Predictable Villainy

By: Brad Hilderbrand, Contributing Writer
Sunday, January 24th, 2010

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They say there are no new ideas, and sometimes that's hard to argue. In pretty much every medium of entertainment we see an endless parade of the same old storylines, heroes and villains, and that problem is doubly true in gaming. Here are just a couple of examples of some of the played-out bad guys we see in almost every game, why they seem to be so popular, and some legitimate alternatives that might make games feel a bit fresher and more original.

The Invading Horde

Particularly common in first person shooters and basically any game focused on war, the invading horde is a massive army of someone or something unlike us and therefore evil. Be it human opponents (Nazis, Russians, mercenaries), aliens (the Covenant, the Flood, Chimera), or something entirely different (the Locust, Darkspawn), the horde always seeks to kill, subjugate and rule over anyone in their path.

The invading horde takes one of our deepest fears and makes it a reality, the concept that some other group of people or creatures will openly attack us and threaten to take over our country or world. It is a safe bet that most Western gamers have never lived through the horror of their country being invaded or conquered, so this particular group of baddies represents a genuinely terrifying threat. Look at Modern Warfare 2. Didn't it feel strange to be fighting the Russian army in a Virginia suburb? The part of the game where an emergency alert tells people to evacuate a neighboring county probably caused every gamer living on the East coast a brief moment of real panic.

It is that sudden burst of fear which makes the invading horde model so effective and thus, so overused. The invasions are always a surprise; unlike historical conflicts which often simmer for years and then explode, thus giving both sides time to prepare, horde conflicts are always thrust upon us when we least expect them. We often don't even know the carnage is coming until it has already hit us full force, and in nearly every scenario, humanity is utterly decimated and nearly destroyed before we manage to put up a fight. Our salvation then comes just before we are totally overwhelmed, in the classic "It's always darkest before the dawn" approach to storytelling.

The problem with the invading horde model is that since it constantly follows the same storytelling path, it has become terribly predictable and almost totally non-thrilling. Let's imagine a scenario that shakes things up; say an alien fleet shows up in Earth's orbit and initially things are peaceful. Soon however, after several failed attempts at communication between humans and our otherworldly visitors, the aliens suddenly open fire and begin laying waste to entire cities and eliminating major chunks of the population. Seems like your standard "let's save the world" scenario but at one point in the game the player realizes that the extraterrestrials aren't trying to destroy humanity, but rather they're trying to save it. The aliens have a plan to provide humans with limitless natural resources and perpetual peace, but first the population and industrialization of the planet must be substantially reduced and carefully maintained at a certain level. Do you then assist the "villains" with their plan in an effort to make a better world for all, or do you instead continue trying to drive them away, protecting your preferred way of life, flawed though it may be? What happens when it turns out that the bad guys aren't so bad after all?

The Totalitarian Leader

Typically complimenting the invading horde is some sort of totalitarian badass, a character who uses cold logic and terrifying methods to get whatever he or she wants. This individual cares only about results, and has little interest in death tolls or collateral damage. These are the kind of people who will level an entire city just to kill one person or who will use kidnap and torture to get their way. Their turn-ons typically include death, destruction and nuclear annihilation, while their turn-offs are sunshine, rainbows and the smiles of innocent children.

These brutes are ripped straight out of history, mimicking real-life leaders like Genghis Khan and a certain Austrian man who had a big problem with Europe and a weakness for tiny moustaches. What makes these figures so useful to game designers is that they represent a pure evil, and thus there is no moral ambiguity in fighting them. The world can unite under a single banner when facing such malice, thus games which don't want to focus too much on story can simply say, "This man is bad, he kicks puppies, you should shoot him," and then move on to more important things like how to make a new type of rocket launcher. These are by far the easiest villains to create because they are absolute, and taking up arms against them is a noble thing which no one would question.

The problem with the totalitarian leader archetype is that because it's so easy to create and because it resonates so well, it's hard to convince developers to think outside the box. These sorts of overlords work well for games based in the past, as ancient and even medieval history has its fair share of ruthless dictators. These brutes often held their territories with the largest and fiercest of armies, and their solution to any problem was sheer brute force. The model begins to fall apart in games set in the near present or even the future because there are very few remaining "evil masterminds" thanks to globalization. In fact, most leaders who were dragged into recent wars were forced to fight through complex socioeconomic means, and the few true remaining dictators often lead tiny hermit kingdoms that really present little threat to the wider world. Thus, it's hard to see this model villain as a viable alternative moving forward.

Instead of a morally unambiguous baddie, what if players were forced to face off against a king who needed more resources for his starving people and the only way to get it was to invade a richer country? Would you still be able to gun him down without a second thought? Or what if the totalitarian leader was on your side, and the country you invaded was populated by peaceful folks who never wanted to fight in the first place? Could you still pull the trigger, knowing full well that refusing to follow orders would surely mean your own death should you be caught? In this case, a little bit of moral complexity would go a long way.

There are plenty more ideas that have been run into the ground, and I could go on for pages about the same old tripe we see time and time again. The fundamental issue is this, is it possible to create villains who exist as something more complex than a cackling lunatic who sits in his volcano lair just waiting for his doomsday device to be completed? We've come a long way with heroes and "antiheroes," giving protagonists much more nuance and substance than the days of chasing turtles and gorillas who stole our princesses. Now we have characters like Solid Snake and Sam Fischer, those who want to protect the world but who aren't afraid to use some fairly underhanded methods to do so. Can't we create this same depth in our antagonists? When are we going to see the game that makes us hesitate before finishing off the bad guy because we aren't sure why we're after him or if he's really the villain at all? Isn't it time we demanded more of our villains?