Evil All Along / Video Games

Times where somebody turned out to be Evil All Along in Video Games.

As this is a major Plot Twist trope and a form of The Reveal, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

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• Ace Attorney as a series does this several times, particularly in its later games.
  • The first major example would be Matt Engarde, your client for the last case of Justice For All. The nature of the game conditioning you into expecting him to not be a villain really helps.
  • In Dual Destinies, you discover that the "phantom", an international spy, ruthless assassin and bomber, is none other than Detective Bobby Fulbright, the cheerful detective who's been ever-present in the game since the second case. (Technically, the real "Bobby Fulbright" has been dead since before the game's timeline started, but the phantom is the only one you've met in the game). One thing that makes Ace Attorney's presentation of The Reveal very unique is that it has you pick the person's name from a list late in the game after providing some final hints.
  • The Japanese-only Ace Attorney Investigations 2 reveals the lovable and frightened circus performer Sōta Sarushiro (known in the Fan Translation as Simon Keyes), whom you actually DEFEND from an overeager prosecutor in the second case, has been tricking all the other murderers in the game into killing off his old enemies in a complex revenge plot, and is even responsible for both an attempted, and later successful, presidential assassination.
• Another Code: Ashley's father's old coworker was evil all along, having killed Ashley's mother and stuff.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • In II, "Lost Archives" DLC reveals that Lucy had switched to the Templar's side before the first game's beginning. She even allowed Subject 16 to die from the bleeding effect when he discovered her betrayal. Everything she did throughout the games was a ploy she and Vidic devised to use Desmond to obtain the Apple of Eden. It would have worked too, if Juno hadn't programmed the Apple to force Desmond to kill Lucy. She's a particularly unusual example in that she gets killed before getting a chance to reveal her evil side.
  • At the end of III, Juno herself reveals her true nature. Even worse, Desmond has no choice but to do what she wants since the alternative would be letting civilization be destroyed again and having the whole Assassin vs. Templar war repeat itself.
• Asura's Wrath: The true cause of most of the game's events is revealed to be the Golden Spider, the apparent Big Good and Stealth Mentor to Asura. He's actually Chakravartin, The Maker Big Bad who caused just about everything bad to happen through his creation of the Gohma.
• Baten Kaitos:
  • The original game Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean does a very unusual form of this. You know Kalas, the main character? He's actually been working for The Man Behind the Man this whole time. See, you don't play as Kalas, but as a Spirit Guardian who guides and empowers him. Kalas often has conversations with you, and your responses affect the level of power you grant him in battle. At the beginning, it is touched upon that you (the Spirit Guardian) have amnesia. You assume this is a standard plot device to allow infodumps on the world. In actual fact, Kalas is The Mole and orchestrated your memory wipe because you disagreed with his plans, but he needed your Plot Armor.
  • The prequel Origins does a more standard version: Quaestor Verus, The Mentor for almost the entire game, is far worse than Lord Baelheit could ever be.
  • As before, you don't control Sagi, but his Guardian Spirit instead. At the beginning, you can overhear that Sagi's guardian spirit is a bit different from other spirits. This is forgotten...until a few dozen hours later, where it's revealed that Sagi isn't a spiriter, but an artificially engineered equivalent called a malideiter: his 'guardian spirit' is a fragment of Malpercio, and the personality is that of Marno, a man who died a thousand years ago. Though in an inversion, Malpercio wasn't originally evil: a thousand years ago, in response to Evil Sorcerer Wiseman's unique form of genocide, they bartered with the Dark Brethren for the power to destroy him, and were tainted from it.
    • Unlike Kalas, though, Sagi is as surprised by this as everyone else, and it's left deliberately ambiguous whether "Marno" remembered the truth either.
• Batman: Arkham Knight features a subplot in which Batman and Robin are trying to find a cure to an infection caused by the Joker's Titan-tainted blood, which mutates those infected into clones of the Joker, which Joker himself sent to hospitals before his death in Arkham City. One such infectee, Henry Adams, is apparently immune, and Batman believes him to be the key to a cure... but as it turns out, Henry had not only been faking his immunity, but had hacked the Batcomputer right under Batman's nose and alerted Harley Quinn to the existence of the other infected. The end result: there is no cure for the infection, and all of the infected end up killed by Henry. Including Henry, once he sees that Batman is also infected, as he believes Batman will make a much better replacement for Mr. J than himself.
• BioShock: This is part of the main plot twist that occurs about 2/3rds of the way through the game. Turns out Atlas, your main ally and Mission Control, was criminal mastermind Frank Fontaine all along.
• BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger: In her story mode, Noel is accompanied by a mild-mannered pacifist intelligence officer named "Hazama." If you've seen trailers for Continuum Shift, you'll recognize him as Terumi, the one behind the events of Calamity Trigger. What did he want from Noel? To Mind Rape her to take Nu-13's place as a living weapon of mass destruction.
• Bomberman 64: Sirius presents himself as Bomberman's ally and aids him in reaching Altair's fortress and battling its guardians only so that he could steal back his Omni Cube from Altair and use its power to conquer the universe. When his plan succeeds, he thanks Bomberman by putting "Destroy Planet Bomber" first on his list of things to do.
• Bookworm Adventures: Professor Codex reveals that he was the cloaked individual that kidnapped Cassandra and that he sent you on the long quest because every enemy you defeat is placed under his control. Then you fight him.
• Bravely Default: Airy, of all people, turns out to have been manipulating you the entire time. There's even an alternate ending if you manage to figure it out before her plan is completed. Not that it's all that difficult; the subtitle on the game's title screen even slowly morphs from "Where the Fairy Flies" to "Airy Lies" as the game progresses, just to make sure you get the message.
• Child of Light: Norah turns out to be one of the Big Bad's Co-Dragons. The worst part is she's your character's sister, and while their other sister is bad news, Norah was far better at hiding it. This is really annoying because she's one of your best tactical options experts, and you don't get her back until the New Game Plus (she has to be killed as a boss).
• The ending of Crackdown reveals that your employer, the Agency, has secretly been plotting everything behind your back, and let the gangs you just killed run rampant so they could take over and install a totalitarian police state. Worst of all, your player character remains oblivious about this, and the sequels reveal that they’ll never find out.
• Cuphead: In the DLC expansion, Chef Saltbaker, who at first appears as a jolly chef, turns out to be evil as he plans to sacrifice a soul to create the Wondertart. It goes even further when you fight him, as he kills a bunch of sentient ingredients (except for the strawberry basket who just runs off crying), all with the most terrifying grin on his face.
• Dead In Vinland throws a huge curveball when gentle, frail, idealistic Brother Angelico turns out to be a Serial Killer who may or may not be demonically possessed.
• Dead Island: Colonel Ryder White, the Mission Control that leads you through most of the game, turns out to be secretly evil (although this actually doesn't come as much of a surprise to most of the characters, due to their strong anti-authority attitude). He betrays your group near the end, steals the experimental cure for the zombie virus, and ends up being the final boss of the game. This is complicated even further in the single-player DLC where you actually play as Ryder White, and it's revealed he was never the Mission Control at all, and it was really Kevin (another supposed ally) who was impersonating Ryder the whole time over the radio, and who manipulated Ryder and the original 4 heroes into fighting each other.
• Dead or Alive Dimensions: Genra is revealed to be a manipulative and power-hungry man, willing to do anything to get revenge for playing second-fiddle to the main branch of the clan, and that his loyalty and honor are just a facade to hide it. On top of it all, DOATEC didn't kidnap him and turn him into Omega; he went right to them and let them do so.
• Dead Rising 2: Off the Record: In the alternate timeline, it's revealed that Stacey was the Big Bad all along. As soon as the reveal occurs her personality jumps straight from Girl Next Door to a cruel and sadistic Baroness.
• Dead Space: A regular part of the series: Kendra in Dead Space, Diana and Marker-Nicole in Dead Space 2, Tyler in Dead Space Mobile, and Colonel Bartlett in Dead Space 2: Severed are all revealed to be secretly evil bastards after spending a large amount of time as your primary ally/Mission Control.
• Diablo: The Witch of Tristram, Adria, was one of your biggest allies in the original game, and come the third game, after her rescue from Belial's Dark Coven, she sends you on a quest to obtain the Black Soulstone and outlines a plan to capture the last two Great Evils, Belial and Azmodan, in it so that she can shatter it and end them, and the rest of the Great Evils, forever. Only it turns out that not only does Adria have a far darker agenda regarding that stone, she was on the side of evil from the very beginning — after murdering her own father long ago and co-leading the Dark Coven with Maghda, Adria was drawn to Tristram by the dark power of the Lord of Terror, and not only pledged herself to Diablo's service, but had a kid with him by way of the possessed Aidan. She would use this kid, a bright young girl by the name of Leah, to bring about the rebirth of her master as the embodiment of all seven Evils in one being, the Prime Evil, in the cruelest betrayal of the entire series.
• Your first quest in Act 4 of Diablo II is to deliver a Mercy Kill to Izual, a Fallen Angel who Tyrael tells you was a victim of Being Tortured Makes You Evil. When you kill him, he reveals that the Evil Plan you've been spending the whole game undoing was his idea in the first place, suggesting his betrayal runs deeper than Tyrael ever realized.
• Die Reise ins All: One of many characters from literature appearing here is Sherlock Holmes. While he appears as nice as usual at first, it's later revealed that he was Moriarty in disguise. Counts also as Adaptational Villainy.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition: The ending reveals that ally Solas was the one responsible for the rift breach in the first place, by giving the Big Bad the means to start his uprising. Solas only helped the Inquisition so that he can gain possession of the Orb and continue his plans unnoticed, as revealed in the Trespasser DLC. However, his final stance on this depends on how you treated him throughout the main game: If you treated him well or romanced him, he admits he was mistaken about this world and seems regretful that his plans will destroy it, but cannot turn back now that his plans are in motion, to the point that he all but begs you to prove him wrong, and saves the Inquisitor because he genuinely cares about them. If you didn't treat him well, however, he's openly dismissive of this world and intends to carry out his plans with few if any regrets. The only reason he assists you in stopping the Ben-Hassarath conspiracy because it risked exposing his plans, and only saves the Inquisitor from their quickly-destabilizing powers because he does not want the Inquisition to use their death to rally against him.
• Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter: In the Nintendo DS version, you get a new Raposa to join the gang, named Sock. You find him in a town where he doesn't live, and he goes with you to find his real home. Well, you're supposed to believe that. Near the end of the game Sock asks for a valuable item, gets it from Jowee, and throws it away. He then appears to be Wilfre all along. It also goes for Mari a bit, although she just thought she would help everyone by it (she worked with Wilfre).
• Dungeon Explorer (1989): The king of Oddesia, the person who sent you on your quest, is actually Natas in disguise. He wanted you to find the Ora Stone for him so he could easily take its power for himself.
• Eternal Darkness: At the start of Lindsey's chapter, a friendly patron by the name of Paul Augustine leads him to the Cambodian temple where Mantorok is entombed. Then it turns out that Augustine was actually Pious using an illusion spell.
• The Far Cry franchise has a character like this in nearly every game, usually someone who started as the player character's friend or ally.
  • The first game has Harland Doyle, the very guy you're trying to rescue from the Big Bad. He still wants the rescue, but only because he's stolen the main villain's research and plans to sell it for his own benefit. Changed up in the console version, where the character is completely rewritten.
  • Instincts has Kade, who was working with the rebels the whole time.
  • Citra, Dennis and probably all the Rakyat by association in Far Cry 3. Despite serving as Jason's ally against the pirates throughout the game, they don't plan to let him leave the island.
  • Sabal and Amita in Far Cry 4 become, or maybe just reveal themselves to be, increasingly ruthless the further you go, until you start to wonder if Pagan Min isn't that bad after all.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy Adventure: The mysterious wizard who occasionally helps you out is eventually revealed as Julius, who's been using you the entire time to get his hands on the girl and her Mana Pendant. Retconned out in the Sword of Mana remake.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: The mysterious android 2P is initially presented as your ally, helping you defeat hostile machine lifeforms in the Copied Factory raid before shutting down from battle damage. After you and your dwarven allies finish repairing her a few patches later, she repays your kindness by calling in an airstrike on the dwarves' village and cruelly telling one of the stunned dwarves that their assistance is no longer necessary. She then becomes the final boss of the Puppets' Bunker raid.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones:
    • Everyone knows Prince Lyon is being devoured by the demon king, but that doesn't stop the main characters from believing he's still good. He's an interesting case where he actually invokes this trope to get Ephraim motivated to kill him so that he could die before the Demon King brings about the end of the world. He claims that all of their time they spent together as children he was pumping the siblings for information for the invasion of their kingdom just to make Ephraim angry enough to actually kill him, though it does not work as Ephraim and Eirika still believe in Lyon's inherent goodness. Even as they slay him.
    • Orson appears to be evil all along too, but unlike Lyon, the players can actually play him as a character. Later he appears as a boss and it turns out he used to be sincerely good, but after his beloved wife's death he became a huge case of Love Makes You Evil.
  • Fire Emblem Heroes features King Njörðr, god of the sea and king of Vanaheimr, the realm of light during Book VII. Initially, he helps the Order of Heroes and his servant Seiðr in their quest to defeat Gullveig, the Golden Seer who is invading the mortal realm of Midgard and is said to win in the future. However, his orders to Seiðr are relatively shady, such as asking him to return his Ár from his younger sister Nerþuz (who refuses to give it back to him) and asking her to create a child with the Summoner via a ritual. Later, upon realizing that Gullveig is the Seiðr from the future and that she is destined to become the Golden Seer, she is forced to Mercy Kill her beloved sister Heiðr upon turning into an Orochi. After Heiðr dies, Njörðr drops the act and thanks Seiðr for playing right into his hands, as the gold serpents that grow in Heiðr now grow in Seiðr. It turns out that the combination of Njörðr's Ár and Heiðr (who is actually the child that Gullveig) was necessary for Njörðr so that he could create the Golden Seer, Gullveig, to destroy all of time.
• The Flower Collectors: The penultimate chapter of the game reveals that Diego, Jorge's friend in the police department, has been working for Haussmann the entire time and helping him cover up his crimes. He's also the man who murdered the Mole and has been trying to silence Melinda as well.
• Frogger's Journey: The Forgotten Relic: After spending most of the game helping Frogger by attaching upgrades to OPART, Dusty is ultimately revealed to have been secretly collecting data from Frogger's OPART to sell it to Eric.
• Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 combines this with a Kill and Replace scheme, as [Cayenne introduces himself to the main children as President Shayne Muscat, Vanilla's father who dies in an explosion when the Taranis suddenly goes berserk at the start of the game. In reality, Cayenne murdered Shayne years before and assumed his identity in order to groom Vanilla into a living weapon against the Berman Empire out of revenge for losing his family during The Berman Invasion. He drops his disguise in the last two chapters, with the only one recognizing Cayenne's true form being Vanilla.
• Grass Cutting Incremental: Subverted with grassman. When you first start the game, Grassman mentions Spassman and how you "Shouldn't trust that guy". However, when you centralize dark matter, Spassman tells you that Grassman Is building an army of grass, and that you must go to the grassland to stop him. Several more hours of gameplay later, and Spassman reveals that He actually lied to you and that you were simply destroying Grassman's homeland, weakening his power.
• At the beginning of Jade Empire, there is a lot of talk about how you are Master Li's favorite pupil, how Gao the Lesser feels slighted by the extra attention you get, how there's a flaw that isn't a flaw in your style, which makes it really special, and you're sent off to get a hold of the usual Plot Coupon and so on. All pretty conventional for an RPG. After Li's betrayal you realize that everything was true. You were the favorite pupil, and everyone else was grudgingly admitted to the school, so their tuition fees could fund your training. Gao the Lesser had a legitimate grievance against you (even if his reaction was a bit over the top). Li rigged your duel with Gao the Lesser and set him up to overhear your conversation, knowing that the chase would lead you out of the village at the time of the attack. The flaw in your style was a flaw, enabling Li to kill you and take aforementioned Plot Coupon for himself, which was his goal all along.
• Jak II: Renegade: Near the end of the game, Kor is revealed to be none other than the Metal Head leader, the Greater-Scope Villain who had been attempting to destroy Haven City.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts: Ansem, the researcher who was studying The Heartless whose reports the player has been running all across the worlds to find. Turns out, he's the Big Bad and The Man Behind the Man. And both directly and indirectly responsible for everything that's been going wrong in the worlds for the past ten years or so! In a subversion, it turns out that the guy we were calling "Ansem" was actually the Heartless of the guy who stole Ansem's name. The real Ansem is more of an Anti-Hero.
  • Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts II presented himself as a Tragic Villain, someone made into a heartless monster who only wanted to regain his ability to experience emotion again for himself and his followers. Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] puts the lie to that statement, revealing he lied to his fellow Nobodies, intentionally preventing them from naturally growing new hearts for themselves in the name of making them vessels to become extensions of Xehanort's own will. Kingdom Hearts III splits the difference a bit: Xemnas felt guilt for doing so and genuinely misses his deceased Nobodies and laments it in his final moments.
• Kirby:
  • Marx from Kirby Super Star & Ultra. At first he seems to be an innocent jester creature who just wants the Sun and Moon to stop fighting, and tells Kirby to find Nova. He then later reveals that he really wanted Nova awakened so he could wish for world domination.
  • Magolor from Kirby's Return to Dream Land. He asked Kirby and his friends for help repairing his ship and then defeating an evil dragon called Landia, but it ultimately turns out that Landia wasn't evil at all, and Magolor lied to the heroes so he could get his hands on the Master Crown that Landia was guarding and use its power for... yep, world domination. Thankfully, he reformed as of Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition, unlike Marx. The "Magolor Epilogue" mode from the remake Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe chronicles his atoning for his misdeeds in Another Dimension, culminating with a battle against the very same crown he sought.
• Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil features Baguji the Wise, a prophet who tells Klonoa, Lolo, and Popka which ways to go to find the bells they need to ring to find the Elements. He turns out to be the King of Sorrow, who wants to ring the Fifth Bell to bring sorrow into the world.
• Knights of the Old Republic: It turns out that YOU, THE PLAYER are Darth Revan, former Big Bad of the setting, but didn't know it thanks to Laser-Guided Amnesia from the Jedi Council, leading to an Inverse of Criminal Amnesiac if you decide to return to The Dark Side.
  • Of course, you can fully defy this by playing as a Light side Jedi.
• Legacy of Kain: In the original Blood Omen, Moebius the Time-Streamer is depicted as having simply been afflicted by Nupraptor's insanity like the rest of the Circle of Nine. As revealed in Soul Reaver 2, he was a devious Chessmaster and Manipulative Bastard long before then.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Princess of Lorule Hilda sends Link to rescue the seven sages of Hyrule who have been captured by their common enemy, the wizard Yuga. After Link saves all of them and gets the Triforce of Courage, Hilda reveals that she and Yuga have been working together to steal the Triforce in order to restore the fallen kingdom of Lorule to its former glory but doing so by dooming the kingdom of Hyrule. This is downplayed when Yuga betrays Hilda and reveals that he never intended to save Lorule, but rather remake the country in his own image, bringing further destruction. After Link defeats Yuga, Hilda rears for a Last Stand against Link, but Ravio comes just in time to make Hilda realize her actions.
• Life Is Strange: Mark Jefferson, a beloved photography teacher who serves as somewhat of a mentor to protagonist Max Caufield throughout most of the game, turns out to be the game's Big Bad. He is a sadistic serial killer who murdered Rachel Amber and Nathan Prescott, the latter of which he manipulated and exploited, and it is strongly implied that he had many other victims previously. He also attempted to murder Chloe, kidnapped [and planned on killing] Max, and was involved in Kate's suicide attempt to some extent. His personality after the reveal strongly contrasted his presentation up until that point.
• The Rat God of Mad Rat Dead initially presents herself as a benevolent god who wants to help Mad Rat relive his final day and change his fate. However, her true identity is a sapient Toxoplasma gondii parasite who wants nothing more to get Mad Rat eaten by a cat so she can pass herself on to the next host.
• Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time:
  • In the part where Princess Peach gets a purple mushroom on her face — it's not Peach. It was Princess Shroob the whole time, trying to take over the future castle.
  • And her big sister does even better - most people won't trust a random NPC who shows up out of nowhere with no foreshadowing whatsoever - but put on a familiar costume (Star Spirit) and they'll trust you just fine.
• Mass Effect 3: Maya Brooks, the goofy, jovial, friendly Alliance Staff Analyst from the Citadel DLC, as it turns out, was an ex-Cerberus officer who left the group out of disgust because the Illusive Man had started looking to non-humans for help. She also was the one who orchestrated the mercenary ambush in the Wards to intercept Shepard's Spectre code and the one who killed Khan. She was working with Shepard's clone in an attempt to steal Shepard's identity, and, after leading Shepard and their party into a trap, leaves them to suffocate to death in an iridium vault. At the end of the DLC, she shows that she doesn't even have any loyalty to Shepard's clone, as she leaves them to their death as well. She at first appears to be one of the nicest characters in the series, but ends up being one of its most heinous.
• Massmouth 2: The QBot. When first encountered, he offers to be your guide on the strange planet you've crashed on. As it turns out, the oddly numerous accidents and threats that befall you on the way are not coincidental, as he was working for the Big Bad the entire time and deliberately led you into danger.
• Medievil: In the proposed and cancelled third game Medievil 3: Fate's Arrow, the plot kicks off from the ending of Medievil 2 and it turns out Kiya somehow became aware of Zarok and was all along manipulating Dan into taking her back to Gallowmere's time. Using the Anubis Stone she would raise an army of undead and join forces with Zarok to change the outcome of the battle of Gallowmere and ensure their victory to take over the world and enslave mankind forever.
• Modern Warfare: General Shepard in Modern Warfare 2, who spent most of the game helping you, reveals to be the main antagonist of the game. He was orchestrated the massacre in the airport which resulted in Russia declaring war against the United States as an excuse to get revenge on Russia for the deaths of the marines who died at the hands of the nuke in the first game. When Task Force 141 found a DSM in which had details of his crimes, Shepherd and his Shadow Company betrayed the Task Force in an attempt to get rid of any loose ends.
• Mortal Kombat 11: Sindel's backstory has always presented her as the queen of Edenia and mother of Princess Kitana, and forced to become Shao Kahn's wife after her husband Jerrod was killed following Shao Kahn's conquest of the realm and merger with his own Outworld. She eventually committed suicide in grief, but was resurrected in Earthrealm as part of Shao Kahn's plan to invade it and brainwashed to serve him until she was freed and joined the heroes. In the DLC story mode Aftermath, Shang Tsung convinces the good guys to resurrect her precisely because her heroic, non-brainwashed personality will help ensure their success against Kronika. What she does instead is join with Shao Kahn and, between them, help Shang Tsung basically wreck everything the good guys have been trying to accomplish for their own ambitions while proclaiming genuine love for one another. As this happens it's revealed that her death was not a suicide, but murder by sorcerer Quan Chi; she was not forced to marry Shao Kahn but did so of her own will, much preferring how he would flaunt his power and privilege in true Evil Overlord fashion to Jerrod's being a ruler for and of the people. Consequently, Jerrod was killed not by Shao Kahn, but by Sindel herself.
• Murdered: Soul Suspect: Abigail is introduced as a possible friendly spirit that gives Ronan some tips on how to function in the spirit world. She is actually the Big Bad that is responsible for his death, and the deaths of all the teen girls in the game and throughout Salem's history. She possessed different police officers, including Ronan to carry out the murders in the game. Afterwards she killed them off. In the past, during the Salem witch trials, Abigail was one of the main people accusing others of being witches until she was caught lying and executed. Why? Because she has a personal vendetta against witches, even suspected ones. The Stinger? She's a witch herself.
• OFF: The Batter intended to destroy the world all along.
• Paladin's Quest:
  • The student who goes with you to the forbidden tower on the academy grounds and goads you into accidentally freeing Dal Gren at the very beginning of the game is revealed at the end of it to be the Big Bad Evil Overlord Zaygos in disguise.
  • A much more shocking example is Gabnid, legendary hero and founder of the Wizarding School where the game started. Unlike the rest of the Power Trio of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, who wanted to help the population of Lennus, Gabnid's goal was always to rule over them as a god.
• Persona:
  • In Persona 3, Shuji Ikutsuki is introduced as a Nice Guy with a questionable sense of humor who often serves as the Mission Control and is set up to be the Big Good of the game. He's actually a part of the Big Bad Ensemble who manipulates the main cast to trigger the apocalypse so that he can "cleanse" humanity and Take Over the World. Though at least his sense of humor was genuine.
  • Persona 4:
    • Firstly, Detective Adachi, the true culprit who murdered the first two victims, framed a copycat killer and was indirectly responsible for the rest of the incidents by manipulating Namatame into kidnapping potential victims and throwing them into the Midnight Channel.
    • Secondly, the True Ending has the gas station attendant from the very start of the game, who is actually the deity Izanami and the mastermind behind the entire plot. Though she's less evil and more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist with Blue-and-Orange Morality.
  • Persona 5 has you mainly battling people who encompass Villain with Good Publicity, as they're all in positions of authority, and due to a combination of societal corruption and their own guile, maintain a positive public image. Some of such villains, such as Suguru Kamoshida, Masayoshi Shido, and most of the Mementos targets, are clearly shown to be despicable from the outset despite having their reputations protect them. However, there are some villains who do a better job of maintaining a friendly facade before being exposed, such as Ichiryusai Madarame and the traitor, Goro Akechi, who presented himself as a Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist before being revealed to be a Serial Killer furthering a devious agenda. The real kicker, however, comes with the True Final Boss, Yaldabaoth, who imprisoned Igor and impersonated him throughout the entire game, pretending to be the Big Good and your guide while being the very embodiment of the authoritarianism you're fighting against.
• Pokémon
  • In Pokémon Colosseum, the mayor of Phenac City is actually the head of Cipher. In Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, the same goes for Mr. Verich, who is actually named Greevil.
  • In Pokémon Ranger an old man you help, named Gordor, is actually the head if the Go-Rock squad. In Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, a teacher in the ranger school, Mr. Kincaid, actually works for an evil organisation Team Dim Sun (and his real name is Mr. Kincaid). Also, the Altru corporation and their leader Blake Hall are evil, and you don't know that till the end of the game. Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs has you briefly separated from Summer/Ben during Kasa's challenge and then reunited. Your ally gives you hints on how to proceed through the challenge and they all send you into traps, because she/he is Kasa in disguise.
  • Lysandre of Pokémon X and Y is a colleague of Professor Sycamore's, who founded his own corporation and provides the player with aid, from helpful advice to technology such as the Holo-Caster as well as a useful King's Rock. He turns out to be the genocidal leader of Team Flare.
  • Most of the Aether Foundation in Pokémon Sun and Moon end up being this, with their leader trying to summon fearsome alternate universe creatures to this world to destroy it, though the series later suggests that they were at least partially under the influence of UB-01, thus making the exact amount of 'evil all along' questionable.
  • Seems to be a recurring theme in the latest generations; in addition to the above examples, Chairman Rose turns out to be this in Pokémon Sword and Shield, responsible for unleashing the dangerous Eternatus. Although, calling him evil would be exaggerated; he's more of an Improperly Paranoid Well-Intentioned Extremist that just wanted to solve a potential future power crisis, and in the anime he's even given a Freudian Excuse.
  • In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, one of your earliest allies is Volo, a travelling merchant who's willing and eager to help the player on their quest to uncover the land's secrets and stop the space-time rifts that have been driving wild Pokemon mad. In the post-game, it turns out Volo caused those rifts with the help of Giratina, and that he only helped the protagonist so they'd find and collect the plates needed to summon Arceus.
  • Dusknoir from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers claims to be a time-traveler who's arrived to stop the Time Gear thief and save the future. However, once Grovyle is cornered, it turns out that Grovyle's actually a hero and Dusknoir was trying to preserve a Bad Future in which Dialga has become a crazed tyrant. In Explorers of Sky, you learn that he's extremely skilled at pulling this off, as he claims to have pulled a Heel–Face Turn in Grovyle's Special Episode and willingly fights alongside him, but was planning to permanently possess Grovyle's body from the episode's start (only to pull a real Heel–Face Turn soon after his trap is sprung).
    • Nearly the exact same situation occurs in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity with Munna; she originally plays the victim and convinces the protagonist that the Hydregion terrorizing her is evil, when in actuality the Hydregion is an embodiment of the planet's will to survive and Munna is trying to end the world.
• Professor Layton: In the first two games, the antagonist Don Paolo disguises himself as other people. He's disguised as Inspector Chelmey in The Curious Village and as Flora in The Diabolical Box, though the real Flora does appear earlier in the game. Jean Descole does the same thing in the prequels.
• Ratchet & Clank:
  • Captain Qwark is revealed to be The Dragon to Drek in the first game, and the Big Bad of the second game. Of course, at the end of Up Your Arsenal, he finally pulls an official Heel–Face Turn and remains that way since…ish. He's really into the whole "occasionally backstab your partner" thing to keep up his fans.
  • In Up Your Arsenal, there is Courtney Gears, who temporarily joins the Q-Force in their fight with Dr. Nefarious. She is revealed to be an antagonist after she kidnaps Clank and turns Skidd into a robot.
  • And in the non canon game, Size Matters, there is Luna. At first, "she" appears to be an innocent little girl, but it's later revealed that "she" was really a genderless puppet built to lure Ratchet into a trap.
• While the true nature of Dutch van der Linde's Sanity Slippage in Red Dead Redemption II is left open to interpretation, this is one of the conflicting opinions of the members of his gang In-Universe. Arthur and John believe that he was this but managed to keep in under control/hidden for a long time while Charles and Sadie think he truly changed. Notably by the time, the first game takes place twelve years later John believes the latter theory (though it's unclear if that's actually a Nostalgia Filter or just comes from them having built the narrative of his downfall backward).
• The Scooby-Doo video game Scooby-Doo, Who's Watching Who? has a character named Mace Middlemost, who is the producer of the reality show "Ghost Scene Investigation". At first, he seems harmless, but in the end he turns out to be the true identity of the Ghost Hunter Haunter, having menaced the Ghost Scene Investigation team while disguised as a ghost for the purpose of boosting ratings in an unethical manner.
• The Secret World: during Issue #7, players are introduced to a sexy Russian super-spy apparently acting as the Council of Venice's representative in the field; though she's a little dead-set on you doing all the work, she's still helpful enough to blow up the Orochi forces at the dam for you, and she seems a little bit much of a pastiche of Bond girls to really be threatening... right up until the Russian stabs you in the back with a syringe. Turns out she's not a Council agent at all, and was only tagging along so you could help her find Emma. And the real name of the agent? Lilith.
• Shounen Kininden Tsumuji: The Big Bad is revealed to be Fubuki who first appeared as a helpful person, however halfway through the story he orders Tsumuji and Chijimi to stop their journey, as soon they encounter him once the shadow tower appears his true self is revealed.
• Silent Debuggers: Charles Smith first seemed concerned about the dangers of the monsters, but in reality, they were all people he turned into bioroids.
• Silent Hill 2: Maria. To add insult to injury, you spend a lot of her "good guy" time trying to keep her alive.
• Sly Cooper:
  • Neyla in Sly 2: Band of Thieves. During the first three chapters, she's quite friendly to the Cooper Gang and helps them deal with Dimitri and Rajan using a Loophole Abuse, only to betray Sly and Murray to Interpol when given the opportunity. The final chapter reveals she's actually working for the Klaww Gang, and is further revealed to be the actual Big Bad when she merges with Clockwerk and kills the Decoy Antagonist Arpeggio.
  • Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time reveals Penelope to be the Sly Cooper franchise's version of Prince Hans, in that she faked being in love with Bentley in order to get him to design weapons, profit from terrorist organizations, and Take Over the World, while also planning to kill off Sly and Murray out of jealousy. Whether she's always been a heartless scumbag or became one during the Time Skip is intentionally left ambiguous, but one line after her defeat^*Sly: She fooled us all, pal. implies the former.
• Splatterhouse: In the original series, the third game revealed that the Terror Mask had ultimately planned to conquer Hell, and was using Rick to destroy those demons that were in its way. The entire series amounted to its Batman Gambit.
• StarCraft: Arcturus Mengsk is the charismatic and resolute leader of La Résistance against the tyrannical Confederacy, albeit at some point he starts to appear like a Well-Intentioned Extremist. In the end, he reveals to be an ambitious, power-hungry, merciless dictator, ready to do anything in order to rule the Terran sector or see it burnt to ashes, who just proclaims himself emperor and establishes another tyranny.
  • Kerrigan at the beginning of Brood War claims to be free of the Overmind's control, ready to cooperate with the main characters against the new threat. Artanis, after initial skepticism, even says that she changed and is not anymore the murderous Queen of Blades. It soon turns out that she was just using everybody to fullfill her goals and take control of the Zerg swarm, and then she betrays her former allies to get vendetta and become the unchallenged power in the sector.
  • Particularly notable with Samir Duran, who at first is just portrayed as The Mole since he was working for Kerrigan while pretending to have joined the UED... only to reveal himself of being a mole to Kerrigan too, serving a far more ancient evil power.
    • He later returns in Starcraft II under the disguise of Dr. Narud.
• Star Shift Series: In Rebellion, one of the Outer Rim Coalition members claims that the Novus Federation is actually controlled opposition for the Earth Systems Alliance. Considering that Novus pinned the blame for the Raxion II gassing on Carol Everson and that they somehow allowed the Dauntless to fall into the ESA's hands during the timeskip in Origins, it's clear that Novus's leadership cannot be trusted.
• Super Robot Wars Z: Rengoku-hen introduces several new allied characters ^note Blue, Black, White, Orion, Sardias, Kravia. Without exception, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them turns out to be a bad guy by the end of the game, though admittedly Kravia's case is "brainwashed heroine".
• In Super Snail from QCPlay Limited, Super Snail quickly and nonchalantly discovers his vending machine is a Catbot. Soon after, the player will see the vending machine struggling under the weight of an enormous fat cat that he's holding. Later when Super Snail fights the evil Demon God, Koryeo Beast God Pawson, he'll learn that Pawson's humanoid armor is just a shell and the real Pawson is that fat cat. After Super Snail kills Pawson, the vending machine will be in mourning and carrying a body pillow with the image of Pawson.
• Tales of Monkey Island: LeChuck From the moment that Guybrush Threepwood inadvertently turns him into a human who acts like a Harmless Villain and helps out on Guybrush and Elaine from Chapter 2 up to Chapter 4 (all the while wearing his charming belt buckle), then kills Guybrush in a clever ambush as soon as our hero cures everyone of the Pox of LeChuck; Elaine sees that "with or without all that voodoo, [LeChuck is] still nothing but an evil sack of scumm".
• Tekken: In the original game, Kazuya appears to be The Hero, planning to defeat Heihachi in the tournament and take over the Mishima Zaibatsu. By the time 2 rolls around, he's revealed his true colors and, now in charge of the Zaibatsu, proves to be far more openly brutal and evil than Heihachi ever was.
• Teslagrad 2: That guy who's been giving you upgrades all throughout the game? Once you finally meet him, it turns out he was upgrading you in the hopes that you would serve him. Lumina makes it clear she's not on board with that, and the boss fight begins.
• The Tiamat Sacrament:
  • The leader of Draslin's chapter of the resistance, Faen, turns out to have been Ry'jin in disguise. He only guided the party to the dragon seals so he can later kill them and take the powers Az'uar acquired.
  • Darius, the man who gives the Collection Sidequest, is actually just using you to get the Dragon Shards so he can gain power for himself and his master, Lord Nephron.
• Toy Story 3: Hamm in the Toy Box mode turns out to actually have been Evil Dr. Porkchop the entire time after you finish his last mission.
• There are oh so many in the Trails Series
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky has Colonel Alan Richard, an army colonel and disciple of Estelle's father who turns out to be the Big Bad of the first game, Professor Alba, an archaeologist who turns our to be a high ranking figure in the Secret Society Ouroboros, and Renne, a little girl who turns out to be an Enforcer in Ouroboros.
  • The Crossbell duology has Joachim Guenter, a doctor at the local hospital who turns out to be the head of the DG Cult, Dieter Crois, the banker-turned-mayor of Crossbell who is the descendant of a clan of alchemists, his daughter Mariabell Crois, Arios MacLaine, a bracer who wants revenge for the death of his wife and blinding of his daughter, and Ian Grimwood, a lawyer who similarly wants revenge for the death of his family.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel has Vita Clotilde, a famous songstress who turns out to be another higher up in Ouroboros, Crow, a party member and fellow Thors student who turns out to be C, leader of a terrorist organization, and Rufus Albarea, a member of Thors board of directors who turns out to be one of Osborne's Ironbloods.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1:
  • Big Bad Egil is revealed to be something of a Well-Intentioned Extremist, albeit consumed by vengeance, and a Heel–Face Turn finally seems to be happening. Then Dickson, Shulk's surrogate father and Dunban's long trusted friend, shoots Shulk In the Back and is revealed to be one of the Co-Dragons of Zanza. Zanza himself also counts: he's the source of Shulk's visions, his power, his life even, who had been guiding the party from the start and was critical to helping them defeat the mechon and Egil. All so that he could return to power, destroy the Mechonis for good, and then harvest all life on Bionis to preserve his immortality.
  • Alvis zigzags this. He acts as a mysterious mentor figure for most of the game, only to be revealed to be another one of Zanza's Co-Dragons near the end... but then it turns out he was secretly working against Zanza the whole time anyway.
• Yoku's Island Express: Kickback, your helper who had been assisting you throughout the game, is in fact the evil God Slayer. It's possible after defeating him to find and forgive him, in which case he'll start helping you again.
• Ys SEVEN: This game plays around with a lot of JRPG tropes. One of the major plot twists is that the Big Bad of the game is actually, of all people, Tia, the flower girl who you meet early on and who seemingly takes the role of potential main love interest. Unlike, say Luna or Lufia, Tia was secretly evil from the start instead of being forced into a Face–Heel Turn midway through the game.

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