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Jerks Are Worse Than Villains / Video Games

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Jerks Are Worse Than Villains in Video Games.

  • Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: Col. McKinsey, the smarmy and selfish commander of Spare Squadron, a squad of convicts of the Osean military that includes Trigger, is hated by players more than they hate the Eruseans that are at war with Osea or the advanced-AI drones that comprise the Final Bosses, as his animosity with Trigger and his squadmates is a lot closer, whereas the Eruseans and superdrones are merely seen as typical in-the-line-of-duty threats to take out, and the Kingdom of Erusea isn't a government being run with malice, just waging war because of what they perceive to be an act of imperialism (building the Lighthouse). Meanwhile, McKinsey constantly berates Spare Squadron, throwing them into solitary confinement repeatedly for asinine reasons, even when their defiance of orders saves him and the rest of the base, and tries to take all the credit for Spare Squadron's hard work, even outright declaring that the squadron deserves no thanks for their efforts during one particular debriefing. So it's refreshing for many players when he gets "promoted" to a dangerous frontline position as a "reward" for taking their credit. Nobody in-universe likes him, and many players are inclined to agree. In Mission 09, in which the player has to (likely reluctantly) escort him plane to safety, if the plane carrying McKinsey is blown up (either by the enemies or the player — in fact shooting his plane down even awards 1,000 points), the mission will fail, but AWACS Bandog will remark that he wasn't worth protecting.
    McKinsey: So it looks like we're getting attention from above. If any credit is due, it should come to me. Prisoners deserve nothing.
  • Absented Age: Squarebound: Rumi and the vice-principal of Amefuribashi High are written as selfish jerkasses who antagonize the Sado Band Club out of jealousy and ambition respectively. They come off as less sympathetic than actual main villains, the Gangers, who at least have the excuse of having an uncontrollable craving for Heart Fragments. Even the worst of the Gangers, Karen Alias, shows regrets for her actions, but Rumi and the vice-principal are unapologetic.
  • Advance Wars: Days of Ruin:
    • The New Rubinelle Army, led by Admiral Greyfield, reignites the war between Rubinelle and Lazuria, with some help from the Intelligent Defense Systems company headed by Dr. Caulder. While Dr. Caulder is the larger Big Bad of the story, being responsible for the Creeper virus and manipulating both Rubinelle and Lazuria to wage war in pursuit of research and profits, Greyfield is very much the more heinous villain in terms of immediate action, being responsible for the deaths of two likeable COs and having little regard for the safety of his own troops. Caulder also gets points for poisoning the Mayor, an obstructive authority figure that acts as a frequent thorn in the early stages of the story.
    • Said Mayor is another example. He's an infuriating control freak who repeatedly got in the way of the heroes' efforts and an all-around Ungrateful Bastard. But he's not a mass-murdering war criminal like Greyfield and Caulder. And yet, as noted in the above example, fans don't hesitate to cheer Caulder for murdering him.
  • Baldur's Gate III: "Fuck Wulbren Bongle" is a meme. Whether it's because he's unwilling to conceptualize humanity in a group that are demonstrably acting under coercion or his cruelty towards Barcus or the fact that he treats you somewhere between contempt and indifference after you rescue him from the villain's dungeon but is suddenly trying to ingratiate himself to you when he realizes that you may soon find his enemies as your opponents, the gnome is the recipient of a massive outsized amount of hatred by the community far exceeding the main villains.
  • Few would deny the oppressive nature of the Founders' government of Columbia in BioShock Infinite. It was established by Zachary Hale Comstock, a man with many delusions of grandeur due to claiming to see visions of the future (in reality it's the nature of tears and showing him events based on probability, rather than prophecy), a hatred of non-white communities, and being a guardian of a kidnapped young girl he aims to make his heir, even if it means warping her in his own image. He's funded by a business tycoon named Jeremiah Fink, equally xenophobic and an abusive worker baron who drives his lesser employees to the edge. While Zachary Hale Comstock has the excuse of being a troubled soldier who undertook a baptism, and his unbaptised equivalent having a far more stable moral compass, Fink has absolutely no divergence in his character, and is who he is out of pure choice. His industrial innovations aren't even original, as he appropriated them from tears leading into Rapture.
  • Most of Chrono Trigger's villains are beloved amongst the fanbase in some way, shape, or form. Lavos, Magus, and Azala are strong examples of Evil Is Cool, Ozzie, Flea, and Slash are enjoyed for being Laughably Evil, and Queen Zeal and Mother Brain are considered really scary villains. However, the two most disliked characters amongst fans are Yakra XIII and Dalton, who, while still villains, are less proactive villains and have more upfront Jerkass moments. Yakra XIII is disliked both for getting Crono sentenced to death via a really flimsy court case and making Marle's family life actively worse while disguised as the Chancellor, while Dalton is disliked for his Gasshole tendencies, being a generally egotistical nuisance who puts the party through one of the game's worst dungeons, and for being implied to be the one responsible for the game's Happy Ending Override.
  • DmC: Devil May Cry: This game's version of Dante is much more abrasive and crude compared to his classic counterpart. Despite him showing a softer side as the story progresses, the initial bad impression led to fans playing up Dante's faults to the point of claiming he is worse than the villain Mundus whose crimes include murdering Dante's mother, condemning his father to eternal torture, enslaving humanity by controlling every facet of society, kidnapping Dante's friend Kat and trying to kill Dante and Vergil since they were children. In particular, fans point to the scene in which Dante mocks the deaths of Mundus's wife Lilith and their child at Vergil's hands as a reason why they see Dante as less sympathetic than the villain. This is despite Dante having to be prompted to do this this by Vergil who wanted Mundus distracted while he tried to cut off Mundus's power source and Dante only doing this after suffering Mundus's numerous cruelties that are far worse than anything Dante does in the game.
  • Dragon Age: A staple for the franchise.
    • Dragon Age: Origins: In a game full of mass-murdering traitors, slavers, and war criminals, a character with one of the most vocal hatedoms is Queen Anora, because she can throw the player under the carriage when authorities come to arrest them for trying to rescue her, and further betray the player at the Landsmeet if they refuse to support her bid for the throne at a critical moment. Her rudeness to the player is often treated as a far greater crime than the actual atrocities by the game's actual villains and antagonists.
    • Dragon Age II: Companion Anders is much more widely hated than the game's actual overarching antagonist and final boss, Meredith. Among many other reasons, this is not helped by the former being companion the player spends many hours hearing from and talking with, who constantly harps about mage oppression, picks fights with every other companion in party banter (particularly Fenris and Merrill, two relative fan favorites), and often being perceived as rude, preachy, self-righteous, and hypocritical.
      • At the same time Fenris is often disliked by players who are all for the freedom of mages and seen as someone, who does not budge on his views, even if it's visible how much the Circle System hurts mages and basically as a jerk who expects that the mages give up their rights to make the scared non-mages comfortable. The possibility that Fenris can still help defend the mages, is seen as a teeth-clenched choice on Fenris part, because it's what Hawke wants.
    • Dragon Age: Inquisition: The mysterious Elder One is the game's true villain: a self-aggrandizing megalomaniac who wants to declare himself a god or destroy the world trying. Yet, Corypheus doesn't spark nearly as much heated fan posts as a number of allied characters, particular base-breaking companions Vivienne and Sera. Some common points of contention are their tendencies to dismiss the plight of oppressed mages and elves, being rude to the player unless said player is lock-in-step with their opinions (though in different ways; Vivienne with razor-sharp politeness, Sera with yelling and name-calling), and the player being unable to change their views on anything. This is probably not helped by many finding the game's villain to be an underwhelming generic villain, whereas the flaws exhibited by companions feel much more real and personal.
  • Dwarf Fortress: More often than not, Elves start out as Dwarves' allies, complete with merchant caravans, while goblins only bring death, chaos and whatever iron's on their corpses. But goblins are straightforward about wanting to kill you and steal everything you have without a word wasted; elves are the ones who insult you even during negotiations, throw hissy fits about what products they'll accept, threaten you whenever you cut down trees for wood, spew passive-aggression even if you fulfill their requests and generally parade gigantic egos all over your diplomacy screens. Guess which species is the one the players go out of their way to antagonize and even exterminate.
  • Far Cry: The Far Cry franchise is known for its iconic and beloved villains. Among the most popular are 3's Vaas Montenegro, a drug and human trafficking modern day pirate; 4's Pagan Min, the brutal dictator of Kyrat who casually commits human rights abuses; and 5's Joseph Seed, the charismatic leader of the Eden's Gate cult hellbent on converting everyone in Hope County to their cause in preparation of The Collapse. Meanwhile, Agent Willis Huntley is one of the least liked characters in the series due to his Jerkass tendencies, jingoism, and dislike of foreign cultures. While he's generally tolerated in Far Cry 3 for helping Jason on his journey and being useful in fighting back against Hoyt Volker, in Far Cry 4 he's openly rude and racist to Ajay and tricks him into killing CIA agents stationed in Kyrat, and then shoves him out of the plane to be captured by Yuma Lau's men. In Far Cry 5 he makes the Deputy recover an embarrassing VHS tape but otherwise doesn't really help the resistance in fighting back against Eden's Gate at all.
  • Fate/Grand Order: In Lostbelt 6, while the majority of Faes were Ungrateful Bastards extraordinary, they're not actually the Arc Villain of the Lostbelt. But their inherent cruel, backstabbing nature that has been implanted on them since their creation along with all the cruel things they do without any tinge of regret at the cost of many has made many players want them dead possibly even more than they want a Hate Sink villain like Beryl (who instead develop a Love to Hate status), or even bigger villains like the Foreign God. They kinda got their wish in the end, though.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: While several high-ranking nobles (including Ramza's brothers Zalbaag and Dycedarg) orchestrating the events of the game are indeed heinous, the character that draws the most ire from players is Argath, a temporary ally-turned-antagonist of the game's opening act. Even though he's encountered early in the game and doesn't stay in your party for long, his open hatred for commoners and murder of Delita's sister Tietra (triggering Delita's Start of Darkness) made him an instant anti-favorite.
  • The major antagonists in Final Fantasy XIV range from scumbags who receive audience love through heel hate or Evil Is Cool, Tragic Villains with compelling and sympathetic motives, or simply not taken seriously by the player base. By contrast, the formal introduction of Fourchenault Leveilleur during the lead up to Endwalker left the community itching to kill him for refusing to allow Sharlayan to aid the Eorzean Alliance for the upcoming Final Days and disowning his children Alphinaud and Alisaie for daring to speak out against him, all while saying the "violent savages of Eorzea" had got to them. Evil arch wizards, and vengeful dragons are a bit too fantastical for an audience to hate. An elitist and holier-than-thou politician and a parent who looks down on everyone including their own children, not so much. When Endwalker did arrive, it turned out Fourchenault's Anger Born of Worry got the better of him, and was fully intent on dragging his children along with Sharlayan's real plan dealing with the Final Days. He later apologized and helped the heroes with ending the Final Days, but some people think it wasn't enough for what he did, and is still viewed less favorably compared to the expansion's actual villains.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: King Desmond of Bern isn't directly antagonistic toward your party, but his abusive and neglectful attitude toward his son Prince Zephiel makes him even more hated than the actual antagonists of the game, Nergal and the Black Fang. To make things worse, his continued mistreatment of Zephiel caused the prince to develop a Humans Are Bastards mindset and start one of the biggest wars Elibe has ever seen, retroactively making Desmond responsible for the events of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade.
    • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance: Makalov is actually a recruitable character, but he's a compulsive, unrepentant gambler that caused nothing but trouble for anyone he comes across (especially his hardworking sister) and only looks for ways to get rich and would scam others for his own leisure, an example of a super unrepentant Jerkass. The Tellius games (this and the sequel) have many, many dark issues including racism or genocide, something that Makalov never mentions even while he's introduced being employed by slavers, and likewise, he's not at all confrontational, he'd rather just mind his own (sleazy) business. However, he's very relatable in a manner that people that act like him can be easily found in real life, so his mere existence rubs people the wrong way so much that sometimes they want him dead more than other villains that actually deserve the hatred against them.
    • Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia: Among the new characters added in the remake, Faye, the new playable character on Alm's route, is easily the most polarizing addition. The reasons generally stem from her having very little personality outside of her crush on Alm, with her coming off as a Clingy Jealous Girl who seems to be pleased with Alm and Celica's relationship troubles following their argument with each other at the end of Act 2, as well as acting like a Jerkass for most of her and Silque's support. This is in contrast to the new villains Berkut and Fernand, who are generally considered to be solid additions to the story, with Berkut in particular often being praised as one of the best villains in the series, even in spite of him sacrificing his fiancé Rinea to Duma in exchange for power to kill Alm following his Despair Event Horizon.
    • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: While two of the major players in this game's narrative are huge Base-Breaking Characters, they still have their fans at the end of the day. However, Count Varley is one of the few universally hated characters in the game. Even though he's not an antagonist and doesn't even appear on-screen in any route, his severe emotional abuse towards his daughter Bernadetta (which includes tying her to a chair to teach her on how to be a submissive housewife) is the main reason she's such a Nervous Wreck and a withdrawn shut-in in the first place, thus he garners the hatred of pretty much the entire playerbase and even the characters themselves in-universe. When he finally appears in the flesh in Three Hopes, Bernadetta, Edelgard and Hubert aren't shy about expressing their clear disdain for him, and many players are all too happy to play missions that can end with his death, even on the route where he's on your side.
  • Genshin Impact has no shortage of jerks who are much more hated.
    • While Il Dottore and Scaramouche are the overarching antagonists in Sumeru's Archon Quests and mastermind the main threat, the Sages of the Sumeru Akademiya are much more disliked.
      • They're responsible for causing or exacerbating most of Sumeru's long-term problems, including the same ones that drove them into the Fatui's arms in the first place. Not only do they shun their own current Archon Lesser Lord Kusanali in favor of clinging to the memory of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, but as more is learned about the latter, they have proven to be everything that she wasn't.
      • Where Rukkhadevata loved the dances of her close friend the God of Flowers and created the Aranara to have power over dreams, the Sages ridicule both dreams and the arts as frivolous. Where she was warm and compassionate for all people including the people of the desert, the Akademiya as an institution proves to be both racist and elitist, and the Sages themselves are intensely unpleasant individuals if Grand Sage Azar is anything to go by. They revere her as "the great tutor", yet when the newborn Kusanali appeared to them and had no more intelligence than a child, they locked her up in the Sanctuary of Surasthana instead of teaching her the ropes, forcing her to find her own way while the Akademiya's ability to generate academic breakthroughs plateaued, ostensibly from lack of direction. Yet instead of reflecting on the mistakes they have made thus far, they choose to help Il Dottore ascend Scaramouche to godhood so they can have a new "god of wisdom" to follow like lemmings, going as far as using the very Akasha their Archon left behind as a tool of control to mess with the brains of Sumeru's own people to achieve this goal, meaning that for all their supposed devoutness as Rukkhadevata's disciples, they are the most unfaithful of all, committing the highest form of blasphemy against her possible by perverting all she left to them in order to replace her.
      • As leaders, as devotees, as teachers, and as students, the Sages are complete failures on all accounts, and Sumeru suffers for it in the present. Unlike the Fatui, however, they don't have the charm or memorability that make Il Dottore and Scaramouche the more popular antagonists. To top it all off, their "punishment" could very well be considered a slap on the wrist, since all they get is exiled from Sumeru City. Given everything Azar and his cronies did, many wish they had gotten a far worse punishment.
    • Dori, despite not being on a villainous scale like the Fatui or the Abyss Order, is disliked by numerous players due to her reputation as an annoying, selfish, greedy merchant that preys on her customer's weakness to earn more Mora, especially with regards to her role in bankrupting and continuing to increase Kaveh's debt as well as turning Layla into a financially struggling student. Her backstory explains her current behavior, but it completely falls flat as she has no problems taking advantage of even innocents just to earn Mora (such as her attempts to drain an Eleazar-inflicted Collei out of her hard earned savings, which might have succeeded if not for Tighnari's timely intervention).
    • Little Que'er is a minor NPC that is otherwise completely irrelevant to the story and pales in comparison to the actual villains of the setting, but many players loathe her purely for her needless hostility, even going as far as to issue death threats just for talking to her. In the Version 1.3 Lantern Rite, she displays disturbing implications on wanting to harm a civilian associate of Sun Yu, painting her as someone who is more than willing to hurt people who can't fight back. Unlike most NPCs with vile personalities and no redeeming qualities, players can't do anything to her to put her in her place, resulting in them having to put up with her insults for years. The devs likely took note of the fanbase's opinion towards her years since the game's release, in which they silently released a new set of Liyue Daily Commissions in Version 3.3 (an otherwise Sumeru and Inazuma-focused patch) where Sun Yu decides he's had enough and chooses to travel abroad to fulfill his goals by himself, leaving Que'er a broken mess afterwards.
    • Degui, the owner of Third-Round Knockout, is widely disliked by the fandom for being a very greedy merchant whose business practices would make even Dori wince at his methods - he rips off his customers by only providing them with half the food instead of full, so that it'll force customers into buying more, and swapping the booze-flavored desserts the customers ordered with bland-tasting ones. He also chews out at Zhiruo for simply doing an honest work, even calling her methods stupid. And lastly, he has the gall to tell Zhiruo that she should listen to him (and only him) and not the customers she is serving (via through his Insane Troll Logic fallacies), not taking into account that this very practice is what led to his business being in decline in the first place. The most shameless, and grating, act is his commission, where he asks the Traveler to fetch him some Dandelion Seeds in an attempt to create a knock-off version of Angel Share's signature Dandelion Wine without asking for the Dawn Winery's permission.
  • Grand Theft Auto:
  • Halo: Dr. Catherine Halsey organized the kidnapping of many children and replaced them with Flash Clones. Then she Trained them to be soldiers and enhanced them in a way that many didn't survive and some were disfigured. All to stop human insurrectionists. She has fans who will justify these. However it is Spartan IV Sarah Palmer who is hated more for simply teasing the Master Chief upon meeting him.
  • Hearts Like Clockwork: S.I.S. is portrayed as a sympathetic villainess due to caring about her minions and only reluctantly acting on orders to kidnap Rin. The same cannot be said for Hideki, a spiteful bully who goes as far as to attack Rin with a real katana just because she beat him in a kendo match.
  • Heavy Rain: Carter Blake is one of the most unpleasant, psychopathic characters in the game and he's not even a villain. His violent temper, lack of remorse towards the people he assaults in his pursuit to catch the title serial killer and his penchant for Police Brutality, almost makes him more detestable than the Origami Killer himself.
  • Hollow Knight: Zote is a grouchy Ungrateful Bastard who is extremely full of himself, and thus is a Base-Breaking Character because some fans detest his egotistical and ungrateful nature. Grimm, on the other hand, is an Ensemble Dark Horse beloved by fans who is also Ambiguously Evil and implied to have enslaved the Grimm troupe and connected to the malevolent-seeming Nightmare Heart.
  • Horizon Zero Dawn:
    • Ted Faro from the backstory is an interesting case. He was the CEO and controlling shareholder of the world's largest tech company, and the harm he did was certainly supervillain-scale, but was an accident caused by hubris and shortsightedness rather than malicious intent. His company made, at his insistence, a line of unhackable, self-replicating warbots that can consume biomass as fuel. Then a glitch caused a swarm to go rogue and stop responding to external commands, and in less than 2 years all life on earth was extinguished. He could even be a sympathetic character if he had taken responsibility for his mistake. But what makes him fall into this trope is that he's a narcissistic asshole who fired anyone who told him no, never apologized for the mess he made, and is such a Slave to PR that Elisabet Sobeck had to threaten to publicly expose his role in the apocalypse to get him to fund the proposed solution. None of this is villainous behavior per se, but it does make the player hate him long before his truly evil actions are revealed,note  and it hits very close to home given his similarity to real life tech billionaires. The game's proper villains are an insane artificial intelligence and a misguided religious zealot whose cult worships said AI, both of which come across as more sympathetic than Faro.
    • Sylens is another example. He's ostensibly an ally of Aloy's, and he does help her out considerably on her mission, but he's such an arrogant, condescending bastard about it that he wins no sympathy points with the player. He also has a Lack of Empathy that almost makes him The Sociopath, and he's a Manipulative Bastard who is responsible for creating the aforementioned cult, effectively giving the AI a personal army in exchange for the knowledge it possesses. He had no idea of HADES' true intentions until later and was only after knowledge, but it's still an astoundingly selfish move that gets a lot of people killed, and he shows no remorse for it. He outright says he'd do it all again knowing what he does now, just with more safeguards. In the epilogue and the sequel he proves this absolutely correct when he uses Aloy to recapture HADES without her knowledge, and brutally interrogates it when he finds out the sentient AI can experience suffering.
  • In the Killzone series, the Helghast are presented as the villains, given the series has a futuristic, intergalactic World War II-like theme with the Helghast being the Nazi-like empire in that universe. However, the story throughout the games puts a sympathetic spin on the Helghast in some parts, resulting in some fans Rooting for the Empire. On the other hand, the most hated character in the series is an impulsive jerkass named Rico who fights for the I.S.A, who represent the heroic Allies faction of the intergalactic war.
  • LUNA (RPG Maker): The titular Luna is an Enfante Terrible who condemned her little sister Lucy to eternal imprisonment inside a book while erasing her from existence. Despite this, it's her neglectful parents who are the most hated characters for basically ignoring her in favor of Lucy, while Luna herself gets some sympathy in comparison.
  • Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story has the witches, who are magical girls corrupted by despair and beloved by the fanbase for being sympathetic Woobies. The same cannot be said for Sana Futaba’s family, whose parents (namely her stepfather, though her mother isn’t good either) are a combination of Abusive Parents, Education Papa, and Wicked Stepfather with both of her stepbrothers being a Big Brother Bully and had no problem throwing her away when she couldn’t reach their high expectations.
  • Neverwinter Nights 2: Bishop, the Token Evil Teammate, comes across as a lot more loathsome than most of the villains. He's greedy, cruel, perverted, bigoted, slimy, nihilistic, believes anyone who's weaker than him deserves to die, and even implies he plans to rape Shandra after you rescue her. At least in Mask of the Betrayer you find that he died and is now trapped in the Wall Of The Faithless.
  • Octopath Traveler: In Primrose's story, the Crow Men are higher-ups in the Obsidians who murdered Primrose's father when she was a child, traumatizing her and spurring her into her path of vengeance against them. However, each Crow Man has a certain charismatic charm to them despite being awful people. The same cannot be said for the Starter Villain of Primrose's story, Helgenish, who not only has no redeeming factors but is not entertaining to watch. Instead, he is a materialistic abuser who simultaneously obsesses over Primrose and treats her like his personal sex object instead of a woman. Many players literally felt nauseous watching him. The fact that Helgenish becomes a murderer himself near the epilogue of Primrose's Chapter 1 solidifies his status as pure evil.
  • In Papers, Please, you have the Arstotzkan government, which tries to provide for its people with a Police State reminiscent of Cold War-era Communist regimes, and the Order of the EZIC Star, which plots to overthrow the Arstotzkan government. The game leaves it up to player interpretation as to which side is the real villains. However, one faction that most players can agree to hate are the journalists who attempt to enter the country. Both of them are Entitled Bastards who think just having a passport and an "International Press Identification" badge will let them in, and regardless of whether you let them in or not they will harass you about your decision: Refusing entry has them call you a fascist and write a scathing article about Arstotzka's needlessly strict border protocols, while admitting them entry has them make fun of the lax border security and call you inefficient and your employer, Arstotzka's Ministry of Admission, prints you a citation due to the entrant not having all the required documents. It also so happens that on the day the second journalist comes in, you receive some deadly poison that you are meant to apply to a specific entrant's passport. You can instead apply it to the journalist's passport to kill them without any game-ending consequences.
  • Persona 5 Strikers: The Jail Monarchs are much more sympathetic than most of the main baddies in the original Persona 5, and most people end up not being very upset at them. The Lock Keepers, on the other hand, are a completely different story in which they are portrayed as Jerkass characters that often cause the Jail Monarchs to become who they are in the first place.
  • Pico: The villains in each installment are beloved due to how over-the-top and outlandish they are in their villainy. Even the Goth Punks, a group of kids that caused a mass shooting, and Big Brown Bary, a Depraved Kids' Show Host suspected of molesting his daughter, have their fans. The least liked character is Mr. Flaccit, a normal teacher who cluelessly endangers the school's remaining students multiple times.
  • Pocket Mirror: The Big Bad, the Strange Boy, is a wicked and manipulative demon who eats girls and loves psychological torment, only driven by his love of human suffering, and he personally killed Elise’s girlfriend in front of her and ruined her life among other things, but his theatricality and humor help make him more of a Love to Hate villain. Most of the Arc Villains, his pawns, are also well-liked for their sympathetic qualities, even the overtly Ax-Crazy Lisette. The one exception is Princess Fleta, who despite having the same Freudian Excuse as the other antagonist girls and potentially doing a Heel–Face Turn, is outright despised by much of the fandom for being a Spoiled Brat and Sore Loser with a Hair-Trigger Temper and bad attitude towards the heroine G, her supposed friend.
  • Pokémon: In the Gen 1 and 2 Pokemon games, Team Rocket are the main villains, plotting to steal rare Pokemon, cutting off Slowpoke tails and serving them as food, and other heinous acts. But who gets all the vitriol from fans? In Red and Blue, it's your rival Blue, or as he's known more colloquially, "Gary Motherfucking Oak", whose greatest crime is... getting to places before you do and telling you he'll "smell ya later!" Gold and Silver instead have Whitney and Clair, who are both so upset about losing (in what are not exactly easy fights, mind you) that they initially refuse to give you their respective gym badges. Clair in particular even makes you go through another test after beating her, and in Crystal and the remakes, she still refuses to give you a badge afterward, disbelieving that you actually passed the test; she only backs down when one of her superiors threatens to report her to the champion for insubordination.
  • Professor Layton and the Unwound Future: Bill Hawks is, hands down, the most hated character in the entire series. Despite not appearing in the flesh for a majority of the game, Bill's background and action makes him utterly loathesome, as he is responsible, one way or another, for some of the most tragic events in the entire backstory, including those that cause the main villains to become the people they are in the game proper. By contrast, the game's main antagonists Clive and Dimitri, are far more sympathetic due to having loved ones (Clive's parents and Clair, respectively) killed in an experiment caused by Hawks, and both promise to atone for their crimes at the end of the game, yet Hawks remains completely unrepentant throughout the entire game, and gets away with his crimes scot-free, to the anger of many fans.
  • Psychonauts 2: The Big Bad, Gristol Malik, has zero redeeming qualities and is a megalomaniacal would-be conqueror, but is liked for being an interesting villain, while Greater-Scope Villain Maligula Galochio turns out to be a sympathetic villain in a lot of ways by the time the game has concluded. Fellow intern Norma, on the other hand, is far more despised by the fanbase for being a bully to Raz. She takes his clothes from the original game and forces him to do a scavenger hunt to get them back. She constantly makes fun and undermines Raz every chance she gets, including in front of his family after they come to visit. And when Raz is about to save the day, Norma goes behind his back and snitches on him, which in turns causes Truman to interfere and stop Raz, triggering the final battle of the game. Lampshaded in-universe when both Raz and her sister Lizzie call her out after beating the game.
  • The Shantae series has a fun and colorful cast of both heroes and villains. In fact, series Big Bad Risky Boots is a big fan favorite for her competence, attractiveness, and Hidden Depths, and several other villains are nearly as popular- even the Pirate Master and Empress Siren, two surprisingly evil mass-murderers with no redeeming qualities, are loved for how threatening and cool they are. However, many fans utterly loathe Mayor Scuttlebutt for firing Shantae for little to no reason in almost every game, selling Scuttle Town to the Ammo Baron and wasting the money on chocolates, and being completely shameless about it, yet getting off with almost no problem every single time. It should say something that it's widely agreed that one of the best parts of Shantae and the Seven Sirens is the fact he doesn't appear at all.
  • Soulcalibur V has Patroklos Alexander. This Psychopathic Manchild is hated by players for his arrogance, his Holier Than Thou attitude towards anybody that doesn't see his point of view, and his infamous Establishing Character Moment where he murders an innocent man he suspected of being Malfested. The aforementioned murder is made even worse by his Slasher Smile and him smugly declaring that it was unfortunate that the man he killed couldn't prove he wasn't Malfested, confirming that he knew full-well he was innocent and just wanted to kill somebody For the Evulz. You'd think he was one of the game's villains, but you're wrong. He's actually the protagonist. His behavior has earned him more hatred than the game's actual villains, Graf Dumas (who wanted to use Soul Edge to take over the world using Malfested slaves), Tira (who has had a history of Ax-Crazy behavior long before this game), and Elysium (who is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to bring about world peace). The hate is to such an extent that even the game's creators hate him as well, going so far as to declare V as being a Bad Future that must be avoided at all costs.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has you battling Dragons ravaging the countryside, bloodthirsty vampires, and the Thalmor (Nazi Elves), yet there are some NPC's who are often insufferable enough that you either find yourself running your sword through them or wishing you could. to list some examples:
    • Maven Black-Briar is the Tamrielic equivalent of a mafia don who will often rub in your face how influential and untouchable she is, even after you potentially take charge of the two main factions (the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood) responsible for the amount of reach she has. This is made worse by the fact that aside from the fact that she's marked as Essential there is no in-game way to actually oppose her, meaning that there's really nothing players can do about her. A quest to take down the Thieves' Guild was planned (which is also why potential follower Mjoll the Lioness is marked Essential), but ultimately cut. Presumably this quest would have taken Maven down as well.
    • Nazeem is a common target for Video Game Cruelty Potential for a very good reason. He's a merchant who's extremely pretentious, condescending, and almost every moment you encounter him he'll try to rub his status in your face. Few tears will be shed if you decide to kill him.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic has a few of those, depending on how players view things.
    • In Knights of the Fallen Empire, you are up against the entire Eternal Empire with the Emperors genocidal son at the helm of it all, but you also have to deal with Characters like Kaliyo, who doesn't only commit terrorist attacks against innocent people, but is very much flippant about the detonation of a hospital and the death of her own Alliance comrades.
    • In Knights of the Eternal Throne you have Vailyn as the new insane Empress and main villain, yet you find yourself more annoyed with both Minister Lorman and Saresh for their attempt at grabbing power over the Alliance away from you for reasons that basically amount to vanity and thirst for power on both their parts. At least you can punish them both for it.
  • Played for Laughs with Undertale. The Big Bad of the game is a sociopathic Omnicidal Maniac who constantly taunts you throughout the game, The Heavy is a Godhood Seeker who tries to wipe out mankind, and the Greater-Scope Villain is yet another Omnicidal Maniac, but on a way bigger scale. All of them are far from hated due to having tragic backstories, good excuses and chances of redeeming themselves, not to mention that The Heavy is a genuine Nice Guy who can be barely called evil and that the Greater-Scope Villain is Ambiguously Evil. The single most hated character? Jerry, a gross, mean Mook who can be fought in only one area and is hard to kill. Hell, he's even hated in-universe, to the point that you can conspire with your own enemies to ditch him.
  • Valkyria Chronicles:
    • Maximilian might be the Big Bad, but him being an imperialistic warmonger who wants to conquer Europa and remake it in his image is not the reason why he garners so much hatred. Instead, it is his casual acts of emotional manipulation and Domestic Abuse towards Selvaria that earn him the players' ire. When asked about the most heinous deed Maximilian has done in-game, almost everyone will bring up ordering Selvaria to use her Final Flame rather than anything to do with his conquests.
    • General Damon is similarly widely hated, despite being on the side of the heroes. In addition to being racist, sexist, and classist, he got his position in the army solely due to nepotism and is more than happy to let the Militia die if he can get a promotion for it. Nobody shed any tears when he was killed by Selvaria after she used her Final Flame.
  • Warcraft: In a world featuring tyrannical demon lords responsible for the death and torture of billions and seeking to destroy entire worlds, human general Marshal Garithos is the most hated character by fans because he's an arrogant bigot and racist.
  • Surf Village in the original Wild ARMs gets a lot of hate due to them kicking Rudy out for using an ARM, right after he saved them from a nasty monster. It's not uncommon for players to spend a considerable amount of time using Asgard to stomp down on Surf's position on the map once they have the orcarina.
  • Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus: While he's both a jerk and a villain, Rip Blazkowicz tends to be the most hated character by far, even more than Hitler himself, who shows up in one scene but is clearly a doddering dolt who's not all there and pisses on the floor at one point. Rip is an Abusive Parent who beats his wife, calls B.J. weak for being a decent and caring person, abuses the family dog, and then outright shoots it when he catches B.J. fraternizing with a black girl. As if this weren't enough, when B.J. comes back later as an adult he finds that Rip sold out his wife and the whole neighborhood to the Nazis just to save his own worthless hide. As such, no tears were shed when B.J. chopped that asshole's arm out and stabbed him in the chest.
  • The Wonderful 101: The main villains are GEATHJERK, an organization of alien invaders who want to wipe out humanity. Yet because of their over-the-top hammy nature and boss fights, most players find them too cool and/or funny to hate. Most of the scorn is instead directed towards Luka, a kid who badmouths the title hero group for failing to save his mom and resorts to helping GEATHJERK's invasion by using his inside information to weaken Earth's defenses. Luka is meant to be more sympathetic than any of the GEATHJERK Officers and even has a Heel–Face Turn at the end, but his general personality and the reaction to his story's writing made him polarizing at best, while the main villains are usually loved.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Since there are so many of them, the morality of the Moebius tends to differ from character to character, with some being meant to be as vile and irredeemable as possible (i.e Moebius D), and others who actually aren't all that bad to begin with (i.e Moebius T). However, there are also some like Moebius S, where it’s a bit more complicated. Although S is supposed to be the villain, it's easy to sympathize with her once one learns her backstory. Moebius S, whose real name is Shania, had a mother who was horribly abusive to her. She forced Shania to become someone that she wasn't, and harshly scolded her when she inevitably didn't match up to her expectations. This would do a number on Shania's self-esteem, until she was eventually encouraged to become Moebius. The fact that Shania's mother is the sole reason why her daughter became Moebius to begin with makes her infinitely more hatable than her daughter.

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