Malevolent Masked Men / Video Games

• The protagonists in Army of Two both wear masks◊ — ostensibly this is to offer head protection, but the designs (a snarling skull and a blank face with no features) are pure Rule of Cool. Incidentally, there are airsoft masks based on both designs and, in case of cheaper, unpainted Chinese versions of Salem's mask (left one) people can attest to the discomforting effect felt when faced with a featureless face and no visible eyes.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • Several of the Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer characters wear masks, such as the Executioner, the Doctor and the Harlequin.
  • Assassin's Creed Origins gives us the Order of the Ancients, the Egyptian equivalent of the Templars with their members wearing masks representing which temples they work for while also serving as the puppet masters behind the scenes.
  • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey has the Cult of Kosmos, who are essentially the Order of the Ancients of Ancient Greece. Like them, their members also wear masks to indicate their membership.
• Astra Hunter Zosma: The boss of the second Expanding Void area is Soap Expenser, who is dressed like an executioner with a mask that resembles Absolution.
• Ato: Due to the setting of the game, Malevolent Masked Animals might be more accurate. That said, the villains of the game are a mysterious group of masked animals who have kidnapped the warrior's baby.
• Bayonetta 2 introduces a new character acting as The Rival for Bayonetta, a Lumen Sage wearing a mask that resembles the Sun. Given that he is intent on the death of Loki and fights almost exactly like Bayonetta, using light-themed versions of her moves, he fits this trope to a T. ...or not. He actually has his reasons for wanting to kill Loki (he thinks that he killed his lover), and even then this is because he was a pawn of Loptr.
• Sammy Lawrence from Bendy and the Ink Machine wears a mask made from a cut-out of Bendy. Considering that Bendy was originally a cartoon demon and is now an Eldritch Abomination, this qualifies as a monster mask. Sammy is also Bendy's so-called prophet.
• The Splicers from BioShock and BioShock 2 often wear Venetian masks. Possibly justified, as it's stated in Audio-Logs that everything really went to hell in Rapture on New Year's Day. It also helps cover up their ugly deformities from excessive plasmid use and abuse.
  • BioShock Infinite has the Zealots of the Lady, the Columbian Soldiers, and the Vox Populi rebels. The Zealots of the Lady wear what is effectively a Ku Klux Klan robe mixed with Freemason medals so they hide their faces in pointy hoods. The Columbian forces have several masks: women have porcelain masks or metal masks in the shape of Lady Liberty with glowing eyes, and for men, it can be a full face mask or a half-face mask. Vox Populi wear simpler but no less creepy masks ranging from simple bandannas to porcelain masks and hoods with eyes that glow. The DLC Burial at Sea have the splicers, who wear papier-mâché masks, masks made out of mannequin faces, or the masks used at the New Year's Masquerade, again to hide their growing deformities from ADAM abuse.
• Relius Clover of BlazBlue. A man who sought perfection in everything, a man who turned his family except his son to automatons without conscience, and a man who likes opera very much.
• Blood Breed: You can find brown-masked men in blue jumpsuits patrolling various rooms in the Killamoor Meat Works. Do NOT let them see you.
• Body Blows: Puppet, one of several extraterrestrial fighters introduced in Body Blows Galactic, wears a Venetian style mask that has a similar appearance to those worn by real-life Plague Doctors (though in his case, the beak of the mask is stubby). Considering that the planet he resides on is called "Miasma" (after the Miasma theory of infection for which the plague doctor suits were thought to be able to protect against), it's likely no coincidence.
• Most human enemies in Borderlands 2 are masked or otherwise outfitted with face-concealing equipment unless they're named (and sometimes even then). In general, you fight two main categories of human enemies. The first are Bandits, who use a haphazard mixture of whatever's available, although some have unique properties — most notably, Goliaths enter a melee-focused rage state and start attacking everything nearby when their crude metal helmets are shot off. The second are Hyperion troopers, who favour a Cyber Cyclops look on their dedicated military and a welding mask for their Engineers. Big Bad Handsome Jack wears a mask based on his own features, to conceal the scars. Among the player characters, two of them are usually or always masked — cold, merciless assassin Zer0, and violently unhinged psycho (that's literally his class) Krieg, who are two of the least ethical people even among the Vault Hunters.
• Oscar from Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome is a malevolent masked Magnificent Bastard.
• Bug Fables has the Leafbug tribe in the Wild Swamplands. They all wear leaf masks, and they're a warrior tribe who attack all outsiders on sight.
• Dandara's consumeristic Big Bad, Eldar, wears a golden, theater-style mask with a perpetual smile.
• The Legion from Dead by Daylight is a group of four teenagers that murdered a man before being taken by the Entity to serve as Killers that feed it by hunting down Survivors in its realm. In the actual game, you only get to see one member of the Legion at a time (as determined by which character skin the player has equipped). They each have unique masks: Frank's being a face with a wide grin, Julie's either a face with an X where the mouth should be or an emotionless expression, Joey's a skull with a gaping mouth, and Susie's a blank mask that's held together by bits of metal.
  • In fact, several of the killers from Dead by Daylight wear different types of masks, including (but not limited to) The Trapper, the Oni, The Huntress, The Nurse, The Knight, and the Skull Merchant. Crossover killers sometimes do as well, such as The Shape, The Pig, The Cannibal, and The Executioner.
• Dead Rising has the Raincoat Cult. Aside from the obvious, they all go around in Green Goblin-esque masks.
• Dead Secret has the Woodcutter wearing a Japanese Noh mask and is a killer, who will also attack Patricia, if she is caught. Subverted with the spirit seen wearing the Japanese Oni mask, who is not a threat and usually appears as a way to give wordless clues.
• The Assassins from Dishonored wear masks. The masks are those of the Whalers and are in no short supply in the city of Dunwall.
  • Corvo's mask counts as one on a high chaos playthrough. But good or evil, the steampunk grim-reaper visage is so shocking that civilians will go into a terror-filled panic if they see you.
• Dragalia Lost features the villainous group known as the Agito, with each member having their own unique masks and proving themselves to be in one way or another a deadly force that menaces those that they despise. Their masks are an iconic part of their design, with some of their main drops being their mask fragments and in Legend difficulty, a generic evil-looking mask symbolizes the Berserk condition they have. The masks themselves are stated to amplify their emotions, fueling their madness and desire to inflict harm on their opposers even more, with Valyx who was made to wear one proving to be much more aggressive and vicious when wearing one compared to his usual stoic nature otherwise. The one exception that doesn't wear a mask is their leader, Nedrick.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In the Action-Adventure spin-off game Redguard, the lower half of Dram's face is always hidden under his mask.
  • Morrowind:
    • All three Big Bads of the game and its two expansions wear full-face masks into their respective Boss Fights.
    • All three (four, including the Mask of Clavicus Vile) variants of the Daedric helmet are shaped like scary faces.
  • Oblivion:
    • Cultists of the Mythic Dawn will summon special sets of Daedric armor with human-face-shaped masks before combat.
    • The Gray Cowl is a gift of the Daedric Prince Nocturnal which can make its wearer an uncatchable criminal. It is also cursed, and removing the curse is a major part of the Thieves' Guild questline.
  • Skyrim:
    • Most of the named Dragon Priests were given powerfully enchanted masks as symbols of authority. Their cruelty and malevolence was second only to the dragons themselves. They serve as powerful Mini-Bosses throughout the game.
    • Miraak and his cultists in the Dragonborn DLC all wear similar masks.
    • In fact, the only named Dragon Priest who doesn't wear a mask is Vahlok the Jailer, who defeated Miraak long ago and is said to be a good ruler in the legends of the Skaal.
• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: Both the Yami Clan and Tarantula's common foot soldiers wear masks over their faces. At least in the case of Tarantula, there's presumably a face under them.
• Fallout: New Vegas The White Glove Society. wear masks that cover the lower part of their face. Their leader believes the masks give them a "mysterious allure" but all it does is make them creepier in the eyes of others.
• Final Fantasy XIV has Legate Gaius van Baelsar and his lieutenants, all of whom wear magitek-empowered suits of armor with face-concealing masks. The Ascians also wear masks that cover the top halves of their faces.
• The Death Knight and the Flame Emperor in Fire Emblem: Three Houses wear masks that conceal their faces and disguise their voices. The Death Knight's case is a Zig-Zagging Trope: in his initial appearances (as Jeritza), he wears a white Domino Mask that only covers half his face, and he isn't suspected of being the Death Knight until he kidnaps Flayn midway through Part I. In Part II, he ditches both masks on the Crimson Flower route but keeps the Death Knight mask on all others. The Flame Emperor (Edelgard) goes maskless much earlier: during the Holy Tomb raid, she either has it forcibly removed (if the player chose the Blue Lions or Golden Deer), or simply stops wearing it after admitting to being the Flame Emperor (if the player chose the Black Eagles).
• In Guilty Gear Xrd, the Conclave is a massively powerful governmental force that controls most of the world and is run by a trio of mask-wearing individuals with a vested interest in wiping out humanity.
• Jacket of Hotline Miami wears a variety of creepy animal masks before each mission. These masks give perks such as making unarmed punches lethal, walking faster, or starting a mission already equipped with a weapon. Later on you find out there's an organization of the animal masked killers...
• In Kung Fu Chivalry, the third boss wears a metal Greek drama-style mask with eye slits but no other facial features.
• The Last Door has a yet-unidentified cabal of creepy people in yellow robes wearing expressive white masks that reveal themselves to the protagonist.
• The Legend of the Mystical Ninja has armies of mooks wearing kyōgen and otafuku masks.
• League of Legends:
  • Kindred consists of two individuals, both masked. Lamb wears a full face mask in the shape of a wolf, making her appear completely emotionless to fit her personality. Wolf, largely resembling an actual wolf, wears a half-mask which covers the upper part of his face, partially because his jaws extend far out from underneath and partially to emphasize his hunger and gluttony.
  • Jhin wears two masks: one with a plain black leather covering obscuring his entire body and an ornately carved ivory mask on top of it. He acts as a covert assassin for a shadowy cabal, so it would make sense for him to hide his identity, and many of his voice lines reference his killings as being the only true way to express himself.
    Only to the audience do I show my true face."
• The Legend of Zelda has a boss and some mooks which you must remove a mask from before you can hit them.
  • Lots of different masks appear in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in the Happy Mask Shop in Hyrule Castle Market.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask game is all about masks. There are three masks that can change you into a Zora, Goron, and a Deku Scrub, as well as a whole inventory of masks that you collect and you can wear them, using some of the powers that the masks have. Also at the Carnival Of Time, all the townspeople wear masks as part of a tradition. Then there's the evil Majora's Mask that you must defeat.
  • Hyrule Warriors has Young Link's intro invoke the trope, by having him play his ocarina ominously and then swing around his oversized Kokiri Sword while wearing his Keaton Mask... except it falls off midway through.
• Midnight Fight Express: Several of the enemy factions don masks as part of their outfit. Babyface himself can unlock various masks to wear himself.
• The Pigmasks in Mother 3. Their general is also specifically known as the Masked Man, but his isn't a pig mask.
• No More Heroes has characters who wear masks and are extremely dangerous, including:
  • Destroyman, a wannabe superhero wish a masked costume, deadly gadgets, and a twisted mind.
  • Letz Shake, a Singaporean rock star with a mask covering his mouth and an Earthquake Maker superweapon.
  • Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarrskii, a stage magician with deadly tricks and a mask covering the left side of his face like The Phantom of the Opera.
  • Dark Star, a Darth Vader expy with a massive dragon-bladed beam katana.
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle has Matt Helms, a Psychopathic Manchild wearing a creepy cartoon mask and wielding a combination axe/flamethrower.
• Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes: Badman, the Deuteragonist of the game, is a vengeful mask-wearing bat-wielding beer-swilling assassin.
• Yōko of Onmyōji (2016) wears a fox mask, indicating his deceptive nature. He even points this out.
  Yōko: A masked man can't be trusted, can he?
• The bank robbers of PAYDAY: The Heist all wear creepy clown masks.
  • The sequel PAYDAY 2 sports more heisters with more standard clown masks, and an enormous amount of unlockable and customizable masks, among them more clowns, animals, Santas, pop-culture references, a Plague Doctor, and lots of original masks.
• Persona:
  • Each shadow in Persona 3 and Persona 4 wears a mask that IDs it with one of the major Arcana. The word persona itself literally means "mask."
  • Aside from the Shadows, several character-specific Personas from throughout the series wear additional masks to hide their own inhuman facial features.
  • Persona 2 has the Masked Circle, an evil cult whose masks are revealed to be twisted parodies of the Power Ranger-esque Phoenix Ranger Featherman R masks worn by the main characters when they were children. Another example is Eternal Punishment's version of JOKER, a serial killer who wears a Brown Bag Mask with a creepy Slasher Smile drawn on it.
  • Persona 5: Many Shadows take the form of humans with the various arcana masks in place of a face in dungeons. Once battle starts they burst apart and change into demonic forms.
• The Armada from Pirate101 all wear white Venetian-style masks. The higher ranked ones have black and gold trim except for Deacon, he wears a solid white Batu. Since they are all clockworks, there is nothing underneath but machinery.
• The resident villain team of Pokémon Masters, Team Break, lack a full uniform like the others, instead appearing as regular trainer classes wearing a two-tone Domino Mask.
• The Masked Gentleman from Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. His sole intent is to destroy the city of Monte d'Or, using all the supernatural abilities the Mask of Chaos gives him. The mask is a fake, his abilities are fake, but the malevolence is real and a fake mask is still a mask, so he still counts.
• The Butcher from Purgatory (RPG Maker) is an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer who wears a White Mask of Doom.
• In Red Dead Redemption II, the Van der Linde gang will wear bandannas masking their faces when committing robberies and various crimes, of course. In a case of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, the game will probably treat it as a Paper-Thin Disguise if the player doesn't make the necessary steps of changing his other clothes too.
• In Resident Evil, the Umbrella Secret Service all wear gas masks to hide their identities and to protect from the hazardous conditions where they are deployed. The most infamous member, HUNK, has only ever come this close to showing his face (unless you count his alternate costume in the unreleased non-canon Outbreak File #3 which looks considerably different). There's also the unnamed UT Commander that commands the Under Takers.
• The main villain of Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World- The Prophecy of the Throne is Wolf, who literally refers to himself as "the Malevolent Masked Magician". He has various masks attached to his robe, which he uses to express different emotions.
• The Masked Man, Big Bad of Rune Factory Oceans, well... wears a mask. Obviously.
• Thanatos of Secret of Mana — for a 16-bit pixellated fellow he's shockingly eerie, too. Considering Thanatos was in dire need of a new host, plus his true nature as a lich, it may very well be that he isn't wearing a mask at all... His energy-sapped fanboys also wear freaky full-faced masks. NPCs comment on this, too, along the lines of: "What's with all those masked weirdoes in the ruins?"
• Quite a few of the secret societies in The Secret World are in the habit of wearing weird and disturbing masks: Illuminati employees wear gas masks — as can the player character should you choose to join them; Oni almost always wear masks, with members of the Nine Houses dressing in traditional Noh masks or black wrappings, while members of the House-In-Exile wear gas masks to symbolize their allegiance to the Illuminati (except for their leader, who wears a golden Mask of Power); and of course, the Rabbit Killer wears a massive cartoon rabbit mask. And so do her twin sisters.
• In Sniper Elite III, the main villain of the Save Churchill DLC is a famed German assassin who wears a metal mask to hide a facial disfigurement. He commands a crack squad of snipers who wear similar masks.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • More than one Sith Lord in Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel. Darth Malak wears not exactly a mask, but a metal prosthetic plate thingy covering his lack of a jaw. Darth Revan wore an abstract/blank mask that emphasizes his mysterious anonymity. Darth Nihilus has a creepy, vaguely skull-like mask that gives him an inhuman look, which is befitting of Nihilus' nature, as he really isn't human anymore. He is, more or less, a living black hole in The Force whose life essence is bound to his mask.
  • Some Sith in Star Wars: The Old Republic carry on the tradition. Notable examples include Darth Malgus, who wears a Malak-style chin guard (like Malak's, it covers an old war wound); Darth Marr, who favors an abstract Revan-style mask that suits his status as an even-keeled figure not given to overt displays; and the Dread Masters, who wear customized red-and-gold masks that emphasize their decadence and inhumanity.
• From Syndicate (2012), apart from all the Faceless Goons, there's Agent Ramon, the Twins, and Miles yourself from a certain point of view.
• In Tyranny, the Archon of Justice (and possibly other Archons) appears to wear a shiny metal mask covering his whole face. Considering the kind of ruler he administers "justice" for, he probably qualifies as malevolent.
• Hakuoro's mask in Utawarerumono echoes the one worn by Thanatos of Secret of Mana above, incidentally. It really is the exact same mask writ animated, complete with the quirky little mark at the top of it.
• The kidnapper in Welcome to the Game is shown to be wearing a balaclava when he greets you.
• The thugs of the three Novigrad gangs in The Witcher 3 all cover their faces in various ways. Cleaver's and the King of Beggars' men wear gang-colored and patterned kerchiefs that cover their faces from the nose down, while Whoreson Junior's gang wears clown makeup and various masquerade masks.
• The Testaments of Xenosaga wear concealing robes, hoods, gloves, and blank face masks; in fact, before each individual Reveal, they're simply referred to by the color of their mask and robes (Black Testament, Red Testament, etc) — this being the only way to tell them apart, other than their voices. At first, not so much malevolent as really, really mysterious, but later in the series, they're definitely antagonists. Except for Albedo. He's The Mole.
• In Yandere Simulator, if Yan-chan joins the Drama club, she gets access to mask she can use to conceal her identity when she kills someone. However, It Only Works Once; if witnesses note the murderer was wearing a mask, the headmaster will ban them from school grounds. Also, if Senpai witnesses her murder someone while wearing a mask, he'll rip it off her and expose her.

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