5 most evil corporations in video games

Evil corporations make up the villains of so many games. These corporations usually aim to make loads of money and destroy the world. They typically have thousands of goons you must beat to get to their roots, making it extra fun and satisfying to take on these big-bad corporations and defeat them.

Many of these evil corporations often replicate real-life companies and add a hint of more evil, making them worthy video game villains.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer’s opinions.

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Resident Evil’s Umbrella Corp. and 4 other devious corporations from the world of video games

5) Abstergo Industries - Assassin’s Creed

Abstergo Industries Logo ( Image via Ubisoft)

Assassin’s Creed is one of the most iconic video-game franchises, featuring Abstergo Industries as the long-running villains. While a large part of the game doesn’t take place in the modern world, the parts that do heavily feature Abstergo Industries as an evil corporation.

Abstergo Industries is a modern-day shell for the Templars, who want to create a totalitarian regime. They use memory extraction technology to harvest people’s genetic memories and kill anyone who tries to get in their way. Abstergo is also secretly running the world in the Assasin’s Creed franchise and is one of the longest-running evil corporations on this list.

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4) Aperture Science Incorporated - Portal

Aperture Science is a research and development company in the Portal games and is famous for developing the Portal Gun. Aperture seems to have minimal regard for employee safety and has conducted many unethical experiments on sentient AI robots.

The evil corporation has also forcibly removed body parts from employees to augment them with cybernetic implants. GLaDOS, the main antagonist of the first game, is an example of the corporation’s evil nature. We also learn more about the owner of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson, in the second Portal game.

Cave Johnson showed no regard for human or sentient life and often conducted dangerous experiments on them, setting the trend for the evil corporation.

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3) Aesir Corporation - Max Payne

Aesir Office in Max Payne (Image via Rockstar Games)

The Aesir Corporation has been a significant antagonist throughout the Max Payne series and is an evil corporation fronting itself as a pharmaceutical company. The company is run by powerful and corrupt executives willing to do whatever it takes to maintain their power and wealth, including engaging in illegal activities and manipulating the media to cover up their crimes.

Aesir is also responsible for creating Valkyr, a highly addictive and dangerous substance that grants users increased strength and endurance but also caused hallucinations.

When a group of Valkyr addicts kills Max Payne’s family, he sets out to take revenge by taking down the evil corporation.

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2) Vault-Tec Corporation - Fallout

Vault-Tec logo (Image via Bethesda)

In the Fallout series, Vault-Tec Corporation is responsible for building vaults to serve as shelters for survivors of the nuclear apocalypse. However, the real intentions of the corporation are revealed to be evil, as these vaults are social experiments designed to test the limits of human behavior in extreme conditions.

Vault-Tec is among the evilest corporations, and the Fallout games often showcase it. Fallout 3, for example, is where we see that the residents of one vault are subjected to a white noise experiment that drives them all insane.

Vault-Tec is also portrayed as a deeply corrupt organization, with its executives and scientists often engaging in illegal activities. In Fallout 4, we encounter a Vault-Tec employee attempting to extort money from the residents of a vault in exchange for essential supplies.

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1) Umbrella Corporation - Resident Evil

Umbrella Corporation is undoubtedly one of the evilest corporations in gaming history. It is the central antagonist organization of the Resident Evil series, whose goal is to progress the evolution of humans. However, it created the T-virus, an antibody that turns humans into zombies.

There is a whole list of evil things Umbrella Corporation has done throughout the iconic game series, from creating bioweapons to creating Tyrant monsters and, of course, causing irreparable damage to human civilization by turning everyone into zombies.

Umbrella Corporation also stopped attempts to contain the zombie outbreak and is the definition of what you expect from evil corporations.