10 RPGs With the Best Evil Playthroughs

Role-playing games, by their very nature, allow people to play in almost any way they can imagine, such as merciless gunslingers who kill almost anyone they see, altruistic paladin knights, or even jetpack-wearing bounty hunters traveling across alien worlds.

While most RPG titles are still geared towards people playing generally good roles destined to save kingdoms or planets from certain doom, there are a few RPGs that freely allow people to complete entirely dark playthroughs or even have people embody powerful villains from the get-go.

Here are 10 RPG titles where players can choose to become the world's most chaotic villain or where players start as scheming evildoers bent on conquering lands and wiping out entire civilizations in several maniacal ways.

10 Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Bowser's Inner Demons

Mario is one of the most versatile characters in all of gaming, with the heroic plumber and his friends being at the center of multiple platform, party, racing, and sports titles on top of the numerous Super Mario Bros. games, but the Mushroom Kingdom and its wacky inhabitants have also appeared in several RPGs.

In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, the third entry of the Mario & Luigi series, the Mushroom Kingdom is plagued with an epidemic of the enlarging Blorbs disease unleashed by the dastardly Fawful, who tricks Bowser into inhaling and shrinking Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and others to take over both Peach and Bowser's castles.

Players are able to play as Mario and Luigi inside Bowser's body as they fight harmful amoeba and strive to find a way to return themselves to normal, but half of the game is actually played from Bowser's perspective in the overworld as he tries to get revenge on Fawful and, eventually, the Mario Bros.

9 Fable III

A Thankless Political Career

The Fable series is arguably the best Xbox exclusive RPG series out there, as each game allows players to do more and more in the world with each new entry, and while most Fable games do allow people to play good or evil runs, Fable III is one entry in the series that practically forces players to become villains.

Unlike the previous two Fable games, Fable III begins with the player as a young prince who strives to overthrow their older brother Logan, the newly crowned king of Albion, after he has seen killing seemingly innocent citizens and establishing an oppressive rule over the land.

However, once Logan is defeated, and the player is crowned the new king, it's revealed that Logan was attempting to prepare Albion to fight the entity known as the Darkness that threatened to wipe out the kingdom, with the new king being forced to go back on their word and tax the people, or to keep their promise but leave Albion improperly defended.

8 Undertale

A Merciless Child

At first glance, Undertale may seem like a fairly G-rated pixelated RPG similar to Pokémon or The Legend of Zelda, but as people play through the indie RPG and explore just how much the game lets players do, they'll quickly discover that Undertale can very well serve as the origin story for one of gaming's most violent kids.

If people strive to play through Undertale via its No Mercy parameters, they'll begin the game like most players do, as a simple kid who stumbles upon the monster-filled Underground realm, but things will take a violent turn immediately, as players can begin killing nearly every creature in sight.

This will cause most NPCs and antagonists in the Underground to become fearful of and avoid the player, and eventually lead to the player erasing the entire world, with only the sacrifice of their soul in the end being able to recreate the world.

7 Fallout: New Vegas

Caesar's Ruthless Conquest

The Fallout games can let people commit various acts throughout nuclear wastelands, from establishing defenses and farms for Commonwealth settlements to even ruthlessly blowing up the town of Megaton, but the one Fallout entry where players can be the most villainous is undoubtedly Fallout: New Vegas.

Here, players embody an amnesiac courier who sets out to get revenge on the man who robbed and left them for dead, but along the way, players can choose to side with and support various factions vying for control of the Mojave wasteland, with the cruelest faction being the Roman Empire-inspired Caesar's Legion.

If players choose to side with Caesar's Legion, the courier will become one of Caesar's most deadly lieutenants and aid the Legion in pushing back the New California Republic, conquering New Vegas, and enslaving or crucifying any poor settler that comes in their way, whilst ensuring that the dictator Caesar lives on for many more years.

6 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Revan's Ruinous Return

One of the best RPGs ever made that actually has people play as the villain right from the get-go, though this isn't revealed until about halfway through the game, is Star Wars: Knights of the Republic, which has people embody an amnesiac Darth Revan.

Before Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic begins, former Jedi turned Sith Lords Darth Revan and Darth Malak return to the Galactic Republic and begin a massive war known as the Jedi Civil War until Revan is betrayed by Malak, with Malak assuming control of Sith forces and Revan being retrained as a Jedi with his memories erased.

While Revan does canonically return to the light side by the end of KOTOR, people can play through KOTOR in a dark side run, resulting in the Jedi Knight Bastila Shan turning to the dark side, the pair defeating Malak and taking control of the Star Forge, and the galaxy being completely dominated by Revan's newly reclaimed Sith fleet.

5 Greedfall

Conquering a "New" World

In real-world history, the colonization of the American continents by Europeans was a catastrophic event that wiped out entire native civilizations via the spread of disease and conquest by European forces, with a similar event being seen in the 18th-century-styled RPG Greedfall.

Greedfall centers around the colonization of the island Teer Fradee by European-like nations, as the player-character, Legate De Sardet, is sent to negotiate with indigenous clans and other nations, search for a cure to the deadly Malichor plague, and maintain a dominant presence on the island.

While De Sardet can establish somewhat peaceful relations between the colonists and the natives, players can go a far darker route and join De Sardet's cousin, Governor Constantin d'Orsay, in becoming immortal demigod-like beings and establishing an oppressive, chaotic rule over the island, wiping out many clans and foreign nations alike.

4 Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

Conquering Alien Worlds

The Warhammer 40,000 franchise is arguably one of the most gray franchises in terms of tone, as while the Space Marines may seem like heroic warriors battling monstrous alien foes at first, the Imperium of Man is widely known to be a ruthless, imperialistic force that perceives any life that is not human as heretical in some form.

While there are many games set in the Warhammer universe, one RPG in particular allows players to set out and conquer numerous worlds while combating various Imperium splinter groups and aliens as a rogue trader beyond the borders of the Imperium in the Koronus Expanse, with that game being Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

No matter what players do in Rogue Trader, they're going to end up either being a merciless loyalist to the Imperium or being a heretical, Chaos-aligned rogue striving to carve their own stake in the universe, with most of the inhabitants of the Koronus Expanse suffering regardless of the player's overall choices.

3 V Rising

The Ultimate Vampire RPG

Vampires have been featured in numerous RPGs, often serving as a form of hostile enemies or NPCs that can convince players to turn into vampires themselves, but there aren't many RPGs that have people start as an ancient, bloodthirsty vampire from the get-go, with one such game being V Rising.

Players begin V Rising as a custom vampire reawakened from an 800-year-long absence who immediately sets out to reconquer the medieval steampunk land of Vardoran, slaying any humans and monsters in their wake using a wide assortment of ranged and melee weapons alongside vampiric abilities and spells.

V Rising is by no means a heroic tale, as beyond simply slaying the inhabitants of Vardoran, players can even farm and enslave humans for their blood in living castles.

2 Tyranny

Obsidian Entertainment's Most Underrated RPG

Obsidian Entertainment is famous for creating some of the greatest RPGs of all time, such as the aforementioned Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and Alpha Protocol, but one of their most underrated RPGs is also arguably their darkest released yet, with that game being Tyranny.

From Tyranny's start, the fantasy world of Terratus has already been conquered by Kyros the Overlord, a god-like wielder of arcane magic who established an oppressive, 400-year-old empire that has only recently had rebellions beginning to emerge.

Most RPGs would have people play as these revolutionaries, but Tyranny instead has people play as one of Kyros' Fatebinders, a powerful agent who's dispatched to quell or destroy any and all rebellions through destructive and manipulative means.

1 Overlord

A Villainous Destiny

Among all of the RPGs ever made, the one RPG that unequivocally has players embody a true villain from start to finish is Triumph Studios' Overlord, starring the titular, silent, weathered armor-wearing Overlord and his legion of goblin-like minions.

After being revived by the minions, the Overlord quickly begins reconquering a Lord of the Rings-like land, slaying seven corrupt heroes who defeated the minions' previous Overlord as well as numerous halflings, elves, dwarves, and a wide variety of monstrous creatures that get in their way.

Overlord may play like a more evil version of Pikmin than most traditional RPGs, with different colorful minions being able to complete tasks that other minions can't, but the Overlord's conquest of this medieval land still leaves it in utter ruin, with the titular warrior reigning supreme.