The first-person shooter genre is one of the most common in gaming. These games provide a view from the protagonist's eyes as they fight their way to the final objective. Most of the time, that final objective brings you face-to-face with a villain. FPS heroes are nothing without their opposites.

Related: The Best Old-School FPS Games You Can Only Play On PC

Over the years, brilliant first-person shooter titles have delivered memorable villains. Some of them are misunderstood, others have lost their minds, and many are just plain evil. Whatever their motives may be, a handful of them stand out above the rest. They are the clear-cut best FPS villains.

Warning: May contain spoilers for their respective games

10 Dark Samus

Dark Samus stands menacingly.

Metroid Prime was the beloved franchise's first venture into the FPS category. Instead of side-scrolling, you got to see everything from Samus Aran's point of view. That includes the game's copycat villain known as Dark Samus.

Throughout the trilogy, this evil version of Samus proves to be the hero's biggest challenge ever faced. Dark Samus was formed by Samus' DNA fusing with the Metroid Prime. Once that took place, Samus tried over and over to dispose of the villain. She was finally successful in the finale of Metroid Prime 3, but not without feeling the impact of her evil self.

9 Handsome Jack

Handsome Jack points a wrist-mounted weapon forward.

Handsome Jack is the troublemaking villain of the Borderlands franchise. To the public, he claims to be a hero, but in reality, he's an evil man who has fun torturing and executing disobedient workers and citizens. The irony of it all is that his goal was to open the Vault of the Warrior and rid the world of what he deemed evil.

Even after his death, the effects of his actions remained. From kidnapping to murder, the CEO of the Hyperion corporation seemingly has no limit to the dastardly deeds he commits. All of that is intertwined with a strangely humorous personality that sees him not take anything seriously.

8 Arkady Kirilenko

Arkady Kirilenko stands in front of lockers, raising his hand to gesture while he speaks.

Arkady Kirilenko is a Russian Colonel who desires to wipe the United States off the face of the earth. This takes place in the acclaimed Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The first time he appears, Bad Company sees him execute a United States prisoner they were sent to save. That sets off a story where Kirilenko shows no mercy.

Related: Old FPS Games That Are Better Than You Remember, Ranked According To Metacritic

This villain keeps Bad Company on their toes the entire way through their second outing. It culminates in an attempt to take a weapon of mass destruction to the United States. Over Texas, Bad Company prevails in stopping Kirilenko, but not before he left destruction and terror in his wake in South America.

7 Father Comstock

Posters of Father Comstock label him as "Our Prophet."

Zachary Hale Comstock, more commonly known as Father Comstock, is the main antagonist of BioShock Infinite. The prophet of Columbia truly began his evil ways when he killed his wife, Lady Comstock, and pinned it on their maid in a cover-up. From there, it gets weird.

Father Comstock is later discovered to be an alternate version of Booker Dewitt after being baptized and reborn. This villainous version of the main character tried to lock his daughter away and manipulate the course of history. Only after Booker ended his own life did this alternate version's plan and existence cease.

6 Alec Trevelyan

Alec Trevelyan stands in a military facility with a weapon.

Played by Sean Bean in GoldenEye, Alec Trevelyan's villainy is depicted in the Nintendo 64 adaptation of the movie. The James Bond rogue fakes his death to become the behind-the-scenes mastermind of everything James Bond was fighting against.

The GoldenEye 007 game is considered an innovative first-person shooter with its popular multiplayer mode, but its single-player story lets you experience the events of the film. Trevelyan's reveal and the eventual final showdown with Bond are just as impactful in the game as they are in the movie.

5 343 Guilty Spark

343 Guilty Spark floats in front of the Master Chief.

343 Guilty Spark is an iconic villain from the Halo franchise. So iconic that the studio that eventually took control of it after Bungie named itself with the little orb in mind. Sometimes known as The Monitor, 343 originally appeared as an ally and would later become an anti-hero. This was after he tried to kill the Master Chief and all sentient life.

Related: The Best First-Person Shooters From The 2010s

343 Guilty Spark sent the sentinels after the Chief in a failed attempt. That forced his programming to realize he was making a mistake. This began his anti-hero saga, but he spent a large portion of his first appearance with his only purpose being destruction.

4 Vaas Montenegro

Vaas Montenegro sits on a beach with a head buried in the sand next to him as he holds two pistols.

The Far Cry series has created memorable villain after memorable villain. Arguably, the most dangerous and notable of them all is Vaas Montenegro of Far Cry 3. His mental instability makes him very unpredictable, but his charisma makes it hard not to cling to every word he says.

Vaas and his pirates take hostages, murder innocent people, and hunt humans for sport. It all ends in a trippy showdown that only Far Cry can pull off. Vaas cemented himself as a major villain and has even been made a protagonist in DLC for Far Cry 6.

3 Alma Wade

Alma Wade stands in the street and stares ahead with an emotionless expression.

Not every FPS villain is blinded by fortune and destruction. They all don't want to destroy a country or cause terror for their own sadistic enjoyment. Take Alma Wade, for example. The F.E.A.R. antagonist was experimented on over and over again. Eventually, she passed away after her life support was turned off, but her evil spirit continued as the villain of the series.

Throughout the series, her presence is often limited to small glimpses, like seeing a ghost out of the corner of your eye. That didn't stop her from being one of the most horrifying FPS antagonists of all time. She creates visions that are hard to watch, unleashes nightmares, and shows absolutely zero remorse when taking a life.

2 Lady Dimitrescu

Lady Dimitrescu smiles as her daughters stand behind her.

The Resident Evil series is typically in a third-person point of view, but Village turned the franchise's horror elements up a notch by making it first-person. You were forced to experience the terror of the Village through Ethan Winters' eyes. Alcina Dimitrescu, often called Lady Dimitrescu, is the most recognizable villain to come from it.

Lady Dimitrescu's overall appearance took the internet by storm when she was revealed. The community love didn't stop when she tormented you as you looked to escape the village and rescue Ethan's daughter. Much of Ethan's problems were because of her actions, which saw her transform into a giant mutant dragon to make things even worse.

1 General Shepherd

General Shepherd pulls the player character forward after exiting a helicopter.

The biggest betrayal in all of video game storytelling might just go to General Shepherd of Call of Duty fame. In the original Modern Warfare 2, he was seen as a massive proponent of Task Force 141 and wanted nothing more than to keep the world safe from terrorism. That all changed when he murdered Roach and Ghost after they successfully captured intel on his behalf.

This left the Task Force of fan-favorite characters to fend for themselves as they looked to uncover Shepherd's plans and put an end to them. The General wanted to become a war hero by means of betrayal and corruption. He did just that, seeing the likes of Captain Price and Soap labeled as war criminals. Though defeated, his actions resonated for the remainder of the saga.

Next: The Best First-Person Shooters With No Sequels