Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
enthusiastically on board, and adversaries who are much, much nasti-
er than they, ensures that we still root for them.
Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name, the X-Men's Wolverine, and
Ash from the
Evil Dead
films are all good antihero examples from
movies. In games, we can look at Marcus Fenix from
Gears of War
,
John Marston from
Red Dead Redemption
, the eponymous player
character of the
Duke Nukem
games, any of the playable characters
from the various
Grand Theft Auto
games … along with many, many
others. Antiheroes work particularly well as playable characters in
games, given the massive body counts they tend to rack up. Including
one helps ludonarrative harmony (brutal antihero character coupled
with brutal, deadly gameplay) but has become so commonplace it's
pushed the playable antihero to the edge of cliché.
The Villain
Villain, Shadow, bad guy, antagonist, adversary—whatever term you prefer,
he's present in most stories in one form or another. Every story needs a
conflict, and that conflict usually stems from a specific, motivated
source—the Villain.
The impressiveness of a story's Villain has a huge bearing on the overall
quality of the story and the audience's estimation of the Hero. A two-di-
mensional, poorly realized antagonist can do enormous damage to an
otherwise well-constructed tale. Conversely, a vividly conceived, memor-
able Villain can catapult your story into the stratosphere. As a storyteller it's
important to invest at least as much time conceptualizing and characteriz-
ing your “bad guy” as you would your “good guy.”
What are the essential elements of a well-designed, effective and mod-
ern Villain?
Viable Challenge
The core function of a Villain is to generate the main conflict, either direc-
tly or indirectly, as part of a larger goal. Most Villains don't just wander
away after they create the conflict, allowing the Hero (or whoever) to
