10 Best Metal Gear Villains

While Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima is rightfully known for his ability to craft complex, philosophically dense spy thrillers, he's also rather adept at creating memorable heroes. If these heroes didn't have a villain to stand against them, however, the whole affair would become dreadfully boring.

Metal Gear's roster of villains is absolutely overloaded with richly detailed, wonderfully dynamic enemies. It's been a staple of the franchise since its inception, as each new generation of Metal Gear introduced its own new cavalcade of theatrical villains to tangle with.

It's really their diversity that sells them, as no Metal Gear villain really feels like the other. Some are deeply flawed, somewhat ambiguous figures, while others are straight-up monsters. Much like the heroes of Metal Gear, the villains thrive on a combination of tragedy and outrageous flair.

10 Colonel Volgin

Kuwabara, Kuwabara

One part of a great villain is making sure they have a good first entrance. Colonel Volgin certainly ticks all those boxes in his debut scene from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, as he just oozes a sense of otherworldly nastiness.

A part of it is thanks to Kojima's straight-ahead writing style for MGS3, as well as the vocal performance. It's an altogether fantastic debut moment for a villain. Each Volgin appearance afterward just continues to escalate his malice and lack of empathy.

Volgin's unpredictable, yet oddly charming presence makes for some of MGS3's best moments. Like any great villain, you may find yourself both disgusted and fascinated by his dark, violent actions that are driven purely by unfiltered hatred and a desire to see things get so much worse.

9 Vamp

Part Villain, Part Diva

There's perhaps no villain in Metal Gear that represents Kojima's writing style more than Vamp. Debuting in 2001's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Vamp combines elements of horror, theatrical musings and an icy vocal performance.

He feels like such a classic Kojima archetype, a flashy mixture of gothic horror with science fiction weapons. His turn in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is especially outstanding, as he's one of that game's standout characters.

His ongoing rivalry with Raiden is also one of the franchise's most appealing conflicts. Vamp almost feels like he was transplanted from another world into Metal Gear, but done so in a way that feels oddly genuine in the way only this often surreal franchise can do.

8 Jim Houseman

Evil Grandpa

I don't think there's a more Metal Gear thing in the entire world than the explosive conclusion of your game being three aging soldiers yelling at each other over a phone. Jim Houseman is a fairly late addition to the original Metal Gear Solid, only appearing briefly in a last-minute Codec call to drop some info, then leaving completely unscathed before getting arrested and blamed for the Shadow Moses incident.

That being said, his influence on the rest of the series always felt a little understated to me. In a lot of ways, his character can be seen as planting early seeds for the introduction of the Patriots in MGS2. There are a lot of tiny hints towards the Patriots in MGS1, and whether they were intentional by Kojima or not, Houseman feels like the opening act of the secritive group's coming out party.

He also has some of the most incredible lines and dialogue for a villain in Metal Gear. The disdain he carries for both Snake and Liquid is so entertaining, and a potential remake of MGS1 could benefit from giving him a bit more presence to flesh out his darker side.

7 Psycho Mantis

The Most Powerful Practitioner of Telepathy in the World

Metal Gear villains are often born out of tragedy or circumstances brought upon them by more powerful people. A few purely evil Metal Gear villains certainly exist, but for the most part, the franchise focuses on fallen figures that stand in the way of the hero purely by fate.

Psycho Mantis is absolutely one of those. His haunting past as the last survivor of a village that he himself burned down, as the surrounding adults had disappointed and rejected him at every turn.

He is truly one of Metal Gear's most sympathetic antagonists, turning to violence as a reaction to the trauma in his environment. He's unique among the bosses in MGS1 in that he first wants to kill Snake, then thanks him for setting him free, yet ultimately reviles him.

6 Fortune

Today is Another Bad Day

The rogues' gallery of Metal Gear Solid 2 is a rather dramatic group. You've got a sadistically suave pseudo-vampire and an explosive-obsessed killer with a grudge, for starters, but none of them are as compelling as Fortune.

Secretly outfitted with an electromagnetic device that diverts bullets and explosives, Fortune is yet another in a long line of pawns that the Patriots move across their clandestine chessboard. Yet, in her final moments, betrayed by everyone she thought she knew, Fortune discovers her true potential and discovers she had the power all along.

It's a fantastic twist, turning Fortune into one of the game's most enjoyable characters. The entire ending sequence with her on top of Metal Gear RAY is incredible, and she more than earns her place as one of the franchise's most complex antagonists.

5 Sniper Wolf

No One Gets Between a Wolf and Her Prey

It's amazing just how much of an impact Sniper Wolf makes in Metal Gear Solid. She's in the game for probably less than twenty minutes total, but her actions ripple throughout the entire game.

She first appears as a faceless sniper scope, delivering a brutal shot to Meryl that leaves her wounded. This redirects Snake's entire journey, and I remember being absolutely enthralled by this whole section as a kid. The prospect of having a sniper battle in a 3D game world was so enticing.

Sniper Wolf isn't just a great Metal Gear villain. She's a contender for one of the best characters in the entire franchise, as her journey from ruthless sniper to a tragic mercenary just following orders is outstanding stuff. The scene where she tells Snake about her horrific past is one of the best scenes in the Metal Gear franchise.

4 Revolver Ocelot

He's Pretty Good

It's difficult to think of a more two-faced, slimy weasel in video games than Revolver Ocelot. This slippery double, sometimes triple, agent is an iconic part of the Metal Gear villain lineup.

If all he ever appeared in was MGS1, that would be enough, but it's the run that the character would go on from MGS2 all the way up until The Phantom Pain that has cemented his legacy. Though he was initially presented as an outright villain playing both sides against each other, games like Snake Eater and The Phantom Pain would add a ton of layers to him.

Specifically, I'll always call out Snake Eater's youthful iteration of Ocelot as it's him at the most fascinating time in his life. Seeing him go from the young, brash upstart into a man with a ton of influence on world events was one of the most entertaining villain journeys I've ever seen.

3 Big Boss

The Greatest Warrior of the 20th Century

For some villains, their evil nature is thrust upon them by circumstance or tragedy. For the villains that choose their path to the dark side, however, a common theme is them believing that their moral decay is justified. Some of the best villains of all time were consumed by a need to right the wrongs that they perceived as being done to them, no matter how far they had to go.

In the case of Big Boss, his descent into darkness made up a pretty decent chunk of Metal Gear games for multiple console generations. With good reason, as the downfall of a war hero into one of the most nefarious war criminals to ever exist in the game's fictional history.

Despite his noble intentions, watching Big Boss slowly morph from a proud soldier into an irredeemable monster formed some of my favorite games of all time. At points, it became hard to watch, which was certainly Kojima's intention.

2 Liquid Snake

Never Be Game Over

My most cherished memory of Metal Gear Solid 1 is playing through it for the first time with my brother. It was also the middle of winter, so we were huddled up in the cold in the same way the characters were, passing the controller back and forth. As a result, the character of Liquid Snake became someone we were both utterly fascinated by.

I came to love his outlandish personality and delightfully evil supervillain speeches, as this was a character driven by some pretty deep insecurities. Not content with being a super soldier, Liquid's petty jealousy of his twin brother Solid Snake made him feel oddly real in a world of bipedal nuclear tanks and psychics.

Though he would take a backseat in later games, Liquid is one of the franchise's most enjoyable villains. I'm not sure whether it's the snappy clothes, the accent or all of the above, but whatever it is, it's working for him.

1 The Boss

Loyalty to the End

If you were following Metal Gear back in the day, you may remember that the lead-up to 2003's Snake Eater was pretty insane. The E3 trailer leaked online, and though it was made clear that this was going to be a prequel, I don't think anyone expected what Kojima was cooking up.

With The Boss, I truly believe that Kojima created a villain that could stand up against any antagonist in any medium. She's one of the most heartbreakingly sad villains that I've ever encountered anywhere, and part of that is thanks to Lori Alan's impeccable performance. Sometimes I forget that it's Pearl from SpongeBob voicing her, which honestly makes it even better.

The best kind of villain is one that feels completely justified in doing something abhorrent in order to be the hero of their own story. Her fall from grace, from wise, trusted mentor to a diabolical schemer, is legendary.