5 Best Action RPGs Where the Hero Becomes What They Were Fighting, Ranked

Let’s be honest. Fighting monsters is difficult enough without worrying about becoming one yourself. Unfortunately, some action RPG protagonists don’t really have a choice. Of course, becoming what you were previously fighting against doesn’t necessarily mean you should join the other side.

In fact, many protagonists continue hunting the creatures they’ve always hated. However, they usually have to carry the consequences of their transformations as well, which often makes everything way more difficult than it has to be. In one way or another, these action RPG heroes become what they hate.

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5

Blood Knights

The Vampire Hunter Gets a Taste of His Own Medicine

Although the protagonist in Blood Knights, Jeremy, ends up becoming a vampire, he begins his path as a legendary vampire hunter and captain of a holy order. In this universe, humans and vampires are at war, and his order is determined to protect the so-called Blood Seal, which the bloodsuckers want to steal. However, the war causes so many losses that Priest Bartholomew eventually binds Jeremy to a vampire named Alysa so they can fight together.

Things only get worse when Jeremy faces the vampiress Noor, who transforms him into a vampire during their fight. The vampires escape with the artifact and, as you may have already guessed, Jeremy’s former allies aren’t eager to welcome him back, with Castello even taking his place within the order.

Jeremy doesn’t take the vampires’ side; he keeps fighting them, while the supposedly righteous human faction becomes increasingly questionable. Ultimately, Jeremy opposes them, but his transformation remains unresolved, leaving him stuck for eternity as the very thing he fought against. To me, Blood Knights tells one of the best vampire RPG stories, even though it has been mostly forgotten by time.

4

Demon Skin

Stopping the Darkness Comes at a Price

The protagonist of Demon Skin starts out as a member of the Order of Wanderers. The members of the Order possess supernatural powers that help them resist the demonic forces spreading throughout the world, but one day, the Wanderer comes across a sinister ritual intended to restore a powerful artifact and attempts to interrupt it. Unfortunately, this causes the artifact to transform him into a demon, turning him into part of that same darkness he is fighting against. Way to ruin the protagonist’s life for doing what’s right, I guess.

However, just like Jeremy in Blood Knights, the Wanderer continues to fight the creatures he previously opposed. The artifact was stolen after the ritual, but he has to find and restore it to regain his original form. However, the longer the journey continues, the more visible his transformation becomes as he collects Crystal shards. Ironically, he’s fighting demons as he gradually starts looking more demonic himself, all while trying to reverse his transformation.

3

The Blood of Dawnwalker

Coen Finds Himself on Both Sides of the Conflict

In The Blood of Dawnwalker, Coen is an ordinary young man living in Vale Sangora in 1347. This is a region devastated by war and the Black Death. To make matters worse, vampires are also starting to emerge from hiding and seize political power. As their leader, Brencis, takes control of the valley, Coen himself is subjected to a vampiric transformation.

However, after years of working around silver, it turns out there’s enough of it in his body to interfere with the transformation. Instead of becoming a regular vampire, Coen becomes a Dawnwalker, meaning he turns into a vampire only at night. Coen has 30 days to save his family from Brencis, and he ends up using his new demonic form to fight against the very creatures responsible for his transformation. At night, he gains supernatural abilities, although this often leaves him with an immense hunger for blood.

This puts Coen right between the humans he wants to protect and the vampires oppressing them, creating an interesting inner conflict. To humans, his vampiric nature makes him a dangerous monster, while the vampires have no reason to accept someone who fights against them. What pains me the most every time I think about Coen’s story is just how lonely it must be for him. When you think about it, he is fighting to protect the people he loves, all the while his transformation is tearing him apart.

2

Vampyr

Saving Lives Gets Complicated When You’re Thirsty For Blood

In Vampyr, Jonathan is a doctor who has spent his entire life fighting death and disease. After his service during World War I, he returns to London, and just as he starts to think his life will go back to normal, he wakes up in a mass grave in 1918 and discovers that he has been transformed into a vampire. He quickly realizes how much this has changed him when his uncontrollable desire for blood pushes him to feed on his own sister, Mary, and he ends up killing her.

Soon, he finds himself working at Pembroke Hospital, which puts him in a position of conflict: trying to save the same people he now needs to kill in order to survive. The situation gets even worse when Jonathan encounters the Skals — dangerous vampires spreading through the city. As it turns out, a failed attempt to treat a patient with vampire blood is now creating a supernatural outbreak. This leaves Jonathan fighting vampires and other supernatural creatures despite being a vampire himself and trying to control his bloodlust.

Vampyr is one of the darkest games, in my opinion, with every part of its world showing the ugliest side of immortality.

1

Code Vein

Killing the Enemy Comes With an Unwanted Souvenir

Code Vein‘s protagonist is already a Revenant when the story begins; a human corpse revived using BOR Parasites that grant supernatural powers and allow them to come back to life after being killed, as long as their heart remains intact. However, all Revenants suffer from blood thirst and risk becoming monstrous creatures known as the Lost if they frenzy. To overcome these weaknesses, a Revenant named Cruz Silva becomes the subject of Project QUEEN.

The experiment goes terribly wrong, and Cruz becomes the Queen. She becomes extremely powerful, and the other Revenants eventually have to eliminate her as part of Operation Queenslayer. The protagonist is one of the Revenants who fights the Queen and ultimately kills her. However, they absorb some of her blood in the process and become the Successor of the Queen’s Blood, carrying one of the Relics connected to the enemy they just defeated.