Naughty Dog is a gaming company that has created some of the most famous games of the last two decades. From starting out with a variety of attempts to create franchises in their early years, Naughty Dog found major success with Crash Bandicoot and eventually moved on to more adult-themed titles.
More recently developing the Uncharted series and The Last of Us, which have both been snatched up by Hollywood, Naughty Dog is now a huge brand that is greatly respected in the gaming community. Much of their success relies upon amazing character work, both in terms of heroes and villains.
7 Dingodile (Crash Bandicoot)
Dingodile is one of the strange amalgamations of different animals in the Crash Bandicoot series. He became a fan favorite, even eventually becoming a playable character in later installments. While he has a strange relationship with good and evil, he has definitely been on the villainous side more often over his career in the franchise.
Starting out in Crash Bandicoot: Warped as a villain sent by Doctor Cortex, Dingodile proved himself to be fair in admitting defeat when beaten by Crash. He later appeared in Crash Team Racing, Crash Bash, and The Wrath of Cortex. Since his first appearance, Dingodile has become one of the more recognizable villains in the Crash series, and across all Naughty Dog properties.
6 Zoran Lazarevic (Uncharted 2)
The Uncharted games are indicative of some of Naughty Dog’s very best storytelling and character creation work. Uncharted 2 is no exception and contains one of the very best villains in the franchise or Naughty Dog history in Zoran Lazarevic.
Zoran was in charge of a group of Serbian mercenaries and was after the location of Shambala, so he could become all-powerful using the Cintamani Stone, one of the most powerful relics in gaming. When he gets this, Nathan Drake is only just able to defeat him, as Lazarevic becomes almost invincible. Though he is defeated, Zoran left behind a wide array of destruction, chaos, and bodies in his rampage. This easily marks him as one of the more dangerous characters in Naughty Dog history.
5 Kor (Jak 2)
Without a new game having been released in some time in the franchise, Jak & Daxter has fallen from the minds of many gamers. But PlayStation 2 aficionados will remember at least Jak II for the supreme difficulty involved in trying to beat it, marking this as one of the most brutal PS2 games ever to exist.
Not only that, but this entry in the franchise took on a darker tone from the first game. Kor, a seemingly simple old man, was the main antagonist of this darker game. Working in the shadows, he pulled the strings to try and defeat Praxis, which he eventually does before being taken down by Jak and Daxter. A brutally dark story for its time in gaming, Jak II had a surprisingly great villain.
4 David (The Last Of Us)
The Last Of Us is a brutal game turned into an equally brutal, surprisingly well-adapted show. But there was no real focus on an individual villain. This makes it surprising how memorable the short turn of David was in the incredible, game-changing game.
David was the leader of a survivor group who came into conflict with Joel and Ellie due to Joel killing some of his men. When he tried to convince Ellie to join his group, she discovered they were cannibals and had to traumatically fight him off and murder him with a machete. A turning point for Ellie, David remains a hugely memorable villain and his TV self was also a brutally villainous character.
3 Dr. Cortex (Crash Bandicoot)
The Sonic franchise wouldn’t be what it is without Eggman, the Mario franchise would be about plumbing if not for Bowser, and Crash Bandicoot would be a simple animal without Dr. Cortex. Starting the first game by evolving Crash, so he could be the general of Cortex’s intelligent animal army, the two soon became enemies for life as Cortex added brutal difficulty to the early Crash Bandicoot games.
Cortex is a typical mad scientist genius villain. Cocky and brash, he often seeks to end Crash by using his various designs and schemes to counter Bandicoot’s brute strength. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t often work out. Nevertheless, Cortex has become one of the more recognizable villains in gaming history.
2 Rafe Adler (Uncharted 4)
The Uncharted franchise has told some amazing stories which don’t always need a great villain, but the fourth entry had one in Rafe Adler. A former associate of Nathan Drake and his brother Sam, Rafe was shown to always be impulsive. He even killed a man in the prologue, which led to Sam spending the next fifteen years in jail.
Rafe later tries to kill Nathan when they come into conflict, both looking for Libertalia. Rafe nearly killed Nathan and Sam at various points over the game, proving himself to be the best Uncharted franchise villain and one of the very best Naughty Dog has ever created. Uncharted is also known for producing some of the best games for every console it touches.
1 Abby (The Last Of Us Part 2)
By the end of The Last Of Us Part II, the player has played as Abby and this makes it difficult to mark her solely as a villain. Seeing her nuanced history muddies the waters of a character that players had already watched murdering Joel. However, whether her story and Ellie’s are similar or not, Abby has to count as a villain.
The Last Of Us Part II players existed with Joel as the leading character of the whole first game, and she brutally beat him to death. It doesn’t matter that Joel had killed Abby’s father to save Ellie previously, she is a villain in the eyes of most Last of Us players, and with the nuance of her story, she may be one of the best villains in gaming history.