Video Game Protagonists With Very Dark Pasts

The main characters in video games are heroes to look up to. They live and die by their values, have traditional characteristics that make them likable and personable and possess a sense of morality that is reflected throughout their story. Conventional storytelling in video games relies on the stereotypical optimistic protagonist to drive the narrative, versus the villainous counterpart who is employed to introduce conflict into the story.

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However, occasionally, video game characters are written with a deeply tragic backstory that provides context to who they are now. In many ways, it makes them an even better protagonist to root for. Knowing that they had to go through a terrible tragedy makes them vulnerable and flawed in the eyes of the players, who then sympathize with and relate to their story. On the other hand, a sad backstory also helps explain immoral actions they may take during the course of the game.

7 Kratos (God of War)

Sad Things Come In Big Packages

Kratos already had an awful story to begin his journey with, back when the first trilogy was released on the PlayStation 2 and 3. To become the God of War that players know today, he had to endure the death of his brother Deimos in his childhood. Tragically, he then unknowingly kills his wife and child at the hands of Ares. His destruction of the Gods of Olympus that follows cements his reputation as a vengeful, brutal force.

In God of War (2018), Kratos has moved away from his Greek homeland but still carries the pain of losing his family. The opening of this game immediately shows that fate has followed him here: he has lost his wife to sickness at the beginning of the game and is left alone to raise his only son. The thematic change from the first trilogy was immediately noticeable for longtime fans of the franchise. The concepts of grief and loss are echoed throughout the story, and players cannot help but empathize with Kratos here, knowing how much he had to change in order to protect his new family. The grief of losing his family twice, first in his homeland and now in Midgard, adds a layer of depth to his character that players had not seen before.

6 Master Chief (Halo)

A Terrible Experiment Gone Right

Master Chief is famous for being a mascot for the Xbox brand, and a pop culture icon that defined gaming in the 2000s. On the surface, he seems like a simple enough character. But the 2001 tie-in novel The Fall of Reach reveals a horrible backstory to what seems to be a plain, friendly, and robotic hero.

When he was just a young boy, Master Chief was taken away from his family. The things he went through after that were life-threatening and brutally cruel. He was abandoned with other children in the middle of a tropical forest, underwent invasive medical treatments, and was forcibly transformed into a super soldier. His horrible origin story is one that fans wouldn't expect, especially from a hero with an intentionally plain character design, but it adds complexity and nuance to the story and his motivations as well.

5 Joel (The Last Of Us)

A Parent's Worst Nightmare

Joel is a beloved PlayStation icon. More than ten years after his debut, he is a big reason why The Last of Us is one of Naughty Dog's most popular franchises. The beginning of the first game shows us why. In the prologue to The Last of Us, players find themselves controlling Sarah, Joel's daughter, right before the fungal infection takes over. Joel and Sarah share a tender moment together at their home before all hell breaks loose and they have to escape.

Tragically, just as it looks like they have been rescued by the army, a soldier receives orders to gun them down. Although Joel and his brother Tommy are unscathed, Sarah is shot fatally in the abdomen, and Joel watches as his young daughter dies in his arms. Fans found his personality incredibly complex (and badass, as the game goes on), and his reluctance to become a father figure to Ellie was endearing and heartbreaking at the same time. Players can immediately resonate with him from the start of the game. To someone like Ellie, he comes off as rude, brash, and unforgiving.

4 Edith Finch (What Remains Of Edith Finch)

The Last Member Of A Cursed Family

Edith Finch is the main protagonist and the last remaining member of the 2017 game What Remains of Edith Finch. She returns to her family home after she inherits it in order to find out what happened to her ancestors. The family tree, as depicted in the notebook drawing that is frequently used in the game, is large and sprawling, with nineteen people (including Edith). They all have heartfelt, adorable, and captivating stories as told by Edith, who fondly remembers them as she walks through the house. Even though the player is aware that Edith is the last surviving member of the family, it is slowly revealed that the feel-good stories are hiding a sinister 'curse' that befell the Finch family a long time ago. As she uncovers their past in a series of self-contained vignettes, she narrates that each family member going back to her great-great-grandfather has died in different ways.

Although most of the deaths are freak accidents, they are pretty traumatizing for anyone to go through. The element of magical realism in the game adds to the sadness and grief that Edith has had to endure, and envisioning each death through the eyes of her relatives makes them even more painful for her. Players cannot help but grieve with Edith as she walks through the house in melancholy, and it isn't hard to see why this game is one of the most well-received walking simulators to date.

3 Max Payne (Max Payne)

Maximum Pain

The Max Payne trilogy is replete with neo-noir thematic storytelling, exciting gunplay, and groundbreaking action sequences. The first two games are considered to be some of the greatest video games ever made. Remedy has confirmed that Max Payne 1 & 2 are being remade and are in a pre-production stage, which fans of the series will be thankful for.

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At the beginning of Max Payne, his wife Michelle, and their newborn daughter Rose are killed by addicts who are high on a new designer drug. The rest of the game is spent hunting down those responsible. There are some downright terrifying dream sequences that Max endures as a result. This is a major reason why Max is a popular protagonist. His morose, gruff nature resonates with players who help him try to find some kind of peace with himself. His nature as an alcoholic and a short-tempered police officer is a turn-off for most, but for the fans, it is completely understandable, considering all that he has been through.

2 Corvo Attano (Dishonored)

Started From The Bottom

Corvo Attano's life as an assassin does look cool and mysterious to people who play the Dishonored games today. How can it not? He has legendary skills and fantastic stealth abilities, has supernatural powers, is an accomplished swordsman and marksman, and is adept at freerunning and parkour. His wide range of abilities makes the player feel invincible, and it is not hard to see why.

However, his life before Dunwall, the city in which the first game takes place, is bleak. Born to a lower-class family, Corvo grew up in a mining district in Karnaca (which is the main setting of Dishonored 2). His father was killed in an accident when he was only a child. His sister Beatrici moved away to an island called Morley, after which the family never heard from her again. His mother passed away after Corvo himself left to serve the emperor in Dunwall. To top it all off, at the beginning of Dishonored, Corvo witnesses the death of his lover Jessamine, along with the kidnapping of their daughter Emily. The amount of trauma that Corvo has had to go through is unimaginable, to say the least.

1 Martin Walker (Spec Ops: The Line)

A Fall From Grace

Spec Ops: The Line is an FPS game that takes a common trope and flips it on its head. The main protagonist in this game is Captain Martin Walker. He is sent with his team into post-catastrophe Dubai to retrieve survivors after contact with the previous recon team, the 33rd battalion led by Colonel John Konrad, is lost. Walker soon has reason to believe that Konrad has gone rogue and is committing atrocities against civilians in the region. Acting for what he believes to be the greater good, Walker has to make some difficult choices throughout the game, and chooses to kill many of Konrad's soldiers and survivors in the process, despite his team's protests.

The Captain's mental health is visibly deteriorating as the game goes on. In the end, the player finds out that Konrad is just a hallucination in Walker's mind, and that all the civilians have actually died needlessly at the hands of Walker himself, who has killed thousands in the timespan of one day. No matter which of the four endings the player gets, he directly disobeyed the orders of a superior officer, killed who knows how many civilians and soldiers in atrocious ways, and interfered with US government-sanctioned activities in a war-torn region. Spec Ops: The Line is a tragic commentary on PTSD, war, and revenge, and is a dark tale about how quickly one's past can catch up to himself.

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