Games

Best Creepy Good Heroes In Games

Published

2 days ago

January 4, 2025

Not every hero is valiant, attractive or unproblematic, some are flawed, inconsistent and downright creepy. Categorizing creepy good heroes presents a few issues because, by their very nature, they are contradictory and subvert expectations. Some games position the player as the wonderful heroic weirdo, others have them as an ancillary character who defies initial assumptions. Their general weirdness or creepiness might be off-putting, but they are the characters who come in clutch when the player is at their most desperate.

6 Video Game NPCs That Stole The Show

Table of Contents

Across some truly exciting games, players have found the best NPCs that stole the show of their own adventure.

Some of these creepy good heroes might not even seem that creepy at first, but as the player finds out more about them, creepy and disturbing details emerge. They have often made the transition from evil to good or are resisting some intense inner evil. And some just give players the heebie-jeebies. Here’s a ranked list of the best creepy good heroes in video games.

7

The Merchant From Resident Evil 4

“What’re ya buyin’?”

9/10

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Resident Evil 4 (2023)

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OpenCritic: Critics Recommend:
98%

While it might seem like a stretch to call the Merchant a hero, there are multiple contextual definitions of the word hero. According to Merriam-Webster, a hero can be defined as ‘a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability’. The Merchant certainly fits that definition.

The Merchant turns up in the strangest and most dangerous places in the plagas-infested ruins of Resident Evil 4. Who is he? How did he get here? Are Leon and Ada his only customers? And what on Earth is going on underneath that hood? He often shows up when the player is in desperate need of supplies. But is it heroic if it comes at a price?

6

The Hunter From Bloodborne

May They Find Their Worth In The Waking World

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Bloodborne

Released: March 24, 2015
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty

The often blood-drenched Hunter from Bloodborne is definitely creepy. Would someone who isn’t creepy go around collecting and consuming umbilical cords? Would they conduct rituals with blood and tomb mold? The means by which they sustain themselves is upsetting at best. The blood ministration treatments that occur in Yharnam and the collection of blood echoes are pretty grim regardless of motive.

The Hunter’s status as a hero is what is up for debate. They are certainly the protagonist, but they are arguably more horrific than the creatures they kill. The actions and choices of the player have more say in the good intentions of the character of the Hunter than the embedded narrative. Choosing to help the innocent and to make self-sacrifices for the greater good is certainly heroic. Killing a benign NPC and taking their possessions is less heroic.

5

GLaDOS in Portal 2

“How are you holding up? Because I’m a potato”

10/10

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Portal 2

As much as players may adore GLaDOS, there is no denying she is creepy. It doesn’t get much creepier than being a lab rat for a murderous artificial consciousness that can descend from the ceiling in a mess of cables. At the end of Portal, the player character is able to ‘kill’ GLaDOS, and she is still very angry about it when she is brought back in Portal 2.

GLaDOS has a redemption arc and becomes a hero in Portal 2, helping the player character to defeat the actual main antagonist of the game. She saves Chell on multiple occasions and directs her through the labyrinthine maze of Aperture Science. Caroline, the woman whose essence was embedded in GLaDOS’s AI, is able to be reasoned with and has a level of compassion for others (which GLaDOS supposedly deletes at the end of the game).

8 Best Anti-Hero PlayStation Characters, Ranked

PlayStation has produced some of the best video game characters of recent memory, and their flawed morality makes them compelling anti-heroes.

4

Elden Ring – Iron Fist Alexander

Better Than His Innards

10/10

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Elden Ring

Released: February 25, 2022
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty
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This delightfully rotund adventurer is one of the shining lights of Elden Ring. He can be summoned to help with the Starscourge Radahn and Fire Giant fights and is a wonderfully wholesome character in a world that can be extremely brutal. He left his home to become a champion, seeking to learn to be a warrior and undertake gentlemanly combat.

But Alexander attempts to improve himself in one of the creepiest ways on this list. He compacts the dead body parts of brave warriors into his jar. Thus, making him a walking jar of rotting flesh. It’s a bittersweet moment when he challenges the player character to a fight to the death.

3

Nick Valentine From Fallout 4

He Used to Go With A Gal From Malden

9/10

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Fallout 4

Released: November 10, 2015
OpenCritic Rating: Advertisement

Mighty

Nick is an invaluable companion and ally to the player character known as the Sole Survivor in Fallout 4. He’s kind, brave and resilient. Nick Valentine is a prototype Synth created by the institute and has the personality and memories of a ‘pre-war cop’ imprinted on him. His body is in an extreme state of disrepair and his eyes are unnervingly luminous and bright.

There is a lot of prejudice against synths in the Fallout universe and Nick must manage that prejudice with the complication of having a human consciousness. Tellingly, in a moment of amnesia, he calls his brother and the only other synth of his kind, ‘a plastic-skinned freak’, reflecting the way humans in general see him.

2

Rose From Resident Evil Village

Run Rabbit Run!

8/10

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Resident Evil Village

Released: May 7, 2021
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty

Rose looks like an angry teenager with a complicated past. That relatively normal exterior belies the strangeness of Rose as a character and the creepy truth of what she really is. Like her mother and father, her body is riddled with the mold (mutamycete) that caused the events of Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village. This makes her incredibly powerful but connects her to all manner of grim monsters and bloody spectacles.

As a baby, she was separated into pieces and distributed around the village and, as a teenager, she encounters what seem to be clones of herself made by the mold. The Shadows of Rose DLC emphasizes the effects of the mutamycete on her body and how it has affected her as a person. The DLC also shows the implications of the collective consciousness of the mold and the way in which it connects everyone exposed to it.

1

Krieg From Borderlands 2

He Has The Shiniest Meat Bicycle

8/10

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Borderlands 2
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Franchise: Borderlands
Released: September 18, 2012
OpenCritic Rating: Advertisement

Mighty

The psychos in Borderlands are creepy through no fault of their own. They are victims of horrific experimentation at the hands of Hyperion scientist Dr Benedict. Psychos are an iconic part of the Borderlands series and can make a player’s life extremely difficult. Throughout Borderlands 2, these crazed, berserker-like bandits throw themselves violently at vault hunters, making Krieg’s strange brand of wholesomeness seem all the more out of place in the hostile wastelands of Pandora.

Krieg was a victim of the same experiments, but things didn’t quite go according to plan. Rather than succumbing to the gas and Dr Benedict’s disturbing experiments, Krieg’s personality splits in two; the psycho Krieg and the Krieg, who maintains his sanity and is capable of rational thought. Rational Krieg is able to negotiate a moral code with his Psycho self and becomes a valued ally to the core vault hunter group. Unfortunately, Psycho Krieg is in charge of speech, which leads to quotes such as “I powdered my cockatiel for the rib cage slaughter!”. Krieg was made available as a playable character in the Psycho Pack DLC.