10 Horror Games Where You Play the Bad Guy

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Horror Games Where You're the Villain Lucius The Darkness The Suffering Silent Hill 2 Remake James Sunderland

Published May 27, 2026, 4:30 PM EDT

Elena is a Contributing Writer at DualShockers specializing in horror games, survival horror, open-world RPGs, fantasy, and historical fiction. She began covering games professionally in 2024, with her early gaming focus tied to Baldur’s Gate 3 before her interest in horror coverage grew through games like Silent Hill 2 Remake and Silent Hill f.

Before joining DualShockers, Elena worked as an award-winning journalist for local news stations and newspapers in central Indiana, including FOX59/CBS4Indy, and has also contributed to CBR. She holds a B.A. in Journalism and Telecommunications, has a Career Specialist Permit to teach Journalism, and won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Best Column Award in 2019. Outside of games writing, Elena is also a high school teacher, where she teaches job readiness, financial literacy, and college preparation.

Just because you're playing a protagonist in a video game doesn't always mean that you're playing the hero or even just a good guy — sometimes, you're a protagonist on technicality alone, because they're anything but good. In fact, they're outright villains. This is especially common in the horror sphere, where psychological horror commenting on human sin is growing more popular than ever.

And in these games, your sins are at the forefront.

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Everyone has done terrible things before; it's actually relatively natural to be selfish, but the things that these "protagonists" have done or will do throughout the game are just evil for sport. Simply put, in these games, you play as a monster — either metaphorically or literally.

Obviously, this article is going to be riddled with spoilers for the games mentioned. Be warned that some of the things these characters do are outright heinous.

10 BioShock

Manipulation at its Finest

BioShock modern games revolutionized genre

BioShock is one of those games that's more horror-adjacent than being pure horror outright — a lot of the terror comes from atmosphere and implication, and the truth that you uncover at the end. Every single order you followed benefited the very enemy, and none of your actions were truly under your own control. In fact, you were nothing more than a means to an end.

In BioShock, you play as Jack trying to navigate the decrepit, underwater city of Rapture, trying to help someone named Atlas, only to find out that Atlas is lying to you, controlling you with a simple trigger phrase: "Would you kindly?"

This isn't even mentioning what would happen if you harvested any of the Little Sisters for their ADAM — the entire outcome of the game hinges on whether you choose to act on that or not. If you did, even just once, even if it was just out of curiosity, you're on the path of betrayal, no matter what.

Despite BioShock becoming a massive franchise, nothing has topped this first game, and the plot twist of your fleeting journey plays a major role in that.

9 The Darkness

Hungry Hungry Hellspawn

There has been a long-running debate about whether human behaviour comes from nature or nurture, and in the case of Jackie Estacado, evil just so happens to run in his very blood. Jackie is our protagonist in The Darkness, an FPS horror genre hybrid that decides to try something new by adding literal demons off your shoulders that will fight alongside you while you're running and gunning.

With this evil as your ally, you dismantle the very crime ring that you were a part of — not out of the goodness of your heart, but to feed human hearts to your demons. The entire game is a murderous rampage from start to finish, with a healthy amount of revenge adding fuel to the fire. And yet, a part of you can't help but feel for Jackie, even as he's ripping people limb from limb.

While yes, you are ripping apart criminals and overall bad people, you kill them in such a brutal and grotesque way that you have to fight the urge to wince. It's not fun for anyone, except you, playing the whole thing.

If you struggled to get through the game because of the gameplay itself (which can be clunky at the best of times), know that The Darkness II plays better, and it follows the same Jackie in a pure sequel.

8 Carrion

No Hiding You're the Monster

Carrion is perhaps one of the least assuming when it comes to playing as a monster, because you genuinely play a large, tentacled monster that acts without any rhyme or reason other than to escape from your containment. But don't let the cute pixel graphics or lack of a humanoid form fool you; you're chaos incarnate on your way out.

Carrion is also a Metroidvania, meaning you have to deal with some challenging platforming that doesn't want to go easy on you, while solving puzzles that will stump you for a hot minute. And yet, you're having a great time, shredding people to ribbons.

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Even as you rampage through the facility you're escaping from and slaughtering scientists in your path, it's implied that your destruction won't end there. Come the end of the game, The Creature (the monster you play) eventually does take on a humanoid form of one of the scientists, walking out into the world with a craving for more blood.

It's short enough not to overstay its welcome, but leaves you wanting more, which is the perfect length for an indie horror gem like this one.

7 The Last of Us: Part 2

Hatred vs Humanity

The Last of Us has always focused on humanity as a narrative, whether it be for better or for worse; the first game was all about love and hope, while The Last of Us Part II takes a stark turn to being entirely about hate and revenge. Yet, we see the consequences of that hatred and how it leads to a cycle of violence that continues to beget violence.

While Part II is told through multiple things happening at the same time, you play as two different protagonists: the controversial Abby, who had killed Joel (our beloved protagonist from the first game), but also as Ellie, who becomes a villain blinded by her own hatred after Joel's death, going so far as to throw away everything she loves if it means killing Abby. Both of them do horrific things on their revenge quests, but it clearly weighs on them both.

One scene that comes to mind is Ellie after she realises one of Abby's friends that she killed, Mel, was pregnant. Ellie didn't hesitate to stab Mel in the neck, but as soon as Owen's dying gasp of "pregnant" escaped his lips, you could physically feel the dizzying nausea that fully engulfed Ellie. She's disgusted and horrified with herself, but after fleeing with Tommy, she eventually goes back on her hate-fueled rampage, as if it didn't result in a catastrophic loss of life.

It's horror in your own brutality, but the brutality continues anyway.

6 Manhunt

Evil for the Sake of it

Rockstar is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to you playing as a bad guy.

There's playing the bad guy, and then there's playing a completely evil monster — in Manhunt, you play a blend of both. While James Earl Cash's actions in the game (taking part in snuff films) are forced, you started off as a death row inmate ... and you have to be convicted of some pretty awful stuff (murder is the most common).

Even then, the snuff content is hard to digest, especially with the kind of people you're killing. It's structured in a way to make you revel and enjoy each life you take, and that's enough to leave anyone with a moral compass at least a bit shaken.

Admittedly, the controversy surrounding this game was equal parts warranted but far too overdone, since the atrocities that you commit in the game hardly hold a candle to the brutality that's depicted in modern titles.

5 Lucius

Unintentionally Hilarious

Lucius has you playing as the son of Satan, which means you need to wreak as much havoc and carnage (and death) as possible. Your father, the devil, comes to you and sets you on a path to kill the entirety of your family, each in awful and distinct ways. You're quite literally the worst child ever.

Yet, it's also incredibly hilarious, very much in a "so bad it's good" way. I'm not sure if it's the absurdity of some of these deaths and how they're executed or the ragdoll physics, but this game gets me to giggle more than actually be scared.

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Yet, it's still got such a unique charm about it, as if The Omen crossed with Home Alone in a janky Cult Classic. Don't get me wrong, Lucius is a brat at the best of times, and he does genuinely succeed in killing as many people as he can, not just his family, but the hilarity overrides it all in the best way.

It's a game you'll genuinely love if you don't go in taking it seriously, so just enjoy being the worst kindergartner in all of gaming.

4 Dead by Daylight

So Many Killers!

In Dead by Daylight, not only can you play as a monster, but you have a plethora of Killers to choose from that each provide a unique experience in taking out the Survivors. You have all manner of horror IPs to choose from, such as Resident Evil and Halloween, but there are also monsters from more horror-adjacent media, such as Stranger Things.

The goal of the multiplayer game is simple: either kill or survive. Admittedly, it's far more fun to play as a Killer than a Survivor, especially with the various Killer Perks (that are unique to whoever you have selected) that can assist your gameplay and make things more fun. The name of the game is living out those campy 80s horror films, so you might as well go all out with it.

And now that Jason is finally coming as a Killer, players have all the reason to dive in and pretend they're in a slasher film.

3 The Suffering

How Did You Get Imprisoned?

The Suffering is a bit more unique in what kind of horror it presents: being a commentary on the prison system, with the (super sick) monsters being designed around various execution styles to help reinforce this. You play as Torque, who is locked in Abbott State Penitentiary for murdering his wife and son; however, the reality of that fact is actually determined by how you played the game.

If you played as a cold-blooded murderer, killing everything and everyone in sight, not only would it be a much shorter game, but it would cement the fact that he did, in fact, kill his wife and son. However, if you played peacefully with the human NPCs, that would actually change to where he was falsely imprisoned — funny enough, there's even a third outcome for if you were lukewarm, where his wife and son accidentally died by bizarre circumstances.

So, whether or not you were a monster is actually completely dependent on you.

This is a more obscure horror game that I genuinely hope gets a remake or a remaster, because it's actually pretty good, not to mention its commentary is still prevalent today.

2 Mouthwashing

Everything Feels Dirty

There's evil, and then there's outright depravity ... and that's exactly what we learn about our protagonist of Mouthwashing, Jimmy. We start the game off in a bad situation — our spaceship, the Pony Express, had crashed into an asteroid and now Jimmy and the rest of the small crew have to survive floating aimlessly through space, running on fumes. Come to find out, Jimmy had purposefully tried to crash the ship in a murder-suicide.

The reason for it is even more horrendous: he had sexually assaulted another crewmate, a woman named Anya, and he didn't want to face the consequences of his actions when the crime would eventually leak. Even worse, she becomes pregnant from this assault and is driven to suicide as a result.

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Jimmy doesn't stop there, opting to kill every single one of his other crewmates, and in a state of delirium, he gathers their corpses all together for a birthday party. Not once does he show an ounce of remorse for his actions; in fact, he continues to try to justify them to himself, and he ends up successfully killing himself to run from facing the consequences once again.

Admittedly, of every bad protagonist here, Jimmy is by far the worst and most unforgivable — especially as every single one of his actions is self-indulgent and self-serving, and you honestly can't get more evil than that at its core. You'll feel so genuinely disgusted with him by the time you're done with the game that you'll never want to play it again, and that's okay.

1 Silent Hill 2

A Classic Psychological Twist

Silent Hill 2 Remake Bubble Head Nurse and James

When it comes to horror games where you play as the real monster, almost every single horror game fan will immediately think of Silent Hill 2 (and the incredibly faithful Silent Hill 2 Remake) and James Sunderland. He was called to the town of Silent Hill for a single reason: to literally drown in his guilt, to suffer in the torment that he deserves for killing his sick wife, Mary.

It sounds so cut-and-dry, and in a way it is, but playing through the game, you'll see the full extent of James's love for Mary, including the full extent of his guilt and despair throughout her sickness and eventual murder by his own hand. Every single aspect is reminding James of his sins, from the monster designs to the various sounds that can play (one of the most prominent is a muffled breathing, reminiscent of pillow suffocation, which is how Mary was murdered), and each ending will determine how he handles this immense guilt.

The story is told in such a heart-wrenching and poignant way that while you're playing as a literal murderer, you just end up feeling awful for James by the end of it. You don't see a cold-blooded killer with James, but rather a man who traumatised and broke himself with what he had done, who won't stop punishing himself for it — and all the other characters you meet are just as nuanced and complicated. Sometimes, for similar reasons to why James is there.

The whole game pushes away what's black and white, and forces players to confront the grey area... and this grey area just so happens to look like fog.