There is no doubt that video game characters, even protagonists, sometimes have their flaws. The titular characters in Rockstar Games' titles won’t be saving princesses or cute critters. Instead, these modern protagonists are complex, morally gray, and divide audiences with their choices.
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While players continue towait forGrand Theft Auto 6, they can look at Rockstar Games' other titles that feature criminals that are themselves, bad people, even if their enemies are worse. As such, there are plenty of terrible things that the “heroes” of Rockstar Games titles have done over the runtime of their adventures, from horrific crimes to simply being bad people.
6Human Trafficking (GTA 4)
Niko Bellic is viewed by many fans as being one of the more noble protagonists in theGrand Theft Autofranchise. However, there is no doubt that he is a horrible person despite his tragic past and the many bad things that have been done to him. For instance, his history resides in human trafficking, which is one of the more deplorable things to be engaged in out of any crime.
Add to that the fact that Niko was in the Yugoslav Wars before coming to Liberty City inGTA 4.
The Yugoslav Wars were terrible and the Serbians, the side Niko Bellic fought on, engaged in ethnic cleansing and deemed themselves heroes for it.The tortured past of Bellicthat is talked about often throughoutGTA4shows potential remorse for some of his actions, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that his crimes make someGTAcharacters look sane and reasonable by comparison.
5Ended Up On Death Row (Manhunt)
Manhuntis avery controversial gameabout a death row inmate who is coerced into committing murders on gang members for the CCTV footage of the murders to be used in snuff films. While the game focuses on James Earl Cash committing these murders against only bad people, it doesn’t seem likely that the uncertain background of Cash leading him to death row was very nice.
The team behind theGrand Theft Autogames unsurprisingly liked creating something with a particularly gritty tone. James Earl Cash was the perfect sort of protagonist for a game focusing on killing terrible people. While the path that led him to death row is unclear, it certainly pits him among the most evil and terrifying of a Rockstar protagonists.
4Insane Murder Sprees (GTA 5)
Of the three protagonists inGrand Theft Auto V, the player can choose any togo on crazy sprees of crime and murder with. However, there is one who will commit atrocious acts of violence and wanton destruction even in cutscenes, and that’s Trevor Phillips. The man who had an affair with the leader of a biker gang’s girlfriend and murdered the boyfriend when he complained, blamed the corpse for having made him murder it, and then killed the rest of the biker gang to boot.
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Trevor not only committed every crime in the book, and enjoyed it, but he is just generally very unpleasant to be around. From sexual harassment to actual torture, and then brutally murdering every one of his enemies alongside Franklin and Michael in the game’s canon ending,Grand Theft Auto 5went all out by including Trevor as an actual protagonist.
3War Crimes (LA Noire)
Cole Phelps is a complicated protagonist, he fits the bill of an old-school film noir police officer who’s seen too much to ever really smile very much. It turns out that his past comes from guilt which he still feels over things that occurred during World War II when he was in Okinawa. While Cole regrets some of these actions, others that he takes during the modern-day course ofLA Noireare also pretty reprehensible.
Cole was in charge of a unit during the Battle of Okinawa and made sure to follow all orders to the letter of the law. Unfortunately, this led him to make several brutal choices against the Japanese, including ordering a man, Ira Hogeboom, to use his flamethrower on a cave that turned out to be a hospital for the sick and wounded. This was by far the worst of the charges against Phelps, thoughby no means the only one.
2Family Murder (Manhunt 2)
To be fair, it isn’t exactly the fault of Daniel Lamb that he ends up committing such vicious and horrible crimes. He undergoes an experiment, voluntarily, which ends up having some terrible side effects. He was implanted with another personality during the experiment which slowly begins to take over his brain.
As such, Daniel has to uncover the secrets of his past throughoutManhunt 2while on the run after escaping an asylum. What he eventually uncovers is that the man he is on the run with, Leo, isn’t real and is the other personality inside his head. Leo, having previously taken over Daniel’s body, had already been on a murderous rampage before the events of the game, including killing police officers and Daniel’s wife.One of the best Rockstar Games,Manhunt 2went to places even Rockstar hasn’t dared revisit.
1Building A Criminal Empire (GTA: Vice City)
The idea of mostGrand Theft Autoprotagonists is to rise through the ranks of criminal organizations in the streets of their city. However, Tommy Vercetti is one of the most intriguing, and un-stylish, characters to do so. He is alsoby far the most successful, having completely taken over all criminal activity in Vice City in Scarface-like fashion by the time the credits roll.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice Citytold one of the simplest but best stories aGTAgame has managed. While building a criminal empire doesn’t seem as bad as some of the other crimes Rockstar Games protagonists have committed, there is no doubt the sheer number of people hurt along the way, and those that will be hurt after because of this criminal empire, make for a truly dastardly act in being the one to build it.
