Video games exist to let you do things you can’t do in real life.
“Hey, you, you’re finally awake.”
But that doesn’t always mean noble things. Yes, a lot of video games are about being the hero standing up to the tyrants, stopping them, but some games go the other way.
Hi, folks, it’s Zaid, and today on Aura Riot, 20 games that let you be the oppressor.
20. Star Wars: Empire at War
When it comes to playing oppressors, the Galactic Empire from Star Wars is a pretty pure example. It’s a big evil army that rules space with an iron fist. And there are dozens of games where you get to play as these big bad guys. Probably the best for the purposes of this list specifically is “Star Wars: Empire at War,” a giant sized RTS where you don’t just get to blast rebellions, you get to turn the Death Star’s super laser on any unsuspecting planet you want.
This game really gives you the keys to oppress while ruling the galaxy. It’s a game that’s not just about big space battles. You can also take over planets and rebuild the universe in your own evil image, but it’s the space battles where this game really shines. As the Empire, you take control of enormous star destroyers that spawn infinite waves of TIE fighters. The Rebels have to worry about logistics and building individual X-wings. The Empire doesn’t have that problem, focusing instead on a small number of incredibly powerful ships. It’s incredibly fun. And while the ground gameplay isn’t nearly as good, it’s a cult classic Star Wars game for a reason. And that reason is all about the Empire. Taking over the galaxy can be just as fun as liberating it.
“Forward. We are victorious. Full speed.”
19. Assassin’s Creed: Rogue
The only game in the “Assassin’s Creed” series where you get to play is the bad guys is “Rogue.” It’s also a small game. A lot of players don’t know that it exists. “Rogue” released after “Black Flag” and it looks so similar it’s hard to really blame anybody for getting the games confused. It’s like the “Black Flag” little brother, and it looks really similar. And it’s easy to confuse them and think that they’re one thing.
They are different in a pretty major way though. Instead of playing as the heroic assassins’ organization, you’re an agent of the Templars, and that change is reflected in the gameplay. Instead of assassinating targets, you can interrupt assassinations by hunting the hunters. Assassins appear as hidden enemies in the environment, and you have to avoid getting ambushed yourself, but you’ll also get your hands on ridiculous weapons like an air rifle that looks a lot more oppressive than your average sized crossbow.
The air rifle can be outfitted with poison gas bombs or a grenade launcher for that powerful villain energy. He’s got a good line on him.
And the story puts you in the middle of the Seven Years War where you’ll help the British side of the conflict. Whether that’s oppressive or not, hard to say. Really, the game makes the Templars seem not that bad, particularly for being the major big bad guys of the entire series. Really, they don’t seem that different from the assassins, but maybe that’s the point. But, I mean, when it comes to Ubisoft games, it’s better not to read too much into the story. It’s not like they’re gonna make the assassins go, “Are we the baddies?” It’s not gonna happen. Usually, the biggest theme you can pull out of these games is that dumb things are fun.
18. Tropico 6
Now here’s a game where you can really be truly oppressive. In fact, it’s the point of the game. The “Tropico” series is a silly Banana Republic simulator where you play as the dictator of a small island nation that you build in any way you see fit. You can play as a nice dictator that doesn’t make his citizens miserable. But why? Why would you do that? What fun is that?
“Tropico 6” gives you the tools to build a giant army and crush rebellions with an iron fist all while working with the bad guys from every era and getting rich in the process. There are literally edicts you can proclaim specifically to embezzle money from your own government. And there’s really no reason to do that except to improve your score and see the numbers go up.
To truly get the “Tropico 6” experience, you wanna build giant statues of your custom dictator all over town to remind your subjects how awesome you are. Then you start sticking your rivals in jail for whatever new crimes you can come up with.
“Tropico 6” takes a dark subject matter and makes it funny with its goofy gameplay and peppy music that almost makes you forget you’re being a total monster to tiny simulated people. That’s the joy of “Tropico.” If you’re a really evil dictator, there’s nothing you can do to keep your people from kicking you out.
You can be bad, but you do have to make a few concessions. Really, being as evil as possible is terribly inefficient for your society anyhow. It’s almost like people aren’t huge fans of being oppressed.
17. Palworld
It doesn’t look like a game where you get to play as an oppressor. It’s a bright, colorful game about capturing little creatures and exploring a fantasy world. But once you start playing, this game turns you to the dark side. You can put your Pals to work for profit. So the more of them you capture, the more you can stick these cute creatures into your very own sweatshop and work them to death.
Literally, each creature has stamina and you can take away their resting or food privileges if you really want. And that isn’t the only dark side path you can take. You’re not just capturing creatures to fight for you or work for you. You can also sell them for a quick profit. You can even capture fellow humans and sell at the black market.
Presumably for their organs, but the game doesn’t go into detail on that. Probably for the best. We wanna keep our hands clean while creating an empire out of Pal labor. There’s, I mean, something inherently evil about the premise of “Palworld” and the twists. The cute and cuddly exterior allows it to go in dark directions. It’s also not an unintended feature. It’s the point of the game. As a survival game, you’re gonna exploit the wilderness for your own profit no matter what, and “Palworld” gives you the guns to do it.
16. X-Morph: Defense
One of the most unique games on this list is “X-Morph: Defense.” Instead of playing as the heroic resistance, you play the evil aliens taking over the planet Earth. It’s both a tower defense and an anti-tower defense as you control a powerful alien spaceship that flies around blasting puny humans and plopping down towers in build mode.
Don’t think your aliens are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts or anything. Your aliens purely want to exploit Earth for its resources, and the humans are the bugs that are standing in the way. It’s a ridiculous alternate take on “War of the Worlds” as you triumphantly harvest entire sections of the planet while humans desperately fight against overwhelming odds. You’re the overwhelming odds.
It’s played for dark humor, and it gets pretty ridiculous as the armies employ bigger waves of enemies. You might be the evil alien oppressor, but that doesn’t make the invasion less difficult. It’s a tough game. You’ll need an alien intellect to keep track of the different routes and defenses to keep track of, but it’s all worth it for these sweet, sweet earth resources. Am I right? I’m right.
15. Untitled Goose Game
Which might be one of the most chaotic evil games ever made. We all know geese are evil, but your average Canadian goose has nothing on your playable, feathered freak in “Untitled Goose Game.” This thing is Machiavellian as it plans to ruin an innocent farmer’s garden.
It sneaks around, steals tools, tosses them in the river, locks the gardener out, and goes on a rampage of wanton destruction in the town center. As the goose, you don’t just honk at people and act annoying, you’re busy ruining lives and examining people so you can cause as much chaos as possible.
This weird indie game was a minor sensation years back, and it shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s not just that you’re an oppressor, rampaging goose that nobody can stop, you’re a torturer claiming the town and daring anyone to stop you, which they can’t. You are the goose, of course, wherever you’re currently standing is your domain.
14. Battlefield 5
Plenty of World War II games let you play as the Axis powers, but “Battlefield 5” is one of the few that let you take control of the Germans while fighting Allied Soldiers. It’s not really rare at all in multiplayer games, but it doesn’t happen often in big budget releases from EA, and we all know why.
It isn’t easy making one of the biggest oppressors in history sympathetic, and the free campaign add-on for “Battlefield 5” doesn’t really succeed at it per se. It does let you play as the bad guys though, and that’s pretty unique. The final single player war story follows a Tiger tank commander fighting on the Western front near the end of the war.
The Tiger tank is a mythically powerful tank in World War II and video games, and “Battlefield 5” continues that trend by turning your Tiger tank into an unstoppable weapon. Even if by the end of the war, it would’ve been a gas guzzling relic. The campaign shows the German army ground down by relentless attacks. Leading the final stand is the last tank available to defend the Rhine.
It shows the cruelty of war from either side and was pretty controversial on release. And what makes it unique is the budget. It’s a major EA game where you’re playing as the bad guys. We’ll probably never get another campaign mission like it, which I mean isn’t necessarily a bad thing per se. It may not be the best thing, but I don’t know. It’s much more fun killing Nazis, isn’t it?
13. Red Alert 2
Realtime strategy campaigns are a good source of evil oppressors, and one of our favorites has gotta be the Soviet campaign in “Red Alert 2.” While real-life geopolitical situations are pretty complex, video games tend to smooth things out. And well, there’s certainly some nuance if one actually looks into history. The bad guys of “Red Alert 2” are just undeniably evil.
When your team is whipping up mind-control devices to brainwash people into shooting each other, we’re pretty firmly in bad guy territory. And you’ll get to oppress with giant tanks, perfect for running over civilians, and nukes to blow away pesky cities in your path towards conquest. “Red Alert 2” is pure fun in getting to blow up beloved national monuments. The kind of goofy chaos we’re craving sometimes.
Building an army of Tesla troopers to comically zap enemies into cartoon skeletons is silly and satisfying.
- [Commander] Changing position. Changing position. Vehicle reported.
- [Announcer] New construction options. Our base under is under attack. New mission objective received.
- [Zaid] And you’ll eventually get your hands on cloning vats to produce an infinite number of expendable infantry for the meat grinder.
The Soviet faction unfortunately isn’t the most evil faction in the game. That goes to the Yuri faction, and that’s only available in the expansion pack. It’s also not playable in a campaign, only in multiplayer. So we can’t really put that here. Too bad because the Soviets really needed the snipers and mutants to round out the old evil army.
- [Units] Comrade. Order Received. You are sure? For Mother Russia.
- [Announcer] Repairing.
- [Units] Ready, comrade. Encountering enemy. Waiting orders. You are sure? You are sure?
- [Announcer] Unit ready.
- [Units] For Mother Russia. Ready, comrade. Target sighted.
- [Announcer] Unit lost.
- [Units] We will burry them.
- [Announcer] Unit promoted.
12. Tyranny
Probably the most pure example of playing as the oppressor in video games is “Tyranny.” This CRPG developed by the same people who made “Avowed” really follows the assignment. You play as a thuggish inquisitor for a God-like evil emperor that just conquered the last region of a high fantasy planet. And you’re sent in to impose order and stop all the rebelling that’s going on.
Damn rebelling, always getting in the way. That all the major rebels are just different factions of the evil empire is irrelevant because you’re still squashing the little guy with your every decision. It’s a much more evil focused game. And trying to be good is actively discouraged. It’s actually pretty difficult to make nice guy decisions here, which makes sense as a big time official of an evil fantasy empire. You’d get in trouble for being too lenient with the locals.
It’s a game that really makes you feel like a fascist thug in a way that’s hard to describe. It’s a CRPG, so most of the action is in the long dialogue sequences you’ll wade through. CRPGs just have a special affinity for playing as the bad guy. Maybe it’s the top down view which puts you at the right distance to enjoy being an evil bastard.
- [Combatant] They never had a chance.
11. Helldivers 2
One game on our list that makes being an oppressor ridiculous fun probably because you don’t really do any oppression in the game itself. It’s an absurd take on extreme patriotism. You play as a citizen soldier for Super Earth, a government that fights for the Managed Democracy and kills aliens in an endless and self-inflicted conflict across the stars.
It’s all very “1984,” very “Starship Troopers” with a tyrannical government hyping up citizens by giving them an enemy to kill over and over.
- [Soldier] Become part of an elite peacekeeping force.
- [Announcer] See exotic new life forms.
- [Soldier] And spread Managed Democracy throughout the galaxy.
- [Announcer] Become a hero. Become a legend.
- [Soldier] Become a Helldiver.
There’s no road to victory because the war is the point. It’s all background text and flavor for the gameplay, which pits your small team of soldiers against ridiculous odds. You don’t really feel like an oppressor when you’re fighting monstrous space bugs and blood thirsty robots.
All the oppression stuff is in the backstory and lore, but that lore is a big visible piece of “Helldivers 2’s” success. Players love to play along with the inherent silliness of this obviously oppressive government. And it’s fun in the right way. That boring stuff like having morals isn’t fun at all. Look, we’re looking for the endorphin highs, and “Helldivers 2” gives us plenty no matter how theoretically evil it is.
- [Soldier] Fire in the hole.
“For prosperity!”
10. Papers, Please
We’re going from one game about playing as oppressors that’s ridiculously fun to one that’s basically designed to make you feel guilty. “Papers, Please” is an uncomfortable indie gem about working at a border crossing for a totalitarian government in a vaguely eastern European inspired country on the brink of war.
You have to oppress innocent people in a very direct way as you deny them entry or report them for petty crimes. You quickly learn most people are forced to forge documents just to reunite with lost loved ones or simply escape a deadly situation. But none of this matters when your paycheck is on the line, of course.
It’s a game made to make us feel bad. We’re oppressing civilians while a bigger system is oppressing us. Even if there’s something compelling about investigating every entry pass, checking the rules and regulations that change daily, and earning a good score at the end of the day without making mistakes, it’s a little too much like a real job to be incredibly fun. And the only way to win is to simply survive until the end without dying or getting your family killed.
9. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
Another CRPG that gives you the reins to be as bad as possible. “Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader” essentially makes you the ruler of a star system, giving you the license to impose the will of the Imperium of Man on all of your subjects. And if you know anything about Warhammer 40K, you know the Imperium is a crappy place to live.
Any dissent is ruthlessly purged by fanatical worshipers of the Emperor. Hilariously, any acts of kindness gets you branded as an iconoclast in this game, essentially a rebel free thinker. The only real choices are between standard cruelty and advanced cruelty. You can choose to wipe out an entire planet for possible Chaos Corruption, or just a vast swath of the population.
Those are the kinds of choices you’ll have to make. And if you have any kind of human sympathy, other NPCs in the game are going to think you’re a total weirdo.
- [Argenta] As the Emperor commands, I act.
- [Ulfar] My hand is thunder! My strike is ruin!
It’s a game where the absurdly dark Warhammer 40K universe is played for laughs because it’s so over the top. It plays to your expectations in a pretty fun way. And if you want to get the best possible ending, you truly have to fight for it. It’s a game that basically bullies you into being a fanatical inquisitor.
It helps that it’s a really fun game, and the alternative to your rule is usually something far worse. But some of these Imperium guys just, they don’t have to be such dicks while oppressing everyone. Good thing you get plenty of choices to take them out too just to show who’s the biggest blood thirsty weirdo on the totem pole.
8. Crackdown 3
The “Crackdown” series is the silliest bunch of oppressor games we’ve played. Every one of these things ends with a shocking bombshell that you’re actually a bad guy. It happens in every one of these games like clockwork. And oppressing the city sure is fun when you’re doing it in “Crackdown.”
The third game is about fighting gangs and mega corporations that rule the city. But the major bad guy is the mayor. The agency you work for in all the “Crackdown” games fights crime very literally with genetically enhanced super soldiers that get progressively beefier and jump higher the more collectibles you find.
And “Crackdown 3” gives you the tallest buildings and the biggest guns to fully oppress the city. The biggest clue is that the mayor is your enemy, a duly elected official. Sure they might also run a big violent super company, but that’s besides the point. Your thuggish agency soldier doesn’t arrest anyone.
Instead violently exploding everyone in his or her way to the top of the corrupt food chain, never quite realizing that the agency is the most corruptive of all. It’s a thoroughly silly game that keeps trying to pull the same twist every single time with no payoff, so it’s not really a surprise.
- [Goodwin] Feel the heat!
- [Echo] Heads up, killer machines inbound.
- [Comms] Target located. Kill orders confirmed.
7. FTL: Faster Than Light
A game that doesn’t really make you feel like an oppressor. But yeah, in “FTL” you play as a tiny ship trying to outrun a giant battleship. The battleship’s truly unstoppable, making “FTL” one of the toughest roguelikes we’ve ever played.
It’s a game so tough, you’re really not meant to win. You’re meant to play over and over again, struggling to survive and outpace your pursuers while collecting a band of alien buddies to fill your missing crew. It’s an ingenious game that’s one of the best starship battle simulators around.
But you’ll also play as the Empire. The giant mega ship that’s chasing you is the Rebels. And in this case, maybe the Empire is not so bad. The marauding Rebels are the alien haters. While the Empire is more good guy coded, which is the kind of inversion you don’t really see often in games.
In this case, being the big bad Empire isn’t helpful at all if you don’t even have a legion of Stormtroopers to back you up or a Death Star, what’s the point?
6. Lord of the Rings: Conquest
RTS campaigns are one of the best sources for playable oppressors, and the forgotten “Lord of the Rings: Conquest” strategy game lets you play as the most famous of the fictional dark lords. In this game, you get to control Orcs as you pillage your way across Middle-earth, smashing Hobbit villages and demolishing Elvin cities on your way to total victory.
You literally get to retake all of Middle-earth with the Orcs and a giant flying Nazgul. The Ringwraiths are the most obvious symbols of Sauron’s power, unkillable ghouls that ride black dragons into battle. “Conquest” is essentially a revenge tour for Sauron’s army, working its way backwards through all the locations of Middle-earth. We know specifically to destroy.
It’s a cartoony version of events heavily inspired by much bigger games like “Warcraft 3.” But there’s no gray area in this game compared to Blizzard’s strategy classics. You’re just plain evil in this game.
5. Beholder
This puts you in the lowest stakes possible. Instead of fighting wars, you’re informing on your neighbors. As a state-installed landlord, you need to learn the schedule of your tenants and spy on them for no good reason at all.
It is a very unique puzzle game that’s almost an informant simulator, basically. You have to learn when and where to check people’s apartments for clues, and watch carefully for signs they might be plotting something. Not that you need to inform on everyone. You can choose to go a different route, but the easiest path is the one of least resistance.
Why rebel when you can earn cash quickly by turning your friends and coworkers over to the secret police? It’s another darkly twisted take on playing the oppressor. One that stakes, they’re petty stakes. You can’t help but feel like a total squealer for playing along.
4. Syndicate
This is a nice simple game about stomping on the little guy. It’s an old school cyberpunk strategy game. You lead teams of cybernetically enhanced agents to wage war on the streets with very little concern or collateral damage.
Your team of agents are employed by the mega corporations that rule the world, technically making you the oppressive Stormtroopers sent to squash enemies of the core. You’re free to go nuts with mini guns, brainwash scientists, execute civilians, do anything else to get the job done.
You can even put down a rebellion in the “American Revolt” expansion. The 2012 reboot is similar in concept but very different in execution. It switches genres to become a first-person shooter, and you’ll eventually become a good guy that revolts against your masters in the remake.
It’s the kind of story we love, but this list is about oppressors. So the original is what matters here. In the original game, your evil company reigns supreme, and there’s no turning against it. Shooting up entire city streets. Great path towards the promotion that you always wanted.
3. Frostpunk
This puts authoritarian tools in your hands because there’s not really any other options. It’s set after an ecological disaster that left the planet freezing over, and your tiny little city is what remains. And the choices you have to make are life and death.
You could choose to put children to work in factories or legalize cannibalism so the dead don’t go to waste. You could do some truly awful stuff in “Frostpunk.” And oppression is just one of the tools in your belt. You can outlaw basically everything. You can put out patrols. Force religion on everyone. Persuade loyalty through pure force.
Your choices shape your society and survival is a lot tougher than dealing with unhappy citizens. It’s a twisted little game, and another one we’re absolutely terrible at. We just want to be nice and make everyone happy. For some reason, asking nicely doesn’t work when the last people on earth are all starving to death.
2. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
“Pathfinder” gives you the tools to be an absolute monster of a ruler. You can team up with necromancers to make an undead army, or you can access forces that are somehow worse than the demons you’re fighting a giant war against.
By following the Swarm-That-Walks Mythic Path, you become an all-consuming monster devoted to absolute evil. If that isn’t playing as an oppressor, I don’t really know what is. Actually, it might not count because the Swarm-That-Walks doesn’t really want subjects. It wants food for the ever-growing swarm.
All your allies turn against you for making the worst choice imaginable. And your hungry swarm of supernatural bugs just slowly ravages your kingdom, killing all your helper NPCs and emptying the cities you are sworn to protect.
It is one of the most absurd story paths in any video game, and one of the most evil. We recommend sticking with the skeletons for a much gentler, evil oppressor storyline path.
1. Overlord II
“Pikmin” with a hoard of goblins. This goofy game is exactly what we’re looking for here. You’re not just some lowly thug, you’re the big bad overlord, and you’re taking over the world in a very direct way.
As the armor-clad overlord, you lead a small army of monsters and ransack enemy kingdoms for fun and profit. These games, they’re pure comedy, which makes all the destruction a lot easier to swallow. But you’re undeniably an evil overlord. It’s on the tin, people.
In the second game, you take on a Roman Empire-style civilization. So maybe we’re oppressors fighting other oppressors. I don’t know. Whatever’s going on, you get to do all the classic evil overlord things. Just evil overlord things. Posting a nice little photo set to Pinterest about it.
You command armies of minions to sacrifice themselves in your name, ransack cities, and cause untold mayhem. What’s not to love?
Final Thoughts
“Overlord II” is a great example of a pure oppressor game, and we know there’s a lot more that we didn’t put on this list. Let us know your favorite bad guy games, because we, I mean, you can’t put every RTS and “Star Wars” game here with multiple campaigns. It’s just not possible.
We are eager to find more oppressive gems in the rough. So leave a comment. Let us know what you think. And as always we thank you very much for reading this blog. We’ll see you next time right here on Aura Riot.