Image: Black Forest Games, THQ Nordic via HGG
My name is Gibson Vasela. I am a freelance writer who has been playing video games for almost 20 years now. I play all kinds of games, but I especially love immersive sims and RPGs.
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
Video games are meant to be an escape. They provide a way for players to engage in activities they would never do in real life. Part of the fun of a video game is having the freedom to do whatever it is you want to do! It’s no wonder that there are many games out there that let you do things that are… morally questionable.
In today’s article, we’ll be going over the top ten games where you can be evil! From indie games to triple-AAA RPGs, there’s no shortage of titles that let you live out your most malicious fantasies. We’ll be ranking each of them from the good ones to the very best!
Top 10 Games Where You Can Be Evil, Ranked From Good to Best
Without any more delays, let’s hop right into our main article for the top 10 games where you can be evil!
10/10
Carrion
First up on our list, we have an indie title named Carrion! Carrion is a Metroidvania game set in a secret, underground government lab. You play as a Lovecraftian monster being held captive and experimented on by humans. The game tasks you with breaking out of your confinement and escaping the facility, smashing and eating your way through hordes of humans on your path to freedom.
The game is very unique in the sense that it is a reverse-horror game. This is a genre of games that sadly isn’t as popular as it should be. In Carrion, you can rampage through the labs while human civilians scream and flee in terror. There’s something incredibly satisfying about grabbing a fleeing enemy and popping them into your mouth to regain health. The animations in the game really sell it!
As you continue your way through the underground facilities, you’ll unlock a host of new powers and abilities. You’ll be able to turn invisible to sneak past enemies, launch a hailstorm of sharp spikes at unsuspecting humans, and much more!
These powers are used not just to defeat enemies, but to solve puzzles as well. Carrion may be short — only 4.5 hours for my first playthrough — but damn, is it fun!
9/10
UNDERTALE
Up next on our list, we have the incredibly popular indie hit UNDERTALE! Made by game developer Toby Fox, UNDERTALE sees you playing as a young human who has fallen into an underground world full of monsters. The game is incredibly clever for how it subverts tropes commonly found in RPGs. One of the most clever and effective ways that it subverts tropes is in how the combat impacts the world.
UNDERTALE advertises itself as a game that lets you be a pacificist and spare any monsters that come across your path. This neat game mechanic doesn’t just give you a different way to play — it also affects the ending you unlock.
You can be a pacifist as the game expects most players to be, or you can ignore peace and kill monsters just like you would in any other RPG. Many players who knew little about the game chose to do just this on their first playthrough, unaware of the consequences…
If you kill all the monsters in your path, the game’s tone will suddenly shift from a light-hearted comedy to a dark horror experience. Towns and shops will be evacuated as word spreads that a crazy human is killing innocent people in mass groups.
As you continue, you can either abandon this dark path or continue your genocide of the underground. And all the while, the game throws many things at you to make you feel like a piece of trash for doing it, which really helps solidify those evil choices you make.
8/10
The Mass Effect Trilogy
For our next pick on this list of the top 10 games where you can be evil, we have Bioware’s classic RPG trilogy, Mass Effect! Mass Effect lets you fill the shoes of Commander Shepard, a human soldier in the distant year 2183. You can customize your Commander Shepard with a variety of different skills, abilities, backstories, and cosmetics. This allows for loads of replayability, as all good RPGs should have.
Once you are done spending hours in the character creator, you can move on to the actual game. It’s a third-person shooter that allows you to choose your own squad of characters to take with you along missions. During these missions, you’ll be engaging in dialog with many interesting characters, making loads of choices that will impact the ending for not just the current game, but for the entire trilogy.
And within these choices, you can do some pretty twisted things. The game is split into two main paths: Paragon and Renegade. Paragon is the “good” side, while Renegade is for those of us who want a more merciless, twisted playthrough.
Every evil choice you make leads to this meter filling up, which will give you unique skills and buffs. In addition to that, the evil choices you make will impact how NPCs treat you, and it will lead to a different playthrough than if you decided to be a goody-two-shoes.
7/10
Evil Genius
Taking spot number seven on our ranking, we have the game Evil Genuis! This is a real-time strategy game that many of you may have grown up with. The game sees you playing as an evil faction Hell bent on taking over the world by any means necessary. It’s a really fun game to play if you love games that are a mixture of the strategy and base-building genres.
Throughout the game, you’ll be able to complete a type of mission called “Acts of Infamy.” These are carried out for you by your minions, who will complete these missions to level up your reputation and bring back valuable loot.
As the game progresses even further, you’ll eventually be able to build a world-ending weapon that can be used to finally obtain global domination!
If you couldn’t tell already, the game is incredibly light-hearted and humorous. If you’re looking for a game where you can be evil in a gritty, merciless way, this isn’t your game. But if you want something to make you laugh while also giving you ideas for how to take over the world yourself, Evil Genius is your game!
6/10
Destroy All Humans
For our next game, we have the remaster of the classic game, Destroy All Humans! Originally released in the year 2005 and remastered in 2020, Destroy All Humans sees you playing as a sarcastic and undeniably evil alien known as Crypto.
He has been sent to Earth with the goal of saving his species from extinction. To do this, he needs to gather enough DNA from the local population of humans.
The game is set around a variety of locations in 1950s America. You’ll travel to different locations with a variety of different objects to complete for each mission. Sometimes you’ll need to gather up DNA, other times you’ll have to abduct a few humans, and other times you’ll be ordered to completely destroy large buildings with your flying saucer!
Speaking of which, the game is known for its destructible environments. This is the most interesting and compelling part about this game, and it’s the reason why so many people fell in love with the original all those years ago.
If you’ve ever wanted an alien simulation game that gives you plenty of tools to cause mass chaos, then I highly recommend the game Destroy All Humans!
5/10
The Fable Series
Halfway down our list of games, we have the classic RPG Fable! Fable is a role-playing game set in a high-fantasy world modeled after medieval England. The game gives players the freedom to build out their character however they see fit. You can level up your character’s stats, use a huge variety of spells in combat, and make moral choices that will make noticeable impacts on your character.
Your character’s physical appearance will change depending on your moral alignment. Like all great RPGs, there is a huge amount of things you can do, from questing to talking to NPCs to exploring the wide open world.
There isn’t as much depth as you might expect to form a role-playing game, but there is still enough complexity to make any RPG fan consider picking the game up for themselves.
Considering that Fable IV is on the horizon, there has never been a better time to pick up the game for yourself if you’ve never tried it. And considering the moral choices mentioned earlier, it’s a great game to play if you love being evil in a medieval, high fantasy setting!
4/10
Dishonored
For the next game on our ranking, we have one of my absolute favorite games of all time. Dishonored takes place in an industrial-era city known as Dunwall. The Empress has been assassinated, and her loyal protector, Corvo Attano (that’s you), has been falsely framed for her murder! It’s your job to go after the people who framed you and restore your honor.
Dishonored is an immersive sim. This means that players are given a variety of different tools, methods, and pathways to completing objectives. There is a large amount of player freedom in how you want to approach challenges. You can go in guns blazing with your pistol out. You can be aggressively stealthy, jumping down from roofs to assassinate guards. Or you can be a pacifist, using supernatural powers to slip past enemies without them even knowing you were there.
Of course, if you’re reading a list about the top 10 games where you can be evil, chances are you don’t give a damn about being a pacifist. You can kill nearly everyone in Dishonored, and the city of Dunwall will become darker and grimmer to reflect that. Guards will be more common, the city will look and feel much more dystopian, and the ending will be much darker. Dishonored really makes you feel like your evil actions have consequences.
3/10
The inFAMOUS Series
Next up, we have the action-adventure titles of the inFAMOUS series! There are three inFAMOUS games in total, and they all take place in a world where supernatural powers exist. In the most recent title, you play as a man named Delsin Rowe. He is on the run from an organization dedicated to the capture and/or eradication of “conduits,” the term used for people who hold these supernatural powers.
My favorite part about inFAMOUS is how the game gives you the option to be good or evil. And depending on the actions that you take in the game, your powers and appearance will change accordingly. If you’re more evil, your color will shift to a darker tone, with orange and red instead of blue and white. Additionally, the powers you have access to also change depending on your actions.
Whenever I hear the term “chaotic evil,” I immediately think of this game. You can use your powers to pick up and throw cars, causing massive explosions! Use your abilities to go full GTA and rain havoc on the civilians you find in the city.
This is a great game to play if you love having a big open world to cause chaos in. You’ll never get bored tearing up city blocks with your supernatural abilities.
2/10
Fallout: New Vegas
Now onto another one of my favorite games — Obsidian’s hit open-world RPG, Fallot: New Vegas! Widely regarded as one of the best RPGs of all time, Fallout: New Vegas takes place in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. The city has been taken over by a mysterious man named Mr. House, who keeps order with his army of robots. All the while, two larger factions loom overhead, wanting to take Vegas for themselves.
What makes Fallout: New Vegas so great is the wide variety of choices you can make, good and bad. But there are different ways to be good, and — more importantly — different ways to be bad! You can join an army of slavers and help them take over Vegas, o be a Machiavellian dictator that uses a friendly AI to take the city for yourself. You can also be a genocidal sociopath, killing and destroying everyone and everything!
Nearly every NPC in the game can be killed. This allows you to do a “kill everything” run, where you murder everyone you can in the game. Thanks to the narrated ending slides, once you beat the game, you’ll be treated to a dark and grim narration of your carnage. Hearing someone talk about all of the now abandoned towns of the Mojave, full of corpses left by the player, is honestly spine-chilling.
1/10
The Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic Series
The last game on our ranking is the cult-classic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series! If you love Star Wars games or the science-fantasy genre in general, then you are going to really love this series of games. Taking place thousands of years before the events of The Phantom Menace, KOTOR is a hub-based RPG filled with tons of interesting characters to talk to, and fun quests to complete.
The combat is tactical, unlike most Star Wars games, which are much more action-oriented. You are given access to tools for both melee and range combat, giving you lots of options for how you want to build out your character.
But the most important choice you’ll be making in KOTOR isn’t what weapons you use, but how you use them. You can choose to embrace either the light or dark side of the force.
As you choose to do more and more evil actions, your connection to the dark side will grow. As a result of this, not only will your appearance change, but you’ll gain access to a variety of menacing force powers unique to the dark side! There is a very good feeling of progression in the game. As you make more and more choices, your powers will only grow, until you are the ultimate dark side user!
Join the High Ground
What did you think of our list for the top 10 games where you can be evil? Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more regular content! We offer regular features on all the best games, including more top 10 lists.
Happy gaming!
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