant his every desire and become supreme... then Kano gives it all up "because it was boring". Instead Kano makes victory and glory just a little out of his reach, so he doesn't always win, but when he does win it's something to saviour.
  • Big Bad Shao Kahn's sole goal, job and pleasure in life is to conquer, conquer and conquer some more. Originally the Elder Gods set Shao Kahn up as a guardian in Outworld similar to Raiden but Shao Kahn was unpleased with this and poisoning Emperor Onaga he took over Outworld and set up Gladiator Games for his amusement. But Shao Kahn didn't stop there, he along with Goro, Reiko and the rest of Rogues Gallery invade other realms conquering everything through Mortal Kombat. In his ending in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon Shao Kahn conquers everything and falls into madness because there's nothing left to conquer.
  • Kobra. He was once a promising martial artist but was frustrated by the fact that he wasn't allowed to do his moves at their full force in his karate classes. He began prowling the streets of New York looking for a fight. He starts off fighting gangbangers and drug dealers, but with time he develops an insatiable bloodlust, which leads him to endless violence, bloodshed, and theft until he is finally arrested. This bloodlust is exactly why he gets recruited to the Black Dragon clan.
  • Erron Black is a simple man who only cares about getting paid and having fun while doing it, even when learning about Time Travel changing his destiny, he stated "To hell with the future, I live for the moment". Erron Black's ending in 11 doubles down on this as he's the only character who doesn't even consider using the Hourglass to change time at all, Erron just drops it in the Sea of Blood so that all the potential thrills and dangers he faces in life are unknown and unavoidable, just the way he likes it.
• Monster Hunter has a few of its eponymous beasts lean towards this:
  • Monster Hunter Freedom: Yian Garuga is a Bird Wyvern that will fight just about anything, even things it's likely hopelessly outclassed against. As soon as it's wounded too badly to fight in battle, it gets back up and immediately picks a fight with the next-strongest thing in the vicinity. It's so tenacious, it's reputed to even get Deviljho in Iceborne to sod off in frustration! The Deadeye deviant in Monster Hunter Generations takes this even further, as it starts out as a specimen of smaller-than-average size. So what does it do to make up for bigger monsters being able to push it around a bit easier? It. Will. Fight. EVERYTHING. Nothing is safe from this bird's wrath, with it gaining a glowing red eye-socket and getting Covered in Scars because it's just fought so damn much. One Hunter's said "that's the only feller with a higher Hunter Rank than me!" about the beast.
  • Monster Hunter: World: Bazelgeuse is a Flying Wyvern that drops grenades made from a special bodily fluid. It'll bomb just about anything indiscriminately, be it food, another large monster, or you, and it's considered an Elder Dragon-level threat because it can decimate local fauna populations in search of another sparring partner.
• Granberia in Mon Musu Quest 2. She wants to fight the main character not because she opposes his ideal of humans and monsters living together, but because he's simply one of the few beings that she can fight on equal terms with out of enjoyment, as she does not (usually) fight opponents to the death and thus has to hold back most of her strength while fighting.
• Sword Saint Juggernaut from the RPG h-game Monster Girl 1,000 can be perfectly described with this trope alone, to an absurd degree. She cares not for sex or other non-combat casual frivolities. So much so that she willingly sides with the corrupt, villainous half of Hunters' Association in their mad quest to cleanse the world of all life as their Goddess Eris desires. She eventually dies, with regretting nothing and mirthlessly chuckles as her life-long quest finally reaches its conclusion, putting an end to her ceaseless battle-lusting.
• Kelgar Ironfist from Neverwinter Nights 2 loves nothing more than beating the crap out of things, and seeks to join the Monks of the Even-Handed so he can beat even more crap out of things. Try to explain to him that Monks Don't Work That Way and he'll completely miss the point. Interestingly, if/when he actually earns membership in the monk order, he becomes far less of a Blood Knight. So much so that in the Expansion Pack, Storm of Zehir, he is actually the steward of Crossroad Keep, and refuses to join you in fighting bad guys because he knows he has a more important duty.
• Hermann Goering in The New Order: Last Days of Europe seeks to militarily reassert control over Europe, and possibly start a Forever War with the rest of the world to have Germany regain its military and economic strength, assuming he wins the post-Hitler power struggle.
• Volf is one of the Four Greater Fiends the hero must slay in Ninja Gaiden II. He takes the form of a massive, four-armed werewolf with tribal tattoos and a massive scythe, and commands an army of lycanthropic demons. He is also obsessed with causing violent injury to fleshy things. The scene that introduces him shows him sitting on a throne watching as an army of his demons rips a (strangely out-of-place) gladiator to shreds, and then, with the simple comment, "This bores me," annihilates half of his own subordinates with razor wind out of sheer boredom. Following this, he tells his army to go out and find him a worthy adversary, essentially planning to sacrifice his entire army of werewolves to see if anyone can make it to him. Ryu just happens to fit that particular bill, killing Volf and taking his scythe after ripping through his entire werewolf army. However, Volf's battle lust doesn't stop there. In the final level of the game, Volf attacks Ryu in the Underworld after Ryu enters to prevent the revival of the Archfiend. Naturally, he is subsequently slaughtered, for good this time, but talk about persistence.
• Nintendo Wars:
  • In the second game of the series, Lash accuses Sonja of enjoying war just as much as she does, treating it as one would with any other strategy game like chess. Sonja does not have a counterargument for this.
    Sonja: This isn't a game! You're not on some kind of playground!
    Lash: Oh, but it IS a game. A wonderfully fun game between you and me! I know you feel the same way. Come on, you can tell me.
    Sonja: Don't... Don't be silly... I'm... nothing like you, Lash.
    Lash: You're exactly like me. You and I. We're the same. You're always thinking about it, right? Which move will bring victory? You enjoy war like a good game of chess.
    Sonja: ...
    Lash: We're not different at all, Sonja. You'll feel it someday, the joy that war brings. Wait... You feel it now, don't you? Oh, Sonja! Tee hee hee! Toodles!
  • Ubel in Battalion Wars, somewhat. He serves Xylvania at least partly for the... entertainment value. Interestingly, he does support both Kaiser Vlad and Ingrid as a dim but loyal little brother figure, whose main ambition is to be "governator", rather than a kaiser himself.
• No More Heroes:
  • Travis Touchdown is an uncommon protagonist example, which is an odd contrast to his Otaku nature and love of things Moe. He seems to be devoid of any actual morality, and for most of the game, his only drive is "being the best", no matter how many people he kills along the way. For most players, this is fine by them. He does seem to have a few scruples, like killing women. Though perhaps he just hates to see some good lechery fodder go to waste. He also seems to be averse to killing anyone who fights with honor and/or proves to be a Worthy Opponent.
  • Most of the assassins in the series seem to be Blood Knights. Death Metal, Dr. Peace, Destroyman, Holly Summers, Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarskii, Speed Buster, Bad Girl, Matt Helms, Cole Walsh, Ryuji, Margaret Moonlight, and possibly even Henry seem to greatly enjoy battle and killing to perverse ends.
• Nuclear Throne: Plant is a bloodthirsty killing machine in the form of a lightning-quick Man-Eating Plant. Its thoughts begin and end with bloodshed and death, two things that bring it great joy. Ending the lives of others is one thing that can always bring a smile to its eyeless face.

P-R

• Ash from Paladins absolutely revels in the fight that's going on, and seems to enjoy taking it and dishing it out. She announces her Ultimate by saying "Come on, let's fight!"
• Chains in PAYDAY: The Heist is portrayed as one, living on the rush of adrenaline. It's implied the whole group becomes blood knights after the initial bank heist, as one of them says they have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, but they want to do other heists.
  • Bodhi's safehouse lines in PAYDAY 2 include ones where he asks for someone to fight him and thoughts about starting a Fight Club in the safehouse basement.
• Akihiko Sanada from Persona 3; as early dialogue and his glimpse into the past from The Answer tells, he was all too eager to join Mitsuru in taking out Shadows, all for the sake of strength. His goal has no real aim; it's all a coping method to get over his little sister's death that he claims he's responsible for (she died in a house fire, a situation that was largely out of his control), and with the result being that he has the social skills of a brick, no other friends aside from fellow orphan Shinjiro Aragaki (who has his own closet of issues), and is completely hopeless in romantic situations. He spends the first two months of the game complaining about not fighting due to an injury, and even after Shinjiro is killed and he finds his resolve to fight for the sake of protecting others, his desire for battle doesn't fully go away (when deliberating to fight the Final Boss, knowing how hopeless it is, he jumps in without a second thought), and his social density doesn't improve at all. Even three years later when Persona 4: Arena rolls around, we find him on a global quest to fight the best of the best, for the sake of power, that he dropped out of college to do - in other words, the exact thing that he resolved to give up in the first place.
• Many examples are found in Pokémon, with many different species having this as their set attitude. Of note is that most gain this upon evolving to something stronger that allows them to be one.
  • Starting in Pokémon Yellow and the Generation II games, Pokémon become friendlier to you if you use them against strong opponents^*Gym Leaders, and also the Elite Four in Gen II. As of Pokémon X and Y and Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, they also become friendlier if they level up in battle^*As compared to becoming friendlier any time they level up in previous games..
  • Charizard actively goes around looking for stronger foes and other Charizards, especially when fighting over a female.
  • Mankey, Primeape, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, and generally all fighting Pokemon.
  • Gyarados lives for violence, being so brutal it will casually destroy cities.
  • School-Form Wishiwashi, which will actively hunt Gyarados.
  • Mewtwo. While much of its aggression stems from the gene experiments conducted on its DNA, Mewtwo still enjoys a challenge. Some versions even depict it travelling across the globe looking for strong Pokemon.
    Pokédex Entry: Because its battle abilities were raised to the ultimate level, it thinks only of defeating its foes.
  • A Mega Lucario basically turns into this, with the dex entry even noting that its battle style can only be described as "heartless."
  • Galarian Zapdos is belligerent and violent, always thirsting for battle. It cannot resist challenging Pokémon stronger than it to test its might.
  • As in human characters, The Rival Silver, from Pokémon Gold and Silver and its remakes. It's partially to prove his superiority over others (he loses the need for that as part of his Character Development) and partially because he apparently just likes fighting. There's also The Rival Nemona in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, a hyperactive Genki Girl obsessed with battling strong opponents to the point that she goes out of her way to mold the player into one.
  • Sometimes YOU, the player character can be this trope. Whether be it Level Grinding, battling NPC trainers or your friends and people online. You can have a fun time enjoying a good Pokemon Fight.
• Aran Ryan from the Wii version of Punch-Out!!. He even hits himself between rounds.
  Aran Ryan: Fightin's like breathin', Mac!
  Aran Ryan: Keep hittin' me. I love it.
• Quake III: Arena states that the gods, wanting entertainment, have put you and these others in the arena, and made you all immortal so that even death would not release you from endless fighting.
• Rave Heart: Sola seeks to test her combat skills against strong opponents, and is willing to be imprisoned by Lord Dorado in order to participate in his underground tournament.
• Rengoku: All ADAMs are programmed to fight without thinking about anything else, but Briareos especially finds joy in it.
• Resident Evil:
  • Jack Krauser was revealed to be one in Darkside Chronicles, which also acted as one of the reasons for his Face–Heel Turn in Resident Evil 4 (Let's just say that the last mission that he had, which was with Leon, resulted in him being kicked out of SOCOM due to an arm injury he suffered against one of the monsters that never quite recovered, something that he evidently didn't take well as he felt the battlefield was his life and could not function in regular society). When Krauser gets to fight Leon again in RE4 he's delighted to cross knives with a Worthy Opponent and expresses Villain Respect for Leon throughout.
  • Albert Wesker is usually a fairly rational Chessmaster, if not an outright Smug Snake (later games such as Resident Evil 5 make him pretty hammy), but it's pretty clear in Resident Evil – Code: Veronica and RE5 Wesker relishes his power and is noticeably having fun while fighting his Arch-Enemy Chris. At one point in RE5 his Number Two Excella tells him Chris is coming and Wesker smiles. He refers to combat as a game more than once: most famously "Seven minutes is all I can spare to play with you" (also implying he would like to fight Chris for longer), but also his message for Chris "I've won this game." Even before gaining his superhuman powers, Wesker has shades^note Pun intended of this trope: when Sergei Vladimir sends an Ivan to attack him in Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Wesker calmly states "This should be intriguing" before fighting it. He acts even more like this in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: he continues his habit from Resident Evil of referring to combat as a game, with lines such as "I'll play with you", and will say "Please, try harder" and "Is that all you have?" to his opponents.
  • Leon S. Kennedy while clearly heroic, still gives off this vibe in the later games e.g RE4 he smiles and chuckles when he throws a knife into Salazar's hand and when having a knife fight with the aforementioned Kruaser, Leon is unmistakably having a good time. Even in the Resident Evil 2 (Remake) despite Leon's inexperience, during the end of the game when facing the Super Tyrant (Mr X) during the Catastrophic Countdown, Leon simply says "Alright, come on!".
  • Jack Baker from RE7 thanks to The Virus from Eveline is a giggling, hammy Ax-Crazy madman who spouts one-liners while chasing you down. Whether it be doing burnouts in Ethan's car trying to run him over or saying "Groovy" after picking a dual chainsaw to kill Ethan with, it's clear Jack is having a whale of a time. Jack's son Lucas is of similar mold (heh) albeit much less physical.
  • Joe Baker from End of Zoe DLC also laughs gleefully while engaging in Good Old Fisticuffs, but unlike the rest of Bakers (excluding Zoe) he's still a good and heroic person.
• Reverse: 1999 has some characters who absolutely relish at the thought of violence and bloodshed.
  • The villain Schneider is a Mafia leader in 1920s Chicago, and takes a casual glee at shooting and murdering people with her magical pistols. It doesn't matter if it's in the illegal fight club in the Walden Speakeasy or assassinating some human-supremacists trying to perform arcanist hate killings, she just enjoys the opportunity to shed blood and lots of it.
  • Pavia is a former member of the Italian mafia, but only in the sense that he's currently working under Vertin the Timekeeper and by extension, the St. Pavlov Foundation. Otherwise, he is still an eager Professional Killer, relishing in his murders and many crimes, taking trophies from his many murder victims, and excitedly cries "Interesante! Interesante!" ^note "Interesting! How interesting!") when he's getting shot back at in the middle of a fight.
• Rise of the Third Power:
  • The Bell Ringer accuses Rowan and Corrina of infiltrating Evenheart Castle under the guise of exterminators and then attacks them. While he's correct about them being imposters, he uses faulty reasoning to determine this and it's clear that his real reason for fighting them is because he wants to relive his glory days in the military. After the battle, he chooses not to capture the duo despite defeating them and actually encourages them to kidnap Princess Arielle, implying that he resents the royal family for not appreciating his combat capabilities.
  • Corrina always signs up for the Resistance's most dangerous missions, since she believes that dying in battle will allow her to reunite with her parents.
• Miner from Risk of Rain. His entire playstyle is aggressive close range combat, with many dashes to get in and out of it, and in Returns even gets a heat meter that increases damage and removes cool down on some skills, as well as improving them, with the heat being built up in combat with primary attack. While other survivors leave on a generally saddened note, he still has adrenaline rush not worn off, implying that he had a time of his life fighting everything Petrichor V threw at him.
• Sir Raimund Seyfarth from RosenkreuzStilette counts as this, having given up on relating to nearly everyone as he had become an embodiment of Death who craves only battle. Also, Schirach Fuehler from the sequel ~Freudenstachel~, who loves the thrill of the fight so much that she's simply excited to participate in one regardless of whether she wins or not, and as long as she gets a good fight, she'll even compliment her opponent as well.

S-T

• Haohmaru from Samurai Shodown, who, just like Mitsurugi, is just on the scene looking for a good fight. Almost everyone he encounters, especially bosses, will get this kind of response from him: "Hey, you gotta be strong, huh? All right, this is gonna be a good fight!" He's a bit less extreme than Mitsurugi in that he takes on all comers but doesn't actively seek out massive conflicts (for the most part, he doesn't have to), and he just wants to be the strongest fighter around. If Amakusa gets flattened by a boulder, well, dead is dead. Definitely on the heroic side of the equation (he couldn't have formed working relationships with the likes of Nakoruru and Charlotte otherwise), whereas Mitsurugi is resoundingly amoral.
• Morte of Sands of Destruction combines this with her Genki Girl tendencies, bouncing with glee after every fight and always looking for something she can attack or destroy.
• Most characters in Capcom's sister series Sengoku Basara
  • The poster boys Date Masamune and Sanada Yukimura, whose routes in the game will inevitably end up revolving around fighting their one true rival.
  • Characters like Maeda Keiji and Miyamoto Musashi often don't do anything but wander around Japan looking for a good fight.
  • The shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru from Sengoku Basara 4, who takes such extreme pleasure in fighting that he doesn't want wars to end, in fact starts the Sengoku period, just so stronger opponents will emerge to fight him.
• Shadowverse: Urias is a vampire who thrives in bloodshed and battle. He also seeks a Worthy Opponent after learning of Balthazar's passing. After being sucked into the Morning Star and learning of Nexus, he chooses to go after Nexus to test his strength against that of a god. His first order of business on Isunia is to locate and challenge the leaders of its five guilds.
• Downplayed with Skies of Arcadia's Vyse in his playable cameo in Valkyria Chronicles. He likes adventure and danger more than combat itself, but it's clear from his voice clips that he's having an absolute blast out on the battlefield, frequently laughing when he shoots at enemies.
  Vyse: [when charging into enemy fire] Wooo-whee! Our hero's in trouble now! Ha ha!
• Vigoro from Skies of Arcadia combines this trope with the Handsome Lech — men are for fighting, women are for loving, and the strongest man gets to be with the sexiest woman.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic can be considered a very heroic one, as he's "the guy who loves adventure". In other words, he loves the thrill of cheating death many times over and facing impossible odds for the adrenaline rush. This is why he has Dr. Eggman as his nemesis because Sonic and his addiction to combat and danger wouldn't be complete without that overweight mad scientist and his robot armies (many of whom are mindless machines so he's not killing them) feeding as much of his suicidal tendencies as possible. This and his sense of justice.
  • Knuckles is of a similar mold, if not even more so than Sonic since Knuckles just enjoys picking fights and punching things in contrast to Sonic. Despite the fact his job is to guard the Master Emerald, sometimes Knuckles lets strong foes grab it so he can have fun getting it back. Of course, Knuckles finds a worthy rival in both Sonic and Rouge.
  • Zazz of the Deadly Six, as he puts it.
    Zazz: I've been itching for a fight all day!
• The Final Boss from sora, Star Breaker, has no actual motivation to fight and incite a war other than just the pleasure to burn and break things. She even got to the point of trying to burn the whole planet when Sora proved too much for her.
• Soul Series:
  • Mitsurugi. While he initially seeks Soul Edge in the hopes that the sword will make him powerful enough to defeat a rival, he ends up strong enough to do so anyway, so he just keeps fighting for the sake of fighting. Even in his Soulcalibur IV ending, when offered the option to absorb the power of the Big Bad, he ignores it, because he says: "I don't need it." In his backstory, it's revealed that Mitsurugi used to deliberately offer his services to vastly outnumbered armies so that he could fight as many foes as possible. Even better, in Soulcalibur V, Mitsurugi tries living a peaceful life as a farmer, but that doesn't last long, as his lust for battle returns immediately when he hears a group of soldiers mention a sword called "Soul Caliber".
  • Algol as well: "Fighting is my all. It is my existence!" Same for Olcadan and bonus character Shura.
• The Terror Mask from Splatterhouse in the remake. Whereas the original trilogy depicted the Mask as a cold bastard, the remake has it be audibly excited with the prospect of Rick killing everything in their way to save Jennifer, gleefully telling him to "paint the walls red" or "do some fucking carpentry" if he picks up weapons. Considering that the Mask grows stronger with the more blood it absorbs as well as manipulating Rick to allow it to have Revenge on the Corrupted, this trope may be justified.
• StarCraft: When his home planet is overrun by aliens, Fenix is actually excited to be fighting a stronger enemy than ever before. Even after he's killed and brought Back from the Dead, he doesn't mind being part machine, as long as he can still fight. This may be a common trait with Protoss. The Zealots seem to be using melee weapons only because it's more 'honourable' and gives them a better battle, for instance. Some Protoss in the second game say that they are looking forward to doing battle with Raynor's forces, and when defeated the leaders wish him luck as they retreat.
• Stellaris: The Honorbound Warrior and Metalhead AI types tend to be like this. Honorbound Warriors, in their defence, are at the very least relatively ethical about it: they will pick fights with anyone, especially Pacifist empires, but reject slavery and genocide and refuse to hire mercenaries to do their fighting for them. There's even a bonus to forming defensive pacts with them since that means more fighting as opposed to a non-aggression pact's less fighting. Metalheads, on the other hand, are nuts; they're so eager for warfare that they'll pick a fight with anyone, even empires that could grind them into dust without even slowing down, and have an aggression stat that makes even Fanatical Purifiers look thoughtful and restrained.
• Street Fighter: Pretty much everybody (with the exceptions of Dhalsim, T.Hawk, Rose and Elena) almost all the Street Fighters are Blood Knights to mixed degrees. Which isn't surprising since everybody is a fighter.
  • An unusually calm version of this trope is Ryu. He'll only fight those who are willing, and (save for the "Evil Ryu" arc) conducts each fight respectfully and never to the death. Nonetheless, he's not in the tournament for the glory, just the next fight. The flip side of the coin is Akuma, who seems to exist only to fight and grow stronger, and will explore Dangerous Forbidden Techniques, kill his opponents, and generally do anything he can do in order to fight and gain power. The similarities in their motivations serve as a source of dramatic tension between them, as Ryu shows a considerable level of angst over whether he'll eventually end up like Akuma. There is at least one adaptation, Ryu Final, where Ryu and Akuma's paths are explored down to their final destination and outcome. It is first implied, then explicitly stated, that the path of the True Martial Artist is a journey of self-betterment, with each fight (hopefully) making both warriors learn and grow as people, and where the ultimate outcome is to realize the futility of the fight, next to nurturing and protecting the next generations to come. More particularly, Akuma's search for power and willing submission to the Satsui no Hadou is done entirely for the benefit of Ryu, so the latter would have the guidance needed to overcome it.
  • Sagat the "king of Muay Thai" like Ryu, lives for fighting but will take defeat even worse than Ryu. Hunting down the young fighter relentlessly when he violently loses to him in the world tournament despite being quite sporting with Ryu during the fight even offering him a hand when he knocked him down. But Ryu then nearly kills him with a Shoryuken when possessed by the Dark Hado, leaving Sagat reasonably pissed and doesn't let go of his anger till much later.
  • Vega gets an unhealthily thrill out of killing "ugly" people and an even more sick pleasure out of spilling the blood of beautiful women and girls who he believes will enrich him with their blood.
  • Juri also gets a huge thrill out of fighting (too much of a thrill, actually) and maliciously beating her opponents. This aspect of her character gets Deconstructed in 6. Because after Bison's final defeat in 5, she has no one to get revenge on anymore and no further purpose in her life. So she throws herself into fight after fight as a coping mechanism to hide the pain she's struggling with.
  • Adon enjoys fighting and savagely beating his opponents while attempting to prove to the world that he is the self-proclaimed "god" of Muay Thai.
• SUGURI and Acceleration of SUGURI has Kae, the local Fiery Redhead: whose only motivation to fight Suguri (Or anyone) is just to have fun and have a good battle.
• Suikoden:
  • Both Yuber and Luca Blight from the series love battling strong opponents, they love torturing and killing everyone else more).
  • Zegai in Suikoden V is also an example of this.
• Most likely "Freedom Knight" Alion Lucada in Super Robot Wars Compact 3...though to be honest, being a Blood Knight is a requirement for any Shura warrior. According to Folka, the Shura doesn't just fight for the sake of it, but they fight to win, which makes it very important that they gather THEIR forces up first.
• Tales Series:
  • Sword Dancers in are like this. They only exist to fight (but not kill unless they're fighting for fellow Blood Knight Emil Castaginer) strong opponents.
  • In Tales of Vesperia, Yuri seems to be happiest when he's in a good fight and says that he enjoys the "raw challenge" of fighting a tough opponent, and the only time Judith's excitement level rises above "sedated" is in battle. Flynn, who is normally soft-spoken and mellow, becomes very energetic when fighting (lampshaded by Rita in the PS3 version). Zagi is the standard villainous version who becomes obsessed with Yuri because he is the only opponent that forces him to use his full potential. There's also Tison, who unlike most of the Hunting Blades fights monsters more for the thrill of battle rather than a personal vendetta.
• Soldier and Heavy from Team Fortress 2. Well, everyone except the Sniper and the Spy (the "professionals").
  • Saxton Hale breathes this trope. He lives for a fight, whether it's against vile villains or dangerous animals. Unfortunately, this bites him in the ass in "Ring of Fired". He has a policy of giving Mann Co. to a rival CEO if they can beat him in unarmed combat. But he falters when he finds that the CEO of Gray Mann's company is a little girl, since even he couldn't bring himself to beat her up.
• Touhou Project is flooded with this. It is the only reason for the bosses of the first two to four stages to even be fighting the heroines (who are little better, going by the dialogue). In the fighting games, it's the only reason anyone but the Big Bad fights.
• A light case of this: As of Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object, Sanae appears to be really enjoying the duty of "youkai extermination" (fighting youkai to keep them from bothering humans). Some see it as sadism that ruins her "good girl" image, while others think she's just having fun fighting.
• Erador from Triangle Strategy is the friendly Boisterous Bruiser type of Blood Knight. Outside of battle, he's cheerful and kind; he just happens to really enjoy combat is better at fighting than ordering other people around.
  On the unit selection screen: "To battle? With pleasure!"
• Crueltear from Triggerheart Exelica. She's a Robot Girl built for war, and she's uncomfortable and directionless after crashlanding on the peaceful Earth. In-game, she's able to move faster than her sister because Crueltear regularly maintained her equipment as well as Earth's technological base allowed, while Exelica skipped the maintenance checks and let her gear degrade a bit.
• Demon Dog King Kanata from Trinity Universe loves to fight, not because he likes to kill per se, but because he enjoys the thrill of it as a part of adventure.
• Tyranny has Verse and the aptly-named Kills-in-Shadow.
  • Verse is just a psychopath who joined the Scarlet Chorus willingly for the opportunity to kill. She isn't bothered at all if the player makes an enemy of her former comrades, either; she fights for the strongest and will cut them down laughing all the same.
  • Kill-in-Shadow is a Beastwoman, a hulking behemoth able to wield weapons meant to be two-handed in a single massive paw. She hunts humans for food and pleasure, and like Verse, follows the strongest without regard for petty things like morality.
• Duran, one of the six playable protagonists of Trials of Mana, is a Hot-Blooded mercenary soldier who often jumps into fights because he loves the thrills of battle. And you can tell that his Arch-Enemy, the Crimson Wizard, enjoys battles as well as you can find him constantly laughing as he launches his offensive spells at his chosen targets as well as during your fight against him.

U-Z

• ULTRAKILL: Surprisingly enough, Gabriel devolves into a blood knight during the second phase of his second encounter. And by surprisingly we mean even Gabriel is confused that he's suddenly enjoying himself, when moments ago he was roaring curses at V1.
• Nathan Drake from the Uncharted games. In practice, he's an Action Survivor, but one of the Big Bads thinks that Nate must be some kind of Blood Knight in order to keep throwing himself into dangerous situations.
  Marlowe: I wonder what you're really afraid of. Not bullets or blood or broken bones. No, you get off on all this, don't you? Cheating death...
• Under Night In-Birth:
  • Carmine Prime happens to be a very literal example who lives and breathes for fighting especially strong opponents so he can see them wallow in despair. He was like this even before he got his powers.
    Carmine: That look on your face... It's like you can't believe just how much you suck. That look was EXACTLY what I wanted to see.
  • One the more heroic side of things, there's Waldstein. An absolute mountain of a man who loves a good fight.
  • The latest version introduces Enkidu Gaien, a Bare-Fisted Monk who voluntarily became an In-Birth after he ran out of human opponents to fight.
• Urban Dead:
  • The Channel 4 News Team: They're usually rather polite to other survivors though, focusing on zombies, and are responsible for many of the notable survivor victories in the game, so they may count as Proud Warrior Race Guys instead.
  • Many PKer groups have this as their schtick as well.
  • The zombies. Nearly every social zombie player group can sum up their tactics as "Go find the nearest large group of survivors and start the party," the only divisions being what is considered fair play on the "finding-survivors" part. Mass zombie movements ("tours") are almost the same as an Ork Waaagh in intent, tactics, and the habit of leaving a lot of new zombies in their wake. And they seem very pleased at their worthy foes when a mall or important building manages to outlast a zombie siege, honoring it by making sure it's a major stop on the next "tour".
• Utawarerumono: A number of warrior characters act like this, finding a deep enjoyment in battle and relishing the chance to fight a strong opponent. The standout example, however, is Atuy from Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth. She often has to be physically restrained from jumping headfirst into fights or even attacking her own allies at times, and when she spies someone or something really dangerous and powerful, she gets a rather disturbing look on her face that's something of a cross between bloodlust and ecstasy.
• The Walking Dead (Telltale):
  • Some of Clem's dialogue choices in Season Two paint her as being a little too eager to fight the Walkers. She spends most of Season Three in a dark place, being temperamental, callous, and more than a little bloodthirsty. In Season Four, despite having matured as a result of raising AJ, she can be bluntly aggressive and resort to violence as a primary solution to problems, which Lilly can call her out on. However, she's not a Sociopathic Hero, as even the most hardened and bloodthirsty versions of her are capable of falling in love with either Louis or Violet, and horrified if AJ remarks that he enjoys killing.
  • Javier's estranged brother David, a former soldier who's become one of the leaders of the New Frontier. It's best summed up by his wife of all people:
    You know this is what David lives for, right? A brawl. I only ever saw him truly happy when he was talking about being at war. The world gone to shit? I guarantee, that was the best day of his life. He gets to live life on the frontline. I'm sure it's like Christmas every morning.
• The premise of Warriors Orochi is that Orochi is a Blood Knight who abducted the characters from the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series to test his personal might and that of his army against them... some of his opposition including other Blood Knights.
  • Lu Bu of Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms fame is notable as much for his love of fighting for its own sake as for his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder; you could easily describe most of his characterization with those two tropes.
• We Who Are About to Die: The Thrill-Seeking Civilian origin for gladiators counts. While others are trying to earn fame for the sake of it (or as a misguided political campaign), or fight their way to freedom, or getting a retirement fund for themselves, Thrill-Seeking Civilians usually just want to fight and kill: Their ultimate goal before walking away from the arenas is to cut down a given number of Aspirants, perfectly happy with whatever else they get along the way.
• WildStar has the Draken, who, while actually very intelligent and could, in fact, have a sizable role in Dominion politics, choose not to, simply because murdering things is so much more fun.
• Boomerang from Wild ARMs is a good example. The only thing he cares about is finding a worthy foe to fight and is only helping the villains because he believes that'll lead him to the fight he seeks. Not even Hell itself can stop his pursuit of the ultimate battle. The same could arguably be said for his wolf companion, Lucied. The entire reason Lucied, the Guardian of Desire, travels with Boomerang is because Boomerang's desire for a good scrap is just that intense.
• Pit Lords of the Burning Legion in World of Warcraft fit this trope. They are hulking demons that exist only to fight and destroy. They revel in combat and don't even particularly mind dying if they get killed in battle and take as many enemies as possible with them. Brutallus, a boss in the Sunwell Plateue has some appropriate quotes:
  Brutallus: Beat or be beaten! Such is the way of the Legion!
  Brutallus: Another day, another glorious battle!
  Brutallus: [on death] Now this gets interesting...
  • The class introduced in Wrath of the Lich King is called "Death Knight", elite soldiers of the Scourge. Their only job is to kill for the Scourge and to cut down anyone who stands in their path. One of your first tasks as a Death Knight is to kill one of your own kind to prove your loyalty. When you succeed by showing no mercy and no restraint, you are praised and given a BFS. You're then sicced on a village to kill everyone. Although the player class then breaks free from the Lich King's control, they are still the most fitting class, and the Deathknight faction in Northrend is clearly filled with this.
    "Harness your hate, make it useful!"
  • Garrosh Hellscream, much like his father. He has practically no reason to hate the Alliance and didn't even drink the demon blood that turned most of his kin into berserkers. Why Thrall gave him command of the Northrend forces rather than the more reasonable Saurfang is anyone's guess.
    • Orcs in general can drift into this, being the resident Proud Warrior Race Guys. Even some of the most peaceful Orcs like Durotan have admitted to getting a rush out of battle and bloodshed in the campaign against the Draenei, and the Lords of War web series makes it all the more clear.
  • Varian Wrynn, or at least his Lo'gosh side, lives for battle. He could spend the rest of his life killing for sport and be happy, and probably would if he didn't care about his responsibilities.
• Zenobia, a rare Blade from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, is only ever happy when she's fighting strong monsters. Every entry in her Affinity Chart requires for certain Unique Monsters to be defeated while she's set in your party, her sidequest involves breaking seals to awaken a particularly powerful monster with a Healing Factor for her to fight, and her end goal is to eventually become strong enough to take on an Aegis in battle (specifically, Mythra). Fortunately, she's got the chops to back up her nature; it turns out that she holds back most of the time as battles otherwise become too easy for her to savour.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Colony 11 is full of soldiers seeking the most difficult fight possible in order to challenge themselves. In contrast to the military discipline and nominated chains of command seen everywhere else, 11 has arranged itself into a number of semi-autonomous units that plan unsanctioned attacks on Agnians for amusement and runs on Klingon Promotion, only answering to its leader Ashera because she can beat down any dissent. Ouroboros find them incredibly frustrating, as their nature forces a collision between their goal of stopping cycles of pointless bloodshed and their own philosophy of allowing everyone to choose their own path. Eunie in particular finds them all to be a pack of childish meatheads.
  Eunie: Why do these idiots think violence is the answer to everything, including boredom?
• Xenogears's Id is a fine example of this. He fights because being a split personality of Fei, the hero, created as a means to endure serious abuse, he is incapable of connecting with others in any other way. At one point the heroes drop their Cool Ship the Yggdrasil atop his Humongous Mecha. Moments later, the Yggdrasil cracks in two, rising off the sands...
  Id: That was interesting. But dropping a battleship on me is cheating. Take it back...
• Leon, from Yggdra Union and Blaze Union. He heard there was a war and wanted in.

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