Throughout the millions of titles of games released from the late 70s till now there have been all-star characters, Link from Legend of Zelda and Mario from super Mario bros. But no good protagonist is without a good antagonist, someone to bring the best out in the hero.

By far one of the most interesting and story-driven villains would have to be William Afton of FNAF fame. Spanning 7 core games, an AR title, a VR title, a Triple-A spin-off, and a book series, this franchise has been 9 years in the making and William Afton is nothing to bat an eye at.

He’s not bad for the sake of being bad, rather he’s a sick and twisted individual on a quest to revive his dead children through the means of fusing them with machines as well as on a quest to seek his own immortality. Learning more and more about immortality through the preserved agony of others called “remnant” he’s as sadistic as he is cold and calculating, always planning and thinking knowing exactly what he’s doing and always covering his tracks so he never faces repercussions for his crimes.

His story spans over 40 years in a timeline spanning from 1983 to 2023 starting with his first son losing his life in a prank gone wrong as well as his daughter losing her due to faulty machinery as well. Losing 2 of 3 of his children he then goes on a bender trying to revive them as well as trying to preserve himself but he soon faces repercussions for his crimes as he is trapped inside one of the suits he made while being haunted by the very spirits he created.

This suit has fused with him bringing him back from the dead as a living corpse encased in a suit. in a sick and twisted way he found his immortality and survives through sheer agony and willpower.

As creepy as he looks as his alter ego spring trap with the demented rabbit suit that is slowly rotting away showing more and more of the corpse inside the suit which is not only unsettling but is very uncanny as its something that is alive that shouldn’t be which is one of the major reasons there’s a huge campaign to get this character in Dead By Daylight, which is a multiplayer survival horror game.

Another reason for this villain’s menacing tone by far has to be the voice, PJ Heywood does an excellent job at providing a very calm yet unsettling voice on top of a great English accent.

overall this villain is a staple in the horror genre of gaming and is well known for how creepy he is as well as his backstory and voice talent. I can see this character going into the list with the likes of GLaDOS and Raul Menedez as one of the most well-known and fleshed-out villains in gaming history.

There are millions, possibly billions of video games, and they have villains. Some of their motivations are simple; world domination, getting a princess, riches, chaos, to be a martyr, or just because it’s simply within programming. But out of all of these, nobody has gone far enough to fight their own brother five times, take his son’s arm, and split himself into two people just for the sake of power.

This character is Vergil from the ‘Devil May Cry’ series and reoccurs as the main antagonist. His crusade is simply to gain power, no matter the cost. He is obsessed with gaining power, as his father was a devil known as ‘Sparta’ who had overthrown the demon king all by himself, therefore becoming the king. Both Vergil (and his twin brother Dante) are part demon and devil.

Though he seems to be simply power hungry, he is only blinded by trauma; his obsession started when he was young, when his family was attacked by a horde of devils, sent in to kill his father. Vergil was stranded outside, being forced to defend himself by fighting back with the Yamato, he thought his family had left him for dead. But, as revealed in Devil May Cry 5, his mother was murdered before reaching him.

This makes him feel more like a misunderstood villain as he was only doing this to get revenge on his family for something that never happened. But the way he got revenge was too far.

Several times, he had tried to kill Dante because he thought their mother favored Dante.  That is the whole reason for their sibling rivalry.

Vergil’s motivation for power, though, is much different. As said in the third installment; “Might controls everything, and without strength you cannot protect anything, let alone yourself.” – Vergil, DmC-3. This may also help infer that maybe he wanted to help his family, and maybe also had the belief that it was his fault that his mother died.

But, in Devil May Cry 4, we are introduced to Nero (Later revealed to be Vergil’s son), whose arm turns out to be part of his demon form, and in between 4 and 5, Vergil steals Nero’s arm, to get his sword back which turned out to be Nero’s arm. He does this to split his human and devil half into two different entities: V (a human) and Urizen (the devil half). He drained an entire city of life, taking each residents’ blood to grow a devil tree, growing an apple which would give him more power. This makes him the best villain, purifying his most powerful side just so he could become the demon king himself.

His human side began to fade, V was crumbling near the end of the game, most literally, becoming dust, referencing the little humanity in Vergil was fading. Dante ended up defeating Urizen, and V attempted to finish Urizen, but ended up returning and fusing into Vergil, who had become more powerful than ever, having the fruit still being a part of him from Urizen, and having retained the Yamato, he had grown the most powerful his regular form had ever been.

But, being defeated by Dante and Nero again, he had noticed the possible damage that the tree had caused and could further do, deciding to take Dante to fix the tear into hell created by Vergil.

Overall, Vergil’s complete story is just the constant gain of power, becoming powerful enough to defeat anyone who opposed him. His power was purified several times, able to cut time and space with his sword, and with incredible speed, he would destroy even the largest or strongest of enemies within seconds, minutes if needed.

This makes Vergil one of the best video game villains; being constant and motivated to gain power, stopping at nothing for a chance to gain, even if that means putting even his family behind him, just to become strong enough to overcome anything.