Everybody loves an underdog. Playing a game that sees an underdog fight their way through the toughest challenges to end up on top is inspiring. Maybe with enough determination and persistence, the player can also rise above their station in life like the protagonists of theopen-worldgames below.
Considering that games mostly focus on violence, people should not take the actions of these characters as literal inspiration. However, one can still take a lot from the stories. The underdog story also works so well for gaming since player progression in anopen-worldoften goes hand-in-hand with the character’s rise through the ranks.
Grand Theft Auto 3is a revenge story,San Andreasis about family and loyalty, butVice Cityis purely about getting power. The game starts with the protagonist, Tommy Vercetti investigating who sabotaged the drug deal that opens the plot.
Once that mystery is solved, however, he decides to go into business for himself and take over Vice City. Players use a mansion as their home base and from there slowly buy up various properties. After taking over a certain number of businesses the ending mission branch is triggered.
Sonny, the gangster who sent Tommy to Vice City in the first place, shows up to try and take a piece of the empire players built up. Tommy kills Sonny and the credits roll, cementing the protagonist’s rise from small-time muscle to kingpin of Vice City.
Tommy Vercetti is played by Ray Liotta, known for his legendary turn as Henry Hill inGoodfellas.
TheMount and Bladegames are all about starting small and becoming the most powerful ruler in a fictional medieval setting. Players are essentially a nobody but theyslowly recruit soldiersand take over settlements before eventually dominating everything and retiring to the mountains.
Unlike many games on this list, the underdog story is not told directly through a narrative. The whole structure is gameplay-driven. In fact, the game does not even really have a definitive ending. It keeps going until the player decides to end it and play something else.
People have more faith in video game adaptations of movies these days. In 2006, few people believed aScarfacevideo game would be anything worth writing home about. The developers proved them wrong with a video game thattook a lot of cues fromGrand Theft Auto.
Instead of covering the events of the movie, the game opts for a what-if scenario where Tony Montana survives the climactic raid on his mansion in the film. He still loses the empire he built up throughout the original story and is forced to start from square one.
This time, though, he is aware of the tragic faults that caused his downfall. It takes place in Miami and feels a lot likeVice City, but that can hardly be considered a bad thing. The game uses Al Pacino’s likeness for Tony Montana, but another actor plays the iconic character.
It might be hard to consider somebody as ruthless as Tony Montana an underdog, but he at least refuses to kill innocent women and children. This principle is reflected in the gameplay.
Starting Cyberpunk 2077, the protagonist V and their best friend Jackie dream big, wishing to be in the major leagues of mercs in Night City. Yet, several hours intoCyberpunk 2077’sstory, V and Jackie are chewed up, and only V survives, albeit with a ticking time bomb in his head with the personality construct offamed rocker boy terrorist, Johnny Silverhand, constantly causing him grief and potential friendship.
Silverhand is slowly taking over V’s consciousness and removing the chip will kill them outright. This puts a huge damper on the hero’s plan to make a name for themselves in Night City’s criminal underworld. Despite the time limit on V’s condition, it won’t stop them from earning street cred throughout Night City to be recognized as a great merc among the many fixers to earn more eurodollars and save their own skin.
Depending on which ending players get, they can finish the story out on top of the world with a villa in Night City planning a big heist.V could still die any day, but they are a Night City legend. Besides, having almost no choice but to live every day like it’s their last is its own silver lining.
Bethesda’sevolution ofFalloutwithFallout 4has a couple of endings that make it a fit for this list. The protagonist does not start the game looking for power and status, as they just want to find their son, Shaun, in a world that has moved on from what they knew.
Once the truth is revealed that their son is an elderly man who heads the technologically advanced Institute, the player can make one of several choices. They can succeed their child, taking charge of technology and weapons well ahead of anything in the wasteland.
Regardless of which ending one chooses, at least one faction will be destroyed. For those who really want to feel powerful,all the factions can be laid to wasteexcept for the Minutemen, and this shows that the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 can become a true powerhouse in the wasteland by controlling a faction of their own.
The video game adaptation of the classic 1972 film starts with the main character witnessing their father’s death as a child. When he grows up, he starts working for the Corleone family, completing missions that follow the events of the film. Beating the story makes players an underboss.
Reach 100% completion and the player becomes the Don of New York City.Players create the protagonist, but they are always named Aldo and they have to be male. The title is an open-world adventure, so completing every side quest and finding every collectible is no small task.
TheSaints Rowseries ends up in such a bombastic place, that it is easy to forget it all started with a street-level conflict. The main character starts off as a nobody who ends up associated with the titular 3rd Street Saints after being narrowly saved by them.
Though they are a gang, the Saints in the first game are actually working to decrease street violence in video games which means taking over all the rival gangs to end up on top. The game ends with the player in the middle of a huge yacht explosion, leading into the sequel where they have to rise through the criminal underworld again.
