The best bad guys in video games leave a lasting impression on players and take the games in which they appear to new levels.

A well-thought-out bad guy can help a good game become a great one. The best video game villains, on the other hand, can make games really great and leave an impression on everyone who plays them. These bad guys make franchises what they are, and they are some of the most well-known characters in the entertainment industry as a whole.

Since story-driven games are getting more and more popular, many people now think that a game is only as good as its characters. This may be why so much time and effort is put into making the perfect bad guy these days. Developers don’t always have what it takes to make a truly iconic villain, which makes the best video game bad guys even more impressive.

Team Rocket (Pokemon)

There have been a lot of great bad guys in the Pokemon games over the years, but few can compare to Team Rocket. Players didn’t pay much attention to these generic grunts at first, but since the Pokemon anime and the release of Pokemon Yellow in 1998, it’s impossible to play a Gen 1 Pokemon game without thinking of Jessie, James, and Meowth’s silly antics.

Team Rocket would also become the model for all other bad teams that came after them. Even though the anime and movies add to the team’s backstory, these famous video game bad guys would probably be pretty boring without them. However, thanks to how well the different Pokemon media work together, they are anything but.

General Shepherd (Call of Duty)

Many people only play Call of Duty games for their great multiplayer modes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have good single-player campaigns every now and then. The Modern Warfare games are a great example of this. From beginning to end, they are full of shocking and memorable moments.

Other than the famous “No Russian” mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, General Shepherd’s betrayal was one of the series’ most surprising turns. After working with players for most of the game, he eventually shows his true colors, which causes Roach and Ghost to die.

Albert Wesker (Resident Evil)

Albert Wesker is one of the most stylish bad guys in video games. This bad guy in Resident Evil just oozes style and steals almost every scene he’s in. But he’s got a lot more going on than just sharp clothes and those famous shades. Wesker is a classic bad guy. You don’t see many like him in video games these days.

Wesker does a great job of carrying the weight of being a bad guy. Even when he’s trying to be nice, he still feels very dangerous. He is also very strong, and, like a scary Terminator, he keeps coming back, at least until his death in Resident Evil 5, which everyone will remember.

Ridley (Metroid)

Most of the time, the best bad guys in video games are defined as much by how they act as by what they say or do. This is not the case with Ridley from Metroid, though. The scary Space Pirate can’t talk in a language that players or Samus can understand, but he still makes a big impression on both of them.

Ridley always seems to show up at the worst times, and when he does, he causes Samus a lot of trouble. Without either of them ever saying a word, players can feel how much they hate each other. This shows that a villain’s actions can sometimes be enough to show how good he or she is.

Vaas (Far Cry)

As a series, the Far Cry games have some of the best bad guys in all of gaming, but one of them stands out from the rest. Michael Mando from Better Call Saul plays Vaas Montenegro. He is a very complicated and charismatic bad guy who is also very interesting.

His interactions with Jason Brody in Far Cry 3 are perfectly written, and the main character changes a lot as a result of what Vaas does. Pagan Min and Faith Seed are also important, but neither of them is as important as the crazy pirate leader.

GLaDOS (Portal)

A great video game villain doesn’t have to be crazy, but it helps. It’s especially interesting to see this trait in an AI, like GLaDOS, who seems to enjoy teasing and bothering Chell throughout the two Portal games.

The fact that players can only hear GLaDOS for most of the games is what makes her such a great villain. This brings more attention to her dialogue, which is just the right mix of witty humor and sadness and works even better because she says it in a cold, emotionless voice.

Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)

There are a lot of great bad guys in the Final Fantasy series. Some people might say that Kefka is the best of the bunch. This might be true if you only look at each villain’s game, but if you look at how they’ve affected the gaming industry as a whole, there can only be one winner: Sephiroth.

The one-winged angel is one of the most well-known and scary bad guys in video games. He is used in a unique and unusual way throughout the events of Final Fantasy 7, which makes him a more interesting villain. His relationship with Cloud, which is based on Japanese mythology, is like the cherry on top.

Dr. Robotnik (Sonic)

Dr. Robotnik, or Eggman as he has become known in recent years, isn’t all that scary. Even though he has a great mustache, he’s not scary at all in terms of how he looks. That doesn’t mean, though, that he isn’t still very dangerous, even if he does it in an unusual way.

Robotnik’s brain is his best asset, just like Dr. Wily’s is in the 8 Ball Pool games. It lets him come up with all kinds of crazy ideas and has even let him make copies of Sonic, the person he hates the most. Even though none of Eggman’s evil plans have gone exactly as he planned, he is still one of the best and most memorable bad guys in all of gaming.

Ganon (The Legend of Zelda)

Every so often, a Zelda game will focus on a different bad guy, but the series always seems to go back to Ganon after a short while. The Demon Lord was first seen in the first Legend of Zelda game for the NES. Since then, he has been in a lot of other games as well.

Like Thanos in the Avengers movies, Demise’s curse makes it so that Ganon and Ganondorf, Ganon’s human form, are kind of a given, but each story in which they appear still feels unique. Ganon’s connection to Link and Zelda through the Triforce is interesting, but it might be his many scary forms that really make him stand out.

Bowser (Mario)

If you made a list of all the things that make a great bad guy, Bowser probably wouldn’t be on it very often. He’s not very scary, he’s very predictable, and he hasn’t changed much since he first came out in 1985. Even so, Bowser is still a force to be taken seriously.

The Koopa King is one of the most famous and long-lasting bad guys in video games. He is also one of the first great examples of a video game villain, which has made him a huge hit. Bowser is the best video game villain of all time because, like his archenemy Mario, he is known all over the world. This, along with his persistence and dedication, makes him the best villain of all time.