Powers in video games usually get handed out like candies, making them less meaningful since they're all so easily attainable. There are some video games, however, that treat some of its most important characters initially like the dirt specks they are, forcing you to grovel to the top of the food chain in an existential climb to prove your worthiness.
In the process of leveling up, allocating skills, and reshaping your character, these once weak meat bags would eventually become godlike beings. Nothing best demonstrates that kind of ascension than guiding your video game protagonist of choice into godhood or a similar status. Thus, it's high time to take a long glance back at these wimps who became heroes capable of breaking the game's rules.
9 Link (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
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Prior to Breath of the Wild, Link wouldn't have been able to make the cut for this roster since he's a highly-trained and capable warrior and bodyguard. Thanks to that revolutionary Nintendo title, Link was slammed back down nearly naked to the cold hard ground (thanks amnesia!) and had to waddle through the muck in order to become worthy of Zelda once again.
Link literally had to endure brittle weapons seemingly made out of Pringles chips, slipping off cliff walls thanks to the rain, and getting thrashed around by goblins. All this he had to grit through just to gain his peak vitality once more and his best weapons and armor. After that, it was smooth sailing since he'll finally be able to one-shot Ganondorf in the final boss fight.
8 The Dragonborn (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)
Granted, most of The Elder Scrolls protagonists are treated badly at the start of the game. The most common predicament is being a slave or a prisoner. Skyrim upped the punishment by making the Dragonborn slated for execution. Thus, the Dragonborn was at first, a helpless dreg to be killed for no discernible reason.
Thanks to Alduin's intervention and lots of tutors and training, the Dragonborn became a walking chosen one capable of shouting dragons to death. Come the late game in Skyrim, he could commit any crime he wanted and kill all the guards who accused him of lollygagging.
7 Carl Johnson (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)
No one expected a scrawny kid from Grove Street to become the most impressive crime lord in San Andreas, San Fierro, and Las Venturas (three cities!) but Carl Johnson (CJ) did it with flying colors. That makes GTA: San Andreas one of the most endearing rags-to-riches stories ever in the series.
CJ had to buff himself up by pumping iron (or with cheats, ashamedly), training with firearms, improving his driving skills, and killing those who opposed his brother's gang. It wasn't easy and the hardest part was probably following the damn train, but CJ made it big. Bigger than Big Smoke at the very least.
6 Isaac Clarke (Dead Space)
Isaac Clark from Dead Space didn't become powerful out of free will. He had no choice but to do it in a bid for survival. At the start of the first Dead Space, he was nothing but an engineer who tags along with a rescue and relief operation after a space mining facility went dark.
Little did he know, he was in for the fight of his life against the necromorphs (basically space zombies). All Isaac had at the beginning was a measly Plasma Cutter which is a tool, not a weapon. By the end, he was already outfitted with the meanest military and elite space-man hardware that he looked more like Power Ranger than a repairman.
5 Jack (Bioshock)
Like many of the weak video game characters or protagonists introduced at the game's beginning, Jack from Bioshock was one slap away from death. He was just a human being who barely knew how to fire guns in Bioshock. In all respects, he's also just a civilian.
Thanks to Rapture's Plasmids, however, Jack managed to even out the playing field against the Splicers and eventually trading blows with the head honchos of the sunken city. He emerged victoriously and was all but crowned the ruler of Rapture.
4 Jonathan Reid (Vampyr)
Most vampire games typically make the player character's transformation into vampires a ceremonial process that almost every other vampire in the game will surely know. Vampyr makes it clear that Jonathan Reid is a victim who was just forced to cope with his vampire powers.
He was helpless as a human in a plague-torn London and as soon as he turned into a vampire, his life went on a miserable spiral since he accidentally killed his sister. Afterward, becoming powerful is a matter of killing the innocent or guilty alike in order to unlock nifty vampire powers. The ending sees Jonathan as the most powerful vampire in London.
3 Eric Leblanc (The Forest)
One could argue that all player characters in survival games are welcome here but they'd be crowding the list too much. So here's the most vulnerable one at the start of his own game, The Forest. Eric Leblanc is the father whose son went missing in a plane crash, presumably taken by cannibal mutants.
The problem is, Eric was about as defenseless as his son, if not more so. So he did what most dads in human history do in order to further civilization's progress: build stuff. As time went on, players as Eric could build fortresses and trap the said mutant cannibals by the dozen that they'll end up fearing him.
2 Jason Brody (Far Cry 3)
Jason Brody would likely accrue the highest number of votes if there ever was a poll for the Far Cry franchise's most annoying protagonist. Dislike him or hate him, you have to give props to Jason for surviving what most human beings can't in his mad situation in Far Cry 3.
He went from a scared puppy to a walking predator preying on Rook Islands' pirates and mercenaries. All he had to do was steal a few guns and pick some rad arm sleeve tattoos— maybe kill a few animals and skin them. That's the path of the warrior and it transformed a dumb frat boy material into a one-man army, like it or not.
1 Chosen Undead (Dark Souls)
In hindsight, Dark Souls actually lets players assumed the role of a zombie. The Chosen Undead do get some nifty respawn and undying powers as fancy fantasy zombies but they're still not much different from the wandering hollows of Lordran.
Thanks to player perseverance though, these walking beef jerkies progressively became god-killers capable of dancing around dragons, evading their fury, or parrying an immortal king's attacks. Disrespecting the game's bosses soon becomes the norm as payback for their earlier transgressions against the player character.