Very often, video games don’t present their players with enough of a challenge when it comes to the playable character development and the amount of power these characters have in the game world. The main characters in the vast majority ofaction titlesout there are all-powerful, almost messianic figures, who are more than capable of saving the world, even right at the start of their adventure.
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Every now and then, however, a game comes up that does away with the trope of the main character being an experienced, capable adventurer. This is mostly true for survival horror andaction RPG titles, where players start out as complete rookies and have to earn their skills and reputation in the game world through completing quests and leveling up. These experiences are radically different than what people have come to expect from action games, and completing them feels significantly more satisfying.
10I Am Alive
I Am Aliveis one of Ubisoft’s many forgotten gems. Released in 2012, the game took players and critics by surprise, mainly because of its fresh and unique approach to the post-apocalyptic genre. The unnamed main character is just a regular person, trying to find his family in the brutal reality of a cataclysm-struck city.
He does not have any special powers or experience, nor is he particularly athletic. Of course, it’s an action game, so players are able to climb up buildings, shoot at enemies, and traverse through difficult terrains, but all of these actions affect the protagonist’s energy and fitness levels. Ammo and resources are very scarce, but it’s possible to scare some of the weaker opponents into submission by simply pointing an empty gun at them, which is a unique approach to combat in an otherwisetypical third-person adventure game.
9Outlast
A lot of survival horror games star weak protagonists on purpose, to increase the feeling of helplessness and impending doom.Outlasttakes this trend to the next level. Miles Upshur, a freelance investigative journalist is the main character, and the only weapon he’s equipped with is a camera equipped with night-vision mode which comes in handy when it gets really dark but doesn’t really do much in the way of fighting off enemies.
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With no visible health bar and limited battery capacity in the camera, players have to resort to hiding in lockers, shadows, or behind furniture to survive encounters with the aggressive patients and staff members of the Mount Massive Asylum.
8DayZ
As far as underpowered characters go, no game has come closer to creating more vulnerable and exposed playable characters thanDayZ. In thissurvival open-world game, players get dropped into an unforgiving, zombie-ridden map without any equipment that would give them an edge over the dangers that lurk around every corner.
All items, weapons, and resources need to either be found or crafted. Merely being able to survive can take long hours to get right, especially with permadeath being one of the main features of the game. Not to mention the fact that players can often encounter each other on the server, which can lead to some pretty stressful stand-offs, especially for those who are completely new toDayZ.
7Resident Evil 2
Most of the older entries to theResident Evilfranchise put players in control of characters who are severely under-equipped to face the challenges that await them.Resident Evil 2is the best example of this. While Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield are no rookies, they are constantly made to face extremely unfavorable odds of survival.
Ammo and health items are extremely scarce inResident Evil 2,both in the remake and original version of the game. Counting bullets while facing hordes of zombies is not the most favorable position to be in, which makes beating every level inRE2all the more rewarding.
6Hotline Miami
The main character inHotline Miamiis not underpowered on purpose. Instead, his abilities and health capacity are exactly the same as those of the hordes of enemies they’re tasked with killing, which is what makes the game so challenging and engaging (that and the award-winning soundtrack, of course).
Players can take as many hits as their opponents, which is not often the case in most action titles, where the health bar of the protagonist is usually infinitely bigger than their enemies'. The only advantages players can count on are the weapons found on the map, and even when wielding the most powerful of them, things can go awfully wrong in a matter of seconds.
5Silent Hill
Back when it first came out in 1996,Silent Hillwas a game built around a concept that no other title before it even dared to tackle. This psychological survival horror didn’t only place Harry Mason in an extremely hostile environment with not nearly enough resources to easily survive. It also made him doubt his own sanity as he progressed throughthe (very) foggy townon his own.
Silent Hillis also one of the very few games where mismanaging weapons and ammunition can bar the players from progressing further in the plot, often leading them to lose hours of progress, only because they haven’t saved up enough bullets for the boss fight at the end of a challenging level.
4Risen
Piranha Bytes are well-known for throwing players intoa vast open-worldwithout any resources at all, with extremely low health and stamina stats. At the start ofRisen,it isn’t uncommon for the main character to be bested by a large bug or rat-like creatures, simply due to their low level.
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As opposed to other, similar action RPGs, even the latter stages of the game pose a significant challenge for players who have not managed their character’s progress carefully. Investing in the wrong stats or trying to make a jack-of-all-trades hero is simply not the way to go inRisen,and while it certainly is possible to end up with a god-like figure in the final act, it is also equally likely that the protagonist will remain underpowered all throughout the main story.
3Fallout: New Vegas
It is no secret that the post-apocalyptic wasteland of theFalloutgames is not exactly the friendliest place for newcomers. InFallout: New Vegas,players can feel even more underpowered than in other open-world Bethesda games, simply because of the way the world is structured, with strong, well-established factions having accumulated most of the resources for themselves.
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After getting through the first dozen hours of gameplay or so, the scales start to tip in the players' favor a little more, but, just like inRisen,smart progression and a well-thought-out leveling strategy are necessary to truly level the playing field in Nevada’s nuclear wasteland.
2Death Stranding
Hideo Kojima is no stranger to convoluted storylines and weird game mechanics, but inDeath Stranding,the legendary video game designer really took things to the next level. Players take control of Sam Porter Bridges, a package courier tasked with the daunting quest of rebuilding the United States (and delivering countless packages while at it). While he’s not completely helpless, Sam’s at the mercy of the environment all throughout the game.
Rain (or timefall, as it is referred to in the game) deteriorates the cargo on his back, as well as his own protective suit, and finding shelter is one of the most frequent thingsplayers will find themselves doing inDeath Stranding.Not to mention the fact that directly facing BTs, the otherworldly enemies commonly found in the world, will almost always result in certain death. Evasion is really the most logical strategy when it comes to dealing with non-human opponents.
1Lester The Unlikely
Many younger players will be unfamiliar with theLester The Unlikelyseries of platformers, those who remember theSNES era of gamingwill surely agree that Lester was probably the most underpowered (and unlikely) protagonist of a video game franchise in the history of the gaming industry.
His sloppy, unpredictable movements made him a true nightmare to control, and platforming sequences that would be a piece of cake in a game likeSuper MarioorSonicproved to be daunting challenges inLester The Unlikely.The lack of power-ups or equipment was not a problem. In this case, it was the clumsiness of the main character that made it near-impossible to easily complete the game.
