Games In Which You Are Both The Protagonist AND The Antagonist

[The Blackangel]

This is actually more common than people would think. There are a lot of games where you play as a criminal. But the character a person plays is almost always the protagonist of the game. Yet if they are a criminal in any way, they are also the antagonist. GTA and RDR2 come to mind for me. But what is the allure, for most? Why would you want to be both ends of the spectrum, and how do you write a game that balances out both? For me, I like being on both ends. it feels somewhat natural. I rob banks, kill people who get in my way, and take care of a family that needs me. That's a hell of a tradeoff. But it's written well.

Thoughts?

[Shagger]

I suppose TLOU2 could be considered to be in that category by playing as Abby and Ellie. It's not as simple a case as one's the antagonist and one's the protagonist, but for fear of spoiling the game I'm not gonna explain further, but the way they did it definitely creates a lot of conflict within the player.

[killamch89]

John Marston from Red Dead Redemption the first game, he was the protagonist/antagonist of the first game. He basically worked with the government to take down his own gang but after he's done that, the government double-cross him to cover their tracks.

[The Blackangel]

Arthur in RDR2. You have to experience his internal conflict with him. He remains loyal to a fault, but sometimes even he isn’t sure why. There’s nothing that even hints at this in the game, but I think he would much rather have been a family man who had never been exposed to the life he lives.

[Patrik]

This has happened lot of times in GTA games (not the same game, but the protagonists get considered as antagonists and get killed in some other chapters) for example, Johnny, the protagonist in GTA TLAD, dies in GTA V...

[m76]

In Heavy Rain you control both the antagonist and the protagonist.

In Detroit Become Human you can effectively play as a villain, doing bad things with the player controlled characters so basically it's your choice what role you play in it.

Guess Bioshock Infinite counts as well,

[killamch89]

Spec Ops: The Line where you actually start believing you're the hero sent on a mission to rescue some refugees but as the story unravels, you slowly realize that you are in fact the terrorist. You killed off those refugees, you murdered 100s of soldiers and civilians in the name of your "mission". The guy who you were blaming this on has been dead long before you got there.

[Heatman]

On 3/23/2021 at 10:40 PM, killamch89 said:

Spec Ops: The Line where you actually start believing you're the hero sent on a mission to rescue some refugees but as the story unravels, you slowly realize that you are in fact the terrorist. You killed off those refugees, you murdered 100s of soldiers and civilians in the name of your "mission". The guy who you were blaming this on has been dead long before you got there.

Seriously, it's one wrong call on the battle tactics to be used in the village that led to the massacre. One of his teammate was really against the use of White Phosphorus. 

[Demon_skeith]

Kite from Dot Hack games was one, the more good he tried to do, the more damage he ended up doing. It was a very nice twist. 

[Razor1911]

On 3/2/2021 at 12:37 AM, Patrik said:

This has happened lot of times in GTA games (not the same game, but the protagonists get considered as antagonists and get killed in some other chapters) for example, Johnny, the protagonist in GTA TLAD, dies in GTA V...

Yeah, that's quite common with GTA series. Not only once or twice, I have come across many such missions where antagonist become protagonist in the later part. I hardly remember the character's names, but yeah I remember the story. 😊

[Heatman]

4 hours ago, Demon_skeith said:

Kite from Dot Hack games was one, the more good he tried to do, the more damage he ended up doing. It was a very nice twist. 

Exactly, it goes with the quote that the greatest harm is can come from the best intentions.