7. Vaas Montenegro – Far Cry 3
It’s kind of funny now to think about, but it wasn’t too long ago that Far Cry wasn’t a terribly big franchise. The games were good and they had their fans, but there was never really a huge spot in the mainstream gaming public for it. That is, until Far Cry 3, and you can credit a lot of that success to the game’s antagonist Vaas.
Vaas is fascinating because, despite being a sociopath, he’s actually a very interesting character. It’s rare to get a genuinely psychotic villain who feels both cartoonish and real and Vaas walks that line very well. One moment he’s giving the player his own thoughtful, twisted outlook on life. The next he’s gleefully torturing people and it’s hard not to kinda love him in spite of himself.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that Vaas is so demented, he’s always entertaining to watch. He filled a niche in gaming villains that hadn’t been filled in a good long while and really, the results speak for themselves. Ever since Vaas, the Far Cry series has made a similarly twisted person the main antagonist in each subsequent game, always trying to capture the magic that made Vaas the iconic villain he’s now remembered as.
