Best Video Game Protagonists

The Top Ten
1 John Marston John Marston is a central character and the main protagonist of Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare. He is portrayed by Rob Wiethoff.

John Marston is just a relatable guy. He's not even a good guy by normal standards. He has a not-so-great past, but he's trying to rid himself of it and just have a solid, safe future did his family. Marston is malleable to the player, but still has his own character. The player truly feels connected to him, and his undeserved betrayal and death immortalized him in gamer's minds as the best video game character of all time. He is truly the only fictional character whose death crushed me

One of the best video game protagonists ever. John Marston is a very complex character. His flaws and past crimes make him seem like a real person, and his redemption quest is one of the most touching stories in video game history.

Best video game protagonist ever!

2 Niko Bellic Niko Bellic is a fictional character and the playable protagonist of Rockstar North's 2008 video game Grand Theft Auto IV, also featuring as a supporting character in its episodic content The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, all of which are published by Rockstar Games.

He is great because of the realism.

He is awesome

3 Altair Ibn La'Ahad
4 Master Chief Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, more commonly known as the Master Chief, is a SPARTAN-II commando of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command. He is the protagonist and main character in both the Halo trilogy and Reclaimer Saga.

His leadership impress all of UNSC Rank, even Fleet Admiral Hood was impressed by his progress during Human Covenant war. Even he's not the strongest SPARTAN, he was acknowledged by all SPARTAN as leader of SPARTAN's because of his natural leadership. Even the SPARTAN who ranks above him will gladly following his order because of John-117's great leadership.

Because of what he stands for; freedom, and survival. He is a very strong character, yet is kind to other soldiers and sometimes puts their safety ahead of his own showing that even though he is a tough soldier, he is also a caring commander. This is why I believe he should forever be in the top 3 best protagonists of all time.

Master Chief is so epic and awesome. He's the reason why the halo franchise was so popular.

I don't know why he's so awesome, maybe it's the way he speaks, maybe its he's fighting skills, maybe it's because he can jump so high, I don't know. All I know is that he is the coolest protagonist ever.

FINALLY! A list where halo is not underrated! I am so glad Mario is not top top ten!

5 Kratos Kratos is a fictional character and the titular primary protagonist and anti-hero of the God of War video game series. He is a demi-god who seeks retribution and vengeance on Ares and later, the Greek Gods after he was betrayed and was forced to kill his family .

Kratos is súper bad@ss. Sure, he has a bad temper and such but leave the fight to Kratos and some other video game protagonist who thinks they're cool and you'll see who will win.

6 Ezio Auditore da Firenze

I like ezio better than altair and that is because of his person he was more calm

7 Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2) Arthur Morgan is the central character and main protagonist of Red Dead Redemption 2. He is portrayed by Roger Clark.

Why the hell is Arthur only at number 15?! This character is one of the best protagonists in gaming history. Yes, he's surprisingly better than John. This guy should be at least in the top 5.

The way you can connect to Arthur in RDR2 is just... incredible... best video game character in my opinion

I didn't think John Marston could be topped. I was wrong.

Playing as Arthur made Red Dead 2 as great as it was

8 Alex Mason

My favorite protagonist and antagonist of all time. I like his suit up and arrogance in Prototype 2. Definitely, he is the one that stands out from the others.

9 Solid Snake Solid Snake is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of the video game series Metal Gear by Hideo Kojima. He is a legendary soldier cloned from Big Boss's DNA, who is sent to infiltrate and investigate the titular weapons in an effort to stop a potential war.

Solid Snake is one of the greatest protagonists. He starts off as a rookie with great potential, to a hero then a terrorist, and finally this aged legend. His voice, his stoic yet good natured personality and the chemistry he shares with others always puts a smile to my face.

I don't think you can define a better hero in any game. As mislead and misguided as he is within the entire series, Snake always finds a way to do what he believes is best for the rest of mankind, as opposed to his own welfare. A true hero at heart, with unbelievable abilities

Snake defines awesomeness. Being included in Brawl was awesome, and if he's not included in ssb4, I might not even get it. The only way snake could be more epic is... Wait, he can't even get anymore epic.

Snake get up, stop messing around. Snake? Snake? SNAKE?!

10 Gordon Freeman Dr. Gordon Freeman is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Half-Life video game series, created by Gabe Newell and designed by Newell and Marc Laidlaw of Valve Corporation.

Boi he is free

The Contenders
11 Max Payne
12 Nathan Drake
13 Link Link refers to several different incarnations of the same protagonist of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series.
14 Commander Shepard Commander Shepard is the player character in BioWare's Mass Effect game series: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3.
15 Duke Nukem
16 Vito Scaletta
17 Zidane Tribal Zidane Tribal is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy IX, a role-playing game developed by Square Enix.
18 Soap McTavish
19 Jodie Holmes
20 Maya Torres
21 Aiden Pearce
22 Snake (Metal Gear Series)
23 Shulk Shulk is a fictional character and the protagonist from Monolith Soft's 2010 role-playing video game Xenoblade Chronicles, part of their overarching Xeno series of video games.
24 Sean Devlin
25 Lucas
8Load More
PSearch List