The protagonist of a videogame isn’t supposed to die. They’re supposed to fight their way through the enemies and emerge unscathed into a brilliant white light. Yeah, right. These eight characters don’t do that. They’re some of the most abused you’ll find in a videogame.
Think we missed one? Tell us what it is in the comments!
Kratos – God of War series
The brooding, angry warrior became the “Ghost of Sparta” after he was tricked into killing his family, and that’s just the beginning of his torment. In an attempt to have his vengeance, he’s confronted gods, been tossed into Hell multiple times, and been stripped of his powers on several occasions. Despite all of that, he somehow fights his way out Unfortunately, it usually ends in wholesale destruction, and Kratos killing a friend in his own blind rage.
Isaac Clarke – Dead Space series
The protagonist of the Dead Space series is just a ship systems engineer. He’s not a hero. He’s just a guy looking to do a job, and get to see his girlfriend along the way. He ends up embroiled in a fight for his life against reanimated corpses and creepy monsters using mostly improvised weapons. Along the way, his sanity begins to slip, and hallucinations begin to lead him astray. He’s fighting not only the enemies, but his own hostile subconscious.
The pedestrians in GTA and Saints Row
Liberty City, Los Santos, and Steelport. Although there are more cities we could mention, these three should be enough to realize just how dangerous it is to be a pedestrian in any of them. It’s bad enough that there are gangs, shootings, and other dangerous things going on around the city. How much worse is it when you stand a better-than-average chance of being run over by a guy running from the police, or worse, the police who are chasing him?The sidewalks aren’t safe, and it’s hard to believe that people keep walking on them.
Lara Croft – Tomb Raider series
Lara Croft is one of the most recognizable figures in all of gaming. But if you haven’t played many of the games she stars in, you might not know just how much punishment Lara takes. Although the most recent game is filled with gruesome ways for Lara to die, in prior games she’s been beaten, kidnapped, and even eaten by a T-Rex. She might be a badass, but she’s taken a lot of punishment in her travels as well.
Nathan Drake – Uncharted series
Uncharted’s hero is always getting beat up. Drake starts out the second game bleeding profusely, he nearly gets himself killed in the desert in the third game, and he spends much of all the games getting the crap kicked out of him. He’s bean punched, kicked, shot, and otherwise assaulted around the world throughout his adventures. It’s no wonder he’s a little bit of a smartass at this point.
Solid Snake – Metal Gear Solid series
Solid Snake is an unquestioned badass. That said, he’s also taken tons of punishment over his career. He’s been tortured by Ocelot, shot, beaten, bruised, and battered. Not only that, he’s the product of the Les Enfants Terribles project, meaning he was cloned from Big Boss. As a result, he’s aging rapidly, and could have become a walking biological weapon. That was averted, but it’s still been a rough way to go.
Max Payne – Max Payne series
Max is a walking monument to bad luck. He was a NYPD cop and DEA agent until his wife and daughter were murdered. Max becomes a vigilante, and proceeds to get beaten up, shot, drugged, and otherwise abused for two games, at which point he’s kicked off the force. Next time we see him, he’s a painkiller-addicted alcoholic who’s making a poor go as a private security contractor because he and his charges keep getting shot up. His life is a shambles, he’s in constant pain, and he couldn’t even get the top spot in this gallery because of….
Your Dark Souls character – The Souls series
No matter how much abuse you watch a character take in another game, it pales in comparison to the abuse you’ve put your Dark Souls character through. Over the course of three games (four if you count Bloodborne), you’ve likely piled up hundreds of deaths from all manner of sources. You’ll die in combat. You’ll die because you hit the wrong button and plunged to your death. You’ll be beaten, stabbed, slashed, stomped, and even burned to death. You’ll die so much that it will cease to be a deterrent, and will instead become commonplace. And then you’ll die again.
