10 Best Co-Op Games Where You’re the Anti-Hero

Most video games, especially those that feature co-op gameplay, typically have players inhabit positively heroic roles as they set off to save damsels in distress, civilians, and other allies from outwardly evil antagonists.

However, there are a good number of co-op titles out there that have players inhabit anti-hero roles through protagonists that aren't striving to achieve goals through good intentions or aren't even attempting to make places safer but are still going after villainous characters.

Here are 10 co-op games that allow people to play as fun anti-heroes striving to settle scores with foes, becoming rich, make a name for themselves, or simply being unwillingly forced to save the day.

10 LEGO DC Super-Villains

Forever Evil's Comical Adaptation

While most of Traveller's Tales' LEGO games allow people to play as villains and anti-heroes in Free Play and other secondary modes, they typically don't feature playable antagonists in their Story Modes, but this gameplay tradition was completely flipped in LEGO DC Super-Villains.

A loose adaptation of Geoff Johns and David Finch's fantastic DC Comics event Forever Evil, LEGO DC Super-Villains has players primarily embody a customizable super-powered person known only as the Rookie as they aid DC villains such as Lex Luthor and Joker in freeing the planet from the evil Crime Syndicate.

Much like Forever Evil, this game essentially makes most DC villains become temporary anti-heroes, even if it's just so that the world's original villains could control the planet themselves, with the player even able to choose to become a full-time villain or hero at the end of the game.

9 A Way Out

Criminals In More Ways Than One

Villains are oftentimes the heroes of their own story and oftentimes, people perceived as criminals commit terrible acts in the best interest of their loved ones, with both of these concepts being the background for the protagonists of Hazelight Studios' first co-op game A Way Out.

Here, players embody either Vincent Moretti or Leo Caruso as the two work together to escape prison and get revenge on the crime boss Harvey, for wronging both of them and hurting their families.

While Leo is a storied thief who steals to provide for his family, Vincent is eventually revealed to have never been a criminal at all but an undercover FBI agent who manipulated Leo to get to Harvey, with the game ending with both characters as morally gray protagonists of their own stories.

8 Army of Two

Soldiers Gone Rogue

During the seventh console generation, EA took many more risks in game publishing than it does today, resulting in the creation of many fan-favorite game franchises such as Dead Space, Titanfall, and the hit co-op third-person shooter Army of Two.

Army of Two follows the early careers of U.S. Army Rangers turned mercenaries Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios as they're dispatched to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, and other nations across the globe to eliminate terrorists and rescue hostages.

However, along the way, the duo learns that they were unwittingly taking part in a global conspiracy spearheaded by their contractor to work with terrorist organizations and make the U.S. military appear ineffective, leading to the privatization of military forces.

7 Portal 2

GLaDOS' Subservient Bots

The Portal series isn't especially known for featuring outwardly heroic or evil characters, with the player-character Chell not speaking a word in either game and the series main antagonist GLaDOS being rather comedic most of the time, but Portal 2 managed to still feature some great anti-heroes in the form of Atlas and P-body.

The leads of Portal 2's co-op campaign, Atlas and P-body are two robots built by GLaDOS to complete new test chambers and eventually tasked with recovering old data discs and gaining access to forgotten areas in the depths of Aperture Science.

What makes Atlas and P-body anti-heroes are their willingness to follow GLaDOS' every order as, while they are helpful assistants to the supercomputer, they inadvertently help GLaDOS kill thousands of human test subjects and make crow chicks orphans.

6 Call of Duty: Black Ops

Richtofen's Crazed Machinations

Only a few Call of Duty games feature co-op campaigns, but many COD titles do feature secondary co-op modes, usually relating to zombies, with one of the best to feature anti-hero protagonists being Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies.

Black Ops Zombies continues to primarily follow the Ultimis group of Edward Richtofen, Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo Masaki originally seen in Call of Duty: World at War as they teleport across time and space collecting powerful artifacts to stop the zombie threat.

On the final map Moon, however, it's eventually revealed that all of Ultimis' actions were part of the machinations of Richtofen to take control of the zombies and the Aether for his own ends and subsequently causing the Earth to be turned into a wasteland after three lunar rockers were shot at the planet.

5 Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

The Origins of Villains

The many Vault Hunter leads of the Borderlands series aren't the most heroic of characters in gaming, but of among every squad of Vault Hunters seen in each game, none are better described as anti-heroes than those playable in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

Set after Borderlands 1 but before Borderlands 2, The Pre-Sequel has players embody either the Gladiator Athena, the Lawbringer Nisha, the Enforcer Wilhelm, or Claptrap, with each playable character either being villainous characters from the first two games or being a simple NPC in Claptrap's case.

These characters begin their journey in The Pre-Sequel much like the other games' protagonists, with them seeking the Vault on Pandora's moon, Elpis, but their actions throughout the game lead most of them to go down dark paths and inevitably help Handsome Jack to become the main villain of Borderlands 2.

4 Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

Cleaning Up Umbrella's Mess

Most of Resident Evil's leads are actually fairly heroic, with characters like Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine striving to help whoever they can from monstrous threats, but one RE entry that's entirely full of playable anti-hero characters is Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

Set during the zombie outbreak of Raccoon City seen in Resident Evil 2 and 3, Operation Raccoon City has people play members of Umbrella's Security Service Delta Team as they're dispatched by HUNK to assist in retrieving the G-virus, eliminate survivors, and get rid of evidence tying Umbrella to the outbreak.

While Delta Team may sound like apathetic operatives, players do have a choice at the end of the campaign to either save Leon, Claire Redfield, and Sherry Birkin, making the team anti-heroes, or eliminate Leon and Claire and capture Sherry, making the team truly evil.

3 John Carpenter's Toxic Commando

Reluctant Mercenary Heroes

One of the most recent co-op games to feature anti-hero protagonists is the Left 4 Dead-like first-person shooter John Carptenter's Toxic Commando.

Here, players embody the mercenaries Walter Irons, Ruby Pelicano, Cato Arman, and Astrid Xu, who, after destroying the egg of a Sludge God, are reluctantly enlisted to help scientist Leon Dorsey defeat the God and its zombie horde in exchange for being cured of the sludge infection.

If it weren't for them destroying the Sludge God's egg and getting infected, the Toxic Commandos would have immediately left Dorsey to stop the zombie outbreak on his own, so they aren't exactly the most altruistic of gaming characters.

2 Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

The Arkhamverse's Most Unlikely Heroes

When people usually think of the term anti-hero, they probably first think of anti-heroes from the Marvel or DC universe such as Deadpool or Deathstroke, and one game that allows people to play as DC's most famous band of anti-heroes is Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Set five years after Batman: Arkham Knight, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has people play as Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang as they're dispatched to Metropolis by Amanda Waller to take out the alien Brainiac after he brainwashed the Justice League.

While Task Force X may be Metropolis' last hope, they still don't act like genuine heroes throughout the game, as they often disrespect each Justice League member after they're forced to kill them, such as Boomerang attempting to pee on the Flash after he was defeated.

1 Shadow the Hedgehog

Gaming's Most Famous Anti-Hero

Now, when people think of anti-heroes in terms of video games, one character will likely come to mind: the edgy black and red ultimate lifeform himself, Shadow the Hedgehog, who got his very own video game in 2005.

2005's Shadow the Hedgehog can be played through solo as the anthropomorphic anti-hero strives to repel an alien invasion and learn more about his past, but it can be played in local two-player co-op as well, with players being able to embody Sonic, Rouge, E-123 Omega, and more.

In some ways, 2005's Shadow the Hedgehog is the best follow-up to the Sonic Adventure series out there, but it's also unlike any other Sonic game as Shadow can use machine guns to dispatch foes, making it a fun, albeit somewhat dark, co-op journey in the Sonic franchise.