The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
There have been loads of great protagonists in video games over the years, from the exuberant Mario to the wise-cracking Dante, but there have also been plenty of… not so great video game protagonists. For decades, we’ve seen games practically ruined because the main character was either incapable of shutting up or incapable of not dying, and some of them have stuck with us as much as our favorite protagonists have. The worst video game protagonists have come in all shapes and sizes, but share one thing: our desire to never have to play as them in another game as long as we live.
For this list, we opted to stay away from silent first-person game protagonists, as their lack of direct characterization very rarely gets in the way of enjoying the rest of the game. Most of the characters on this list are very loud, and we almost never want to hear what they have to say, or scream, or sing. In fact, there are a few times we’d rather play as the antagonist, just so we could deliver the protagonist a swift, violent death. We can deal with the consequences of that.
