Create Your Own Villain / Video Games

Times where the hero creates their own villain in Video Games.

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• Artery Gear: Fusion: The Rift Octopus was a former Frontier soldier, who was used for experiments in producing 'rift technology'. Their experiments worked a little too well, and she became one of the most dangerous Elite Mooks in the world.
• Inspector Volerti's suspicion that Aviary Attorney's protagonist, Jayjay Falcon, is the Viridian Killer leads to him trying to upset him enough to prove it. Namely by sending someone to possibly die in a confrontation with revolutionaries. In ending route 4A (Liberté) there's no 'possibly', and Falcon kills a number of people and goes after Volerti while claiming to be the Viridian Killer, though he had nothing to do with the original.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • Batman: Arkham City: Professor Strange accuses Batman of this, citing the Joker specifically. The Joker also blames Batman for his creation. Played with in that Strange cites the Joker blaming Batman as a case of Never My Fault in that all of his origin stories have him blame Batman, and none of them have him take responsibility.
    Hugo Strange: Have you ever considered that all of this is your fault? Your presence creates these animals...
  • Batman: Arkham Origins takes this further: Batman didn't create the Joker — he gave the Joker a reason to live. Of all the people the Joker had met up to that point, Batman was the only one who wanted the Joker to 'not die'. If he hadn't, Joker would have killed himself and ended his vicious killing spree a LONG time ago. Also, with the introduction of an antithesis, the Joker's schemes and psychosis evolved, to what we know him as, in a matter of minutes.
  • In Batman: Arkham Knight, the titular Arkham Knight blames Batman for turning him into who he is by leaving him to be tortured by the Joker for over a year, and seeks vengeance against him throughout the game.
• In The Binding of Isaac, Isaac only tries to kill his mother and/or embrace Satan's power to become The Antichrist because she abused and tried to murder him first on behalf of the voices in her head. It's not really surprising he fights back.
• In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, it's revealed that while Handsome Jack was always immoral, he only went off the deep end and became the Big Bad of Borderlands 2 when Roland, Lilith and Moxxi destroyed Helios Station's Wave-Motion Gun and Lilith branded Jack's face with the relic found in the Vault of the Sentinel, sending him on a path of revenge to murder everyone on Pandora that wouldn't submit to him.
• Champions Online takes this quite literally: at level 25 the player gets to design their character's Arch-Enemy.
• Criminal Case: World Edition: SOMBRA, the main antagonist, owes its existence to Chief Ripley, head of the Bureau. Ripley is an ex-CIA Agent who conspired with SOMBRA's founder Arsenio Castillo to invade a small but oil-rich nation called Grenadia so that the CIA could pretend to drive them out and gain access to the country's oil. Unfortunately, thanks to the funding they got, SOMBRA became too powerful for the CIA to eradicate, and they grew to become an international terrorist organization with worldwide influence.
• The Weary Detective in Cultist Simulator is by far the least threatening Hunter that can come after the player; it's generally best to just let him dawdle about unless he's got damning evidence. However, if the player tries to drive him insane and fails, the Detective, Douglas, might decide that he "isn't having any more of it" and become a dangerous rival practitioner of the eldritch arts. This can technically happen with other Hunters as well, but they were already unhealthily interested in the secrets of the Mansus. Douglas just wanted to be left alone with his pipe and his Illustrated London News.
• Cursed Lands serves as a prequel to Loren: The Amazon Princess and features an appearance by one of main villains of that game, the goblin illusionist Grob. While already an enemy he's more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist than the monster he will be and his defeat at the hands of Cursed Lands seems to drive him into bitterness, swearing vengeance at any cost, which will eventually lead him to side with The Legions of Hell in Loren.
• Day of the Tentacle has the literal example — first, the Mad Scientist Dr. Fred created the Green and Purple Tentacle. Their awkward design (no limbs, suction cup for a base) embittered Purple to the point where he hated all humanity. Then the utterly gratuitous pollution from Dr. Fred's Sludge-O-Matic gave him the physical and mental enhancements to take over the world.
• In Dead Rising 3, Nick Ramos rescues geek Kenny Dermot from zombies at one point, trains him a little in beating zombies and making combo weapons, then goes on his way. Kenny resurfaces as a psychopath, his obsession with becoming the hero leading him to try to kill Nick and take his place.
  • Jherii Gallo, the psychopath representing Pride, is a mild version, as Jherii is the only known psychopath who doesn't actively go out of her way to cause trouble (unless the corpses around the gym aren't zombies), and only becomes a threat once Nick accidentally presses her Berserk Button once too often.
• Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. Super Hero Aurum, having defeated Mao's Overlord father, found that he had run out of strong, evil opponents. So what does he do? He takes the guise of Mao's butler and heaps loads of mental issues and skewed opinions onto his already strained psyche to make his into an Omnicidal Maniac for him to beat and have a chance of being a hero again.
• Dragon Age does it a couple times.
  • The city of Kirkwall did this with the Arishok, who really wanted nothing to do with the place and was stuck there against his will. Eventually, he snapped and decided to go kill everyone and take over to fix the mess because the Chantry kept provoking him. Of course, the Arishok certainly didn't help matters any by thinking proper diplomacy was somebody else's job and refusing to tell anyone the reason he couldn't leave, which could've been easily fixed had Isabella known that the Arishok wanted the Qun holy book back.
  • The Greater-Scope Villain of Inquisition creates the Big Bad on complete accident, having figured out that his Unwitting Pawn had Resurrective Immortality right after said chump had managed to unlock the MacGuffin, which was supposed to kill him and leave the artifact for the Greater-Scope Villain. Oopsy-daisy! He ends up having to join your party to save the world from Corypheus so he could enact his own plans.
  • Inquisition also reveals that this is the secret behind the Order of the Fiery Promise. They're Seekers who went off the deep end after discovering just how many secrets (such as the true nature of Seeker initiation) were being kept from them. The Seekers can never destroy them because as long as their organization still lies, there will always be disillusioned Seekers who will re-create the Promisers again.
• DragonFable combines this trope with Failure-to-Save Murder with the story of Drakonnan.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Falmer are this, with a bit of Laser-Guided Karma, to the Nords. Thousands of years ago in the series backstory, the ancestors to the Nords once nearly drove the Falmer to extinction, and in their desperation, the surviving Falmer fled to their Dwemer cousins, who twisted and mutated them into Morlock-like monsters. The Falmer of the 4th era are now growing more bold, venturing above ground to kidnap surface dwellers while their numbers swell beneath ground. They also seem to be regaining some of their lost sentience, forging better weapons and armor from farmed Chaurus chitin and practicing crude alchemy to create poisons from the plentiful mushrooms that grow in their underground lairs. The writer of one in-game book even believes that the Falmer may be planning a war with their surface dwelling adversaries, which would be bad news for the already war-torn Skyrim of the era.
    • The Nords themselves are this to the Falmer. When Ysgramor first came to Skyrim from Atmora, he and his followers were content to mind their own business in a few small settlements they built, but the native Falmer absolutely hated the newcomers and tried to drive them off time and again. This all came to a breaking point when the Nords accidentally found the Eye of Magnus in Saarthal. They had no idea what it was and had no intention of using it (being that they naturally distrusted magic), but the paranoid Falmer believed it was just a matter of time before the Nords used it to annihilate them and launched a completely unprovoked preemptive attack on Saarthal, slaughtering everyone inside to the last man, woman and child... except Ysgramor, who escaped, returned to Atmora and came back with the Five Hundred Companions, and much less friendly intentions than he previously had. The ensuing asskicking made the Falmer scuttle to the Dwemer for protection... and since the Dwemer were dicks, they enslaved them in turn after tricking them. The same thing happened with the Ayleid, who were instantly hostile to the Cyro-Nords when they expanded to Cyrodiil and mass enslaved them without even trying to talk or negotiate... causing, years later, the rise and rebellion of the Slave Queen, Alessia, and their own near-extinction.
  • Skyrim:
    • You can be this to the Empire if you choose to side against them in the Civil War. Early on in the game, you are almost executed by Imperial soldiers due to, essentially, a clerical error and one very uncaring Imperial captain. Thanks to Alduin, you manage to escape. Later, you can join the Stormcloaks, and be the driving force behind kicking the Empire out of Skyrim. You can take this even further if you join the Dark Brotherhood as well, because then you can murder their Emperor as part of their quest line. What's scary is the fact that this double whammy may effectively lead to the collapse of the Empire (which was already teetering on the brink). Moral of the story: never fuck with the Dragonborn.
    • The Stormcloaks can potentially become this to the Thalmor in a blatant case of Gone Horribly Right. Inciting rebellion in a rival empire to weaken them? Classic geopolitical strategy. But what if these rebels go on to win the civil war and form a powerful independent state with (literally) an axe to grind against you? Uh oh.
    • Even a victorious Empire is bad news for the Thalmor. Their attempts to eradicate Talos worship directly caused a revival in Talos worship all across Tamriel. Woops.
• Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code: The Cainites slaughtered Avram and Cain's entourage due to false promises of manna from the Kosmokraters. In the present, the Cainites want to give up on the war against the Idinites and the Kosmokraters because they suffered too many losses, but Anat, a survivor of the previous incident, lost all care for her fellow Cainites and now seeks revenge against the Kosmokraters even if she has to kill her own people to win.
• Ulysses' presence is felt throughout the DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. When the Courier reaches the Divide, he/she can uncover Ulysses' motivation for opposing him/her: the Courier brought a package to the Divide, the settlement that Ulysses had adopted as his new home, which triggered the detonation of the nuclear weapons buried underground. Ulysses, as the only real survivor, held the Courier responsible for the disaster that obliterated his home and his neighbors.
• This is how Sukhov became Nuclear Winter in Freedom Force. Minuteman was trying to hit him with one of his Minute Missiles, but hit a bunch of liquid nitrogen canisters beside him, covering him with the stuff. This, combined with the latent Energy X in his body, turned him into An Ice Person with a penchant for stealing atomic bombs.
• Get in the Car, Loser!: The trinket, Platonic Ideal of Fire, has lore describing the Machine Devil's origins. The planet used to be overrun with plants, making it impossible for the animal kingdom to thrive. The heavens created an unstoppable flame to burn the overgrown plants, but the flame eventually gained sapience as the Machine Devil, Jonivanjo.
• Ghost Trick:
  • Yomiel strictly speaking got his powers from a freak accident... but he was only in the place where it happened, and unable to notice or react to the meteorite that killed him, because of a standoff with police over a crime he was later exonerated of. He isn't the only one to consider it at least partially the cops' fault; both Cabanela and Jowd consider it My Greatest Failure.
  • It also features two inversions: Yomiel accidentally shot the lead, giving him his ghost powers, and indirectly compelling him to go on the journey that would bring him down, and the foreigners killed Missile, causing him to come back as a relentless ghost.
• The Happyhills Homicide: John Wade was an unpopular janitor at Westpine High who was mistreated by the staff and students. The only person who was kind to him was a female student named Madison Carpenter, who he developed an obsession; with, leaving the gifts that she accepted and thanked him for giving her those gifts. One day two jocks played a prank on him by lighting a fire in front of his closet door. When the fire went out of control, even though the jocks noticed that he was trapped, they chose not to save him, feeling that he was not worth saving. After narrowly surviving the experience, John snapped and went on a killing spree in his new persona, the Clown, murdering everyone who abused him. Those two jocks and their teammates ended up as the Clown victims.
• Hello Neighbor: Whatever his dark secrets, your Neighbor starts out as an ordinary-looking man trying to keep up a façade of ordinary-looking life, and even treats his invading neighbors with ordinary mercy. As you blatantly invade his privacy, steal his stuff, wreck his belongings, and refuse to take a hint at the fact that this is highly illegal, he grows more and more unhinged in his attempts to keep you out. To be fair though, he was likely not a normal person to begin with, and if he didn't have something strange or illegal to hide, he could've simply called the police.
• Prodigal in Heroes Rise becomes a supervillain as a direct result of your parents accidentally killing her mother, Miss Artillery.
  • In the third game, the player character can cause Black Magic to become a tragic villain by mistreating and betraying them.
• In the backstory of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, The Exile ended the Mandalorian Wars using a planet-shattering superweapon that inflicted massive casualties on both sides. This resulted in a massive Genocide Backfire, as not only did the resulting trauma turn them into a Shell-Shocked Veteran but the resulting dark energies transformed one of their former allies into the Humanoid Abomination Darth Nihilus, who went on to lead the First Jedi Purge and turn them into the Last of Their Kind.
• Flay's ending in Mana Khemia gives this a bit of a twist. He wants to become a "Hero of Justice" and drags Vayne along as his sidekick (not that it was hard), but quickly finds that no one seems to need one. Vayne points out the lack of a viable threat, which gives Flay the idea to become one. This, in turn, forces Vayne to become The Hero. It's hard to say who created who.
• Manafinder: The Oracle dismissed Adara's desire to see more of the outside world, causing her to feel like she didn't belong in the Settlement. She then defects to Octavius's nomad tribe and later helps them steal manastones from the Settlement.
• Dr. Wily's never-ending Take Over the World plots in the Mega Man (Classic) series stemmed from Dr. Light's achievements overshadowing his own. Mega Man 11 shows this jealousy started in his university days, when the institute decided to fund Light's research into robots with independent thought, while cancelling Wily's Double Gear System project (which Light thought was too dangerous). Partway through 11 Dr. Light even sadly reflects on how if he had tried to work together with Wily instead of just telling him he was wrong they might still be friends. He even tries to set things right in the end, admitting he was wrong to Wily and extending the olive branch, but the evil doctor swiftly throws it in his face.
• An occasional occupational hazard in both Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War, thanks to the nemesis system. Certain ways orcs can Cheat Death can turn them into full on supervillains, most notably The Machine, whoo basically becomes an orc cyborg when you cut him in half at the waist, and The Unashamed, orcs who were shamed and decided to embrace their trauma, in a non-lethal version of Came Back Strong.
• In Neverwinter Nights, the rulers of Neverwinter technically created The Dragon of The Dragon of the Big Bad by obeying the wishes of the mob over whatever sense of morality they possessed.
• Onmyōji (2016): Seimei wouldn't have had to deal with the whole Kuro Seimei fiasco if he hadn't played around with spells and split himself in two in the first place. Granted, it was completely accidental.
• In Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault it is revealed that Zurgo was the Qwark Fanboy from Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando who became disillusioned with Qwark after his involvement in numerous scandals and plotted to take revenge on him.
• Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc: During a nap, Rayman's hands go and scare an innocent Red Lum into André, the game's main antagonist.
• Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: Yuko brought in three of her students to ride out the Conception along with her so that they could try to set things right. Too bad two of them ultimately decided to commit genocide and the third may either ally with them, commit his own brand of genocide, or actually go ahead with saving the world.
• Shining Resonance: According to legend, the High Elves fought alongside the Shining Dragon and the World Dragons during Ragnarok to seal Deus away. What the people of Alfhiem don't know is, that the High Elves were responsible for causing Ragnarok, since they were the ones who literally created Deus — a machina designed to extract and harness the World Dragons life energy without the need for the Ancient Songs.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Shadow does this to Mephiles in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Chances are, he was still going to wipe out the universe anyway, but he might not have if Shadow hadn't been there to use the Scepter of Darkness.
  • And Shadow ends up doing this again to Infinite in Sonic Forces. After being on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle from Shadow, he became determined to surpass his power and prove he's not weak, not helped by the fact his band of mercenaries was also destroyed in the conflict. This led to him harnessing the power of the Phantom Ruby and helping Dr. Eggman defeat Sonic in his quest to Take Over the World. So basically, Shadow caused the entire plot of the game to happen by demeaning Infinite, killing his squad, and dismissing him as a weakling. And he considered it just another ordinary day. Nice job breaking it, Shadow!
• Spider-Man 2 combines Mysterio's comicbook and animated series villainous motivations. Quentin Beck tries to publicly discredit Spider-Man, but he passes all of his challenges, proving he's the real thing. Humiliated, Beck devises the Mysterio identity (which he tries to pass off as an evil space alien) to get his revenge.
• In StarCraft, Arcturus Mengsk was responsible for making Sarah Kerrigan into the Queen of Blades, the most feared name in the Koprulu Sector, by abandoning her to the Zerg during the fall of Tarsonis.
  • Mengsk himself was an example of this. His father, Angus, infamous across the sector for his stance against the rampant corruption, military oppression, and gentrification of the Confederacy, helped to foment a rebellion on his home planet of Korhal. The Confederacy responded first by sending Ghost agents to assassinate Angus and his family, then when the rebellion only swelled, they nuked the planet from orbit. Arcturus was offworld at the time, and when he received word, he vowed revenge on the Confederacy and formed the Sons of Korhal. He would eventually succeed, bringing about the fall of the Confederacy by luring the aforementioned Zerg invasion to Tarsonis, which was the Confederacy's seat of government. Oh, and the reason he abandoned Kerrigan to the Zerg is because Kerrigan was one of the Ghosts sent to kill his family. While he pretended to forgive her in order to make use of her, he got rid of her when her usefulness to him ran out.
• Some endings of Star Fox Command lead to Dash Bowman, initially hoping to join Star Fox, becoming evil in response to choices made by other characters.
• The Ultima series is notorious for this. The only games in the main series in which the problems the Avatar has to solve are not the direct or indirect result of something he did in a previous game are the first and fourth.
  • II: Villain is widow of the villain killed in previous game.
  • III: Villain is child of villains of previous two games.
  • V: Threat caused by a combination of an artifact owned by the villain of I and cosmic imbalance triggered by events of IV.
  • VI: Villains were rightful owners of an artifact the Avatar found in IV, and lost their homes as the result of the Avatar's actions in V.
  • VII-IX: Villain is the Avatar's dark side, given independent form after the events of IV.
• Undertale: Alphys claims to have created Mettaton as an entertainment robot, and while adding new features, made a mistake which made the robot evil. However, Mettaton later reveals that Alphys programmed him to be evil, just so she could solve problems which she created herself. And he isn't really evil, just an Attention Whore.

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