Star Wars Games Where the Villains Were More Fascinating Than the Heroes

The Star Wars franchise is home to some of the most iconic villains in all of fictional media, from the intimidating evil cyborg space wizard Darth Vader to the iconic jetpack-equipped bounty hunter Boba Fett.

However, the Star Wars universe is home to several other iconic and enthralling villains that are primarily found in video games, with many of them often featuring far more intriguing backstories and deadly abilities than their live-action counterparts.

Here are 10 SW games that feature villains that are immensely more interesting to encounter and learn about than the titles' leading protagonists due to their complex history, motivations, and impact on the galaxy.

10 Star Wars Squadrons

The Drive of Titan Squadron

There are several SW games out there that allow people to embody Rebel and Imperial pilots around the time of the Galactic Civil War, but only one arguably makes the villains truly interesting, with that game being Star Wars Squadrons.

Most of Star Wars Squadrons has people playing as a new pilot added to the New Republic Vanguard Squadron as they set out to help defend and progress Project Starhawk, but many sections of the game have players embody an Imperial pilot of Vanguard's rival Titan Squadron.

With Squadrons being set primarily four years after the Battle of Endor, it's interesting to learn about the drive and motivations of each Titan Squadron member, with its leader Varko Grey being a staunch opponent to the Empire's treatment of pilots but being too loyal to his squad to defect, and Rella Sol attempting to rebuild the Imperial Senate to name a few examples.

9 Star Wars: Dark Forces

The Dark Trooper Project

Kyle Katarn is well-regarded today as being one of the best protagonists in all of SW gaming, but he didn't have much of a unique personality in his first outing in Star Wars: Dark Forces, with the game's main antagonists, the Dark Troopers, being far more fascinating than Katarn at the time.

New SW fans may recognize the Dark Troopers from The Mandalorian, but they were first created in Dark Forces with the game depicting the first three iterations of the Dark Troopers as initially lightsaber-resistant, sword-wielding droids, then heavily armored, blaster-wielding droids, and finally as a missile launcher-equipped exoskeleton for elite Imperial troops.

These Dark Troopers were prototypes spearheaded by Imperial General Rom Mohc and were deployed early on in the Galactic Civil War until Katarn was hired by the Rebel Alliance to investigate and destroy the Dark Trooper Project before the droids and exoskeletons went into galaxy-wide production to crush the rebellion.

8 Star Wars Outlaws

Sliro Barsha's Quest for Power

Among all the new gaming protagonists introduced in the Disney Star Wars era, Star Wars Outlaws' Kay Vess is one of the most dull, as she's simply a young arrogant, wannabe criminal during the Galactic Civil War, but Outlaws main antagonist Sliro Barsha is far more interesting.

When Barsha is first shown off in Outlaws, he appears to simply be an ambitious crime lord leading Zerek Besh and striving to usurp control over certain parts of the galaxy from Crimson Dawn, the Hutt Cartel, and the Pyke Syndicate at a time when all criminal organizations are in a weakened state following the Crimson Reign event.

However, it's eventually revealed that Barsha was not a true crime lord at but was actually an Imperial Security Bureau director using Zerek Besh as a front to infiltrate and take down other criminal organizations, including the Rebel Alliance.

7 Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

Count Dooku's First Dark Apprentice

The Jedi Knight turned Sith Lord, Count Dooku, has taken many apprentices both in the Legends and Disney continuities, with his most famous students being Qui-Gon Jinn and Asajj Ventress but the first apprentice he trained as a Sith Lord actually served as the main antagonist for the game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.

Set shortly after the Battle of Naboo, Bounty Hunter centers around Jango Fett as he's hired by Dooku to wipe out the Bando Gora crime syndicate and take out its leader, Komari Vosa, who was once a Jedi Padawan to Dooku before being prohibited from completing the Jedi Trials and later falling to the dark side.

Jango Fett is admittedly one of the best bounty hunters the galaxy has ever seen, but Vosa's past is far more intriguing than Fett's exploits in the game, with Vosa and the Bando Gora becoming a threat in the eyes of Darth Sidious, especially after they attempted to assassinate his master Darth Plagueis.

6 Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Marka Ragnos' Immortal Influence

Kyle Katarn became a truly great character in Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, but he took a step back in Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, with his new Jedi Padawan Jaden Korr stepping into the spotlight.

While the gameplay of Jedi Academy is fantastic, the writing for Korr's character is fairly bland and uninteresting, especially compared to Katarn's arc in previous games, with Academy's villains, the Disciples of Ragnos, being the most intriguing part of the game in terms of story and lore.

Led by Tavion Axmis, a former apprentice to Luke Skywalker's fallen Padawan Desann, the Disciples of Ragos aligned themselves with Imperial remnants with the goal of reviving the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith, Marka Ragnos, who died over 5,000 years prior on the Sith homeworld of Korriban but whose spirit remained active all these years later.

5 Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Jedi Corrupted By the Empire

The protagonist of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Starkiller, is already a highly intriguing character from the get-go, as he's not only the son of a Jedi but Darth Vader's secret apprentice and one of the founding members of the Legends continuity Rebel Alliance.

However, I'd argue that some of the antagonists Starkiller faces throughout the game are a bit more interesting, especially the many surviving Jedi Knights he's sent out to eliminate who have strayed from the traditional Jedi path in the years following Order 66.

For example, Jedi Master Rahm Kota survived Order 66 by rejecting Clones and instead allying himself with a militia that went on to execute brutal battles against the Empire, while Jedi Master Kazdan Paratus went crazy after running away from the Jedi Temple and resorted to building a replica temple on the trash world of Raxus Prime.

4 Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Dagan Gera and Bode Akuna's Fall

Order 66 survivor, Cal Kestis, is one of the best SW gaming protagonists created during the Disney era and, while he truly shines in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the villains of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor shine a bit more than Kestis in his second outing.

For instance, one of Survivor's most recurring villains is the fallen High Republic Jedi Knight Dagan Gera, who is incredibly fascinating by just simply being an over 200-year-old Jedi who fell to the dark side, wields a double-bladed yellow-turned-red lightsaber, and is one of the few Jedi to have bested a Gen'Dai in combat.

Similarly, Bode Akuna is far more interesting than Kestis in Survivor, as Akuna is initially depicted as being a simple gunslinger only to be revealed later as a fellow Jedi survivor who got married and had a child after Order 66 and later fell to the dark side and aligned himself with the ISB in order to protect his daughter.

3 Star Wars: The Old Republic

The Many Lives of Darth Vitiate

With Star Wars: The Old Republic being an MMO, the playable heroes of the Republic and the Empire were never going to have enthralling defined arcs like the game's NPCs, with The Old Republic's main villain, Darth Vitiate, featuring one of the most complex backstories in the entire franchise.

Long before Darth Vitiate, the Emperor of the Sith Empire, invaded the Galactic Republic as seen in SWTOR's first cinematic trailer, Vitiate began his life roughly 1,500 years before SWTOR as a Sith Pureblood called Tenebrae who, after the Great Hyperspace War, reestablished the Sith Empire on Dromund Kaas.

It was here that Vitiate would corrupt Revan and Malak into Sith Lords and lead them to attack the Republic as seen in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and while his original mortal form was eventually killed, his spirit went on to inhabit two other bodies, one which he used to form an entire new empire, the Eternal Empire, before his spirit was finally destroyed.

2 Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Prince Xizor's Criminal Rule

As mentioned before, SW games created countless original villains that were often a lot more fascinating than the playable hero and the first example of this can be found in Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire with the Falleen crime lord Prince Xizor.

The leader of the Black Sun criminal syndicate during the Galactic Civil War, Prince Xizor was a notable antagonist in Shadows as he was not only an alien who sided with the Empire but one who strived to usurp Darth Vader and become the Emperor's right hand by killing Luke Skywalker and helping build the second Death Star.

Prince Xizor was a far more intriguing character than Dash Rendar as the smuggler was more or less a cheap knockoff of Han Solo, while Xizor was his own original character who was intimidating, tactical, and iconic without even having to be a Force wielder.

1 Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

The Immense Power of the Sith Triumvirate

One Star Wars game that undoubtedly features villains that are immensely more fascinating than the playable heroes is Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, featuring Darth Traya, Darth Nihilus, and Darth Sion as the Sith Triumvirate.

These three characters are some of the most fearsome and intriguing villains in all of Star Wars, as Darth Traya helped train Revan and was a Force wielder who caused many people to question the nature of the Force overall, while Darth Nihilus was able to feed on the Force of entire worlds, and Darth Sion was near immortal.

The Sith Triumvirate were the breakout characters of KOTOR II, and while the canonical hero of KOTOR II, Meetra Surik, is an interesting character in her own right, she's not nearly as alluring or captivating as the Sith Lords she's destined to defeat.