Summary
- Bad guys can enjoy running evil empires efficiently like a business in management sim games.
- These games let players indulge their inner tyrant with logistics and customization.
- From undead metropolis to demonic lairs, players can be creatively and ruthlessly villainous.
Villains don’t always need a tower to brood in or a monologue to explain their trauma. Sometimes, all they want is a spreadsheet and a control panel. There’s a special kind of joy that comes from running a nefarious operation like it’s a Fortune 500 company, where the bottom line isn’t profit, it’s domination. These games ditch the tired “save the world” trope and instead ask players what kind of cruel, twisted empire they’d like to build today, and how efficiently they’d like to run it.
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Whether it's brainwashing minions, harvesting the souls of the innocent, or casually repressing dissidents while calling it “policy,” these management sims let players indulge their inner tyrant with style and systems that would make even real-world despots take notes.
NecroCity
SimCity If It Were Run By Undead Bureaucrats
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: October 3, 2022
- Developer(s): PlayWay, Gameparic Sp. Z o.o., Shift Games
- Genre(s): Strategy, Simulation
At first glance, NecroCity looks deceptively cheerful, with its stylized visuals and cutesy undead minions. But peel back the aesthetic, and it’s basically a management sim where death is a renewable resource. Players take charge of an undead metropolis where skeletons handle construction, vampires handle politics, and necromancers run quality control. The undead don’t sleep or complain, which makes them ideal workers, provided the player keeps the mana flowing and the graveyards busy.
What’s interesting is how much of the gameplay is focused on logistics. Managing supply chains of bones, essence, and dark energy isn’t glamorous, but it’s weirdly satisfying. It’s a city builder that never tries to justify its darkness. There’s no moral ambiguity. Just cold, efficient necromancy scaled up to the size of a suburban nightmare.
Dungeon Keeper 2
Slap Your Employees Because Motivation Is Overrated
Dungeon Keeper 2
- Released
- June 30, 1999
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Animated Blood and Gore, Animated Violence
- Developer(s)
- Bullfrog Productions
- Genre(s)
- Real-Time Strategy
- Platform(s)
- PC
Long before being the bad guy in a strategy sim was trendy, Dungeon Keeper 2 was already doing it with more charm and sarcasm than should legally be allowed. Players take on the role of an unseen demonic overlord, digging out underground lairs, hoarding gold, and defending against annoyingly heroic invaders who just won’t mind their own business. Every room, trap, and monster is handcrafted to keep the dungeon running like a well-oiled murder machine.
The highlight, though, is how deeply it leans into its villainy. Players can physically slap their minions to make them work harder, and the game never punishes them for being cruel. Imp workers drag corpses to lairs, bile demons belch in hallways, and the narrator seems just a little too pleased every time something horrible happens. It’s one of those rare management games where the evil isn’t just a skin; it’s the entire skeleton.
Evil Genius 2: World Domination
The Best Workplaces Have Laser Sharks
Evil Genius 2: World Domination
- Released
- March 30, 2021
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Fantasy Violence, Mild Language
- Developer(s)
- Rebellion Developments
- Genre(s)
- Strategy, Simulation
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
No list about villainy in management sims is complete without Evil Genius 2. It’s unapologetically cartoonish, but underneath the humor lies a surprisingly deep management system. Players design and run their evil lair on a tropical island, building death traps, training henchmen, and executing global schemes that range from stealing national monuments to causing full-scale political chaos. It’s Austin Powers meets Tropico, but somehow even more unhinged.
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Everything here can be customized, from how agents are interrogated to how bodies are disposed of. Lairs need to be both aesthetically menacing and tactically effective. Rogues will try to infiltrate, heroes will attempt sabotage, and if players don’t properly train their minions or keep morale high, things go sideways fast. But when everything works, and an elite spy gets roasted by a laser disco trap while a doomsday device charges in the background, it’s genuinely hard not to smile.
War For The Overworld
What If Evil Had A Sense Of Style And Loved Micromanagement?
War for the Overworld
- Released
- April 2, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- nr
- Developer(s)
- Subterranean Games, Brightrock Games
- Genre(s)
- Real-Time Strategy
- Platform(s)
- PC
This spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper has no chill, and that’s the point. War for the Overworld resurrects the core appeal of running a morally bankrupt dungeon full of monsters who would rather brawl than budget. Players dig out lairs, stock them with unhinged creatures, and lure in hapless heroes only to destroy them for sport. It’s like building a haunted Airbnb where every guest gets murdered in their sleep.
However, beyond the throwbacks and nostalgia, what works is the simulation's level of detail. Every creature has preferences and moods. Ignoring a tantrum-prone minion can lead to sabotage or desertion. Rooms have specific functions, and the ecosystem of evil thrives only when everything clicks together. It rewards ruthless efficiency but also encourages sadistic creativity.
Lobotomy Corporation
HR Really Does Stand For “Horrific Risks”
Lobotomy Corporation | Monster Management Simulation
- Released
- April 9, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- e
- Genre(s)
- Management, Simulation, Psychological
- Platform(s)
- PC
Players who enjoy micromanaging and emotional trauma in equal measure usually end up falling down the Lobotomy Corporation rabbit hole. Styled like a corporate SCP Foundation gone horribly wrong, this game tasks players with extracting energy from nightmarish anomalies locked up in containment chambers, while also trying not to cause a cascading meltdown that ends in every employee being turned into soup. Each abnormality has its own cryptic behaviors, some of which seem specifically designed to bait players into losing valuable staff.
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But what makes it truly villainous isn’t just the management of monsters. It’s how the game treats employee death and insanity as acceptable losses in pursuit of quotas. When things go south, and they will, players aren’t asked to feel bad; they’re asked to improve margins. The longer it goes on, the more mechanical and detached the cruelty becomes, which feels intentional. The player’s slow transformation into a heartless administrator is part of the design, not an accident.
Rogue State Revolution
Diplomacy Is Also A Warlord’s Weapon
Rogue State Revolution
- Released
- March 18, 2021
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- t
- Genre(s)
- Strategy
- Platform(s)
- PC
In Rogue State Revolution, players step into the perfectly pressed shoes of the president of Basenji, a fictional country where corruption isn’t just tolerated, it’s expected. This is more of a political management sim than a typical base-builder, but make no mistake, players are absolutely the villain here. Whether it's bribing the press, suppressing protesters, or backstabbing allies to cling to power, everything about how this nation is run hinges on manipulation and fear.
The complexity lies in balancing optics with outcomes. Players can pass social reforms with one hand while secretly funding the secret police with the other. Ministers will betray them, factions will riot, and international powers will meddle constantly. Staying in power becomes an art of lying just enough, killing just enough, and smiling through it all like it’s just good leadership.
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