Ask Lemmy

Helldivers games, you're the exploitative, fascist empire who creates its own problems.

Mafia series - You play as a murderous mobster

Tropico series - You play as the dictator of a small banana republic

Red Dead Redemption - You're Arthur Morgan, an outlaw who kills for money

Hmmm a day later and no one mentioned braid.

The GTA series might be a good example. All of the protagonists of the games commit exceedingly worse crimes as the game progresses but they're made to be sympathetic since they just want success in a world with not much other opportunities.

Games with karma systems may work as well if the bad option isn't overtly evil. I'm thinking games like Dishonored, Fable 3, Undertale, or any Bethesda game.

Anti-hero protagonists like Kratos from God of War, Arthur Morgan from Red Dead 2, and V from Cyberpunk could also somewhat fit the bill.

Fallout New Vegas

The number of opportunities the game gives you to be an absolute piece of shit is ridiculous.

Here are some examples:

Get the Terrifying Presence perk and literally become evil incarnate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXBC2OYLM0k

Or just level up speech and be mean in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STptNbHOXWg

Spec Ops: The Line

This game isn't exactly niche, but Red Dead Redemption II is a really good one. You play as an outlaw on the run from bounty hunters while your gang is falling, their ideals are crumbling, and society no longer wants them. Arthur Morgan is part of a dying way of life.

The game also has an honor system where your status is determined by how evil or good you are. Help strangers = high honor. Rob and murder indiscriminately = walking nightmare

Shocked to see no one's suggested Tyranny yet which is an isometric RPG where you specifically play one of the bad guys. Yeah you can make some "good" decisions but ultimately, you're a foot soldier for the bad guys. It's got plenty of that conflict about what's right and wrong that you're looking for too!

Command & Conquer 3

Not even one mention of Prototype. What have the world become.

Factorio, you literally colonize alien species and pollute their worlds because you feel like it.

Stubbs the zombie

Tie Fighter. Flying as a pilot for the Empire in Star Wars including flying alongside Vader to save the Emperor. Includes getting pulled into a secret society with a cool glowing force tattoo showing your rank in service to the Emperor.

The game never says your name but I. The old expanded universe books you are basically the Empire version of Wedge.

Disco Elysium's protagonist is a walking disaster and there are a lot of ways you can play him. Honestly playing him as a totally morally upright professional is one of the harder ways to play. You definitely don't feel like a hero while you're playing

No one's said Infamous yet. Shocking. Well Infamous. You get to choose if you're going to be good or bad and it's super satisfying either way. Dishonered has that same sort of choice, also amazing whichever way you go.

minecraft

you show up in a mostly peaceful world and just start destroying it, enslaving villagers and treating a peaceful mobs inhumanly to farm them so you can go kill more mobs that were leaving you alone

The Knights of the Old Republic SW games. You can join the dark side.

Saints Row games. They're like GTA, but increasingly over the top in their parody. You're the boss of a criminal gang. 2 is still "normal parody" and a bit dated, 3 jumped the shark while doing a kickflip with a jet ski, 4 is even more insane.

Sleeping Dogs you play as a cop, but you can betray the law and side more with the criminals.

Warcraft 3 (old but gold) - the human campaign of the base game gets you from a hopeful young paladin prince into a cold, vengeful psychopath; the following undead campaign is said prince (well, king now) finishing the job of killing everyone and further fucking everything. The expansion has 3 extra campaigns, none with "good guys"

Divinity Original Sin (1 and 2) lets you play as big of an asshole as you'd like. Of the Elder Scrolls games, Morrowind is the one that lets you be the biggest bad guy around (you can still finish the game even if you kill every important npc and break every quest)

Stray. You're a cat. Cats are evil.

Tyranny. I mean, you could end up being the good guy, depending on what that means to you, but you start leading an army to conquer part of the world at the behest of Kyros the Overlord. I think I would classify Kyros as a sort of Lawful Evil type. He seems to want to bring peace and order to the world, but chooses to do it through conquest and harshly enforced laws.

Planescape: Torment
Disco Elysium
Prototype
Crackdown

Already mentioned elsewhere but seconding the recommendations: Infamous I and II Bioshock Infinite

Dungeon Keeper.

Destroy all humans.

Spec ops the line.

Braid.

Manhunt.

Spec Ops: The Line?

Prototype

Baldur's Gate 3. Not only can you make an evil character, one of the premades is a special evil character called the Dark Urge and basically forces you into doing things that are often even more fucked up than the basic bad guy stuff.

Most cRPGs are like that, actually. Rogue Trader is another good one. Being a paragon of good is nigh impossible in that one, since you're basically a tyrannical land baron in the WH40k universe where everyone is garbage. 😃

No recommendations, but just wanted to thank you for a real good question.

Echoing Spec Ops: The Line.

It's no longer available on Steam, but if you can find a way to play it then you should. Probably the most necessary game about war at the moment.

Overlord

You can do some pretty evil shit in Baldur's Gate 3. Definitely makes you question your morals. The Dark Urge player character story is pretty messed up.

Well there's always Grand Theft Auto.

Never tried this, but you could play New Vegas with the Legion.

Well, I may as well keep plugging my current obsession, Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. It's a CRPG somewhere between BG3 and XCOM in gameplay, with a grimdark-flavored splash of Mass Effect.

You have 3 "convictions" that many lot of your decisions fall under. Iconoclast is kind of your standard good guy, but maybe somewhat naive trying to be that good guy in the Warhammer verse. But more relevant to you are Dogmatic and Heretic.

Heretic is pretty much evil as far as I can tell. Chaos worship and slaughter for power. Dogmatic is more like Judge Dredd, maybe? You make some harsh fucking decisions as dogmatic, like liquefying a few thousand people to power a computer you need to use, but you are doing it for what your character truly believes is the greater good of the Imperium.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Owlcat's previous game, has some baddie paths too. You're still fighting demons, but it's more of an evil vs evil in some cases. Especially Lich or Swarm.

Came back to say Fable and Fable II are peak evil path RPGs.

Carrion

RimWorld RTS, survival, colony builder. Survive, stranded, on a hostile planet filled with pirates, ancient mechanoids and giant killer bugs.

You can play however you wish. I always end up playing as drugged-up organ-harvesting slave owners.

There is a very detailed simulation of the human body, with each organ having it's own scars, damages and conditions, all affecting each other. There are also developed systems for drugs, combat, diseases, mood and mental breakdowns.

Honestly it's simpler sci-fi Dwarf Fortress

Kinda surprised nobody has mentioned Metal Gear Solid V and Peace Walker.

Overlord, the first game

shadows of forbidden gods. the story is kind of what you make it, but you are basically the dark lord in world similar to many fantasy novels. It got multiple evil beings too and each has different playstyle.