Top 10 Evil Female Video Game Bosses

Introduced as an NPC in 1996's "Diablo," Adria originally supplies adventurers with information and magical artifacts. So far, so good; however, Adria secretly pledges allegiance to Diablo and spends the subsequent twenty years preparing for the Lord of Terror's return, culminating in the witch sacrificing her own daughter as a vessel for the demon. Adria pretends to be searching for the Black Soulstone under the pretense of eliminating the seven Great Evils; in reality, the witch sought to birth the vilest demon imaginable. Along with seeking to plunge humanity into never-ending darkness, Adria willingly creates pure evil.

A flourishing kingdom, Hallownest succumbs to a mysterious infection that leaves countless dead and transforms the empire into a hellscape. And, the one responsible could not be happier! A god-like being responsible for conceiving the moth tribe, the Radiance strips her subjects of the ability to think for themselves. Incited by the arrival of the Pale King, the oppressed masses turn on their creator, prompting the furious Radiance to forcibly enslave the bugs and actively spread the infection destined to lead Hallownest to ruin. The Radiance would rather burn a thriving kingdom to ashes than let someone else rule.

Born out of a tiny fragment of Manus, Father of the Abyss – a boss from the first game's "Artorias of the Abyss" DLC – Nashandra only desires one thing: Power. Drangleic's misfortune can all be credited to Nashandra, who seduces King Vendrick into basically declaring war against the Giants, with the ensuing conflict leaving both kingdoms in tatters. Once the dust settled, Nashandra was the only one left to seize the throne. Nashandra is evil incarnate and spends the entirety of "Dark Souls II" secretly manipulating the playable character in order to allow the Monarch to claim the first flame.

Once upon a time, this colorful wasp was a fairly pleasant magic user, but the arrival of the Dimension Mirror changes everything. Sectonia spends a great deal of time gazing into the corrupted mirror and eventually goes insane. Obsessed with beauty and power, Sectonia seizes Floralia's throne and imprisons the nation's citizens to ensure nobody could possibly challenge the Queen's tyrannical rule. Along with treating everyone – including close friends – as tools to be used and discarded, Queen Sectonia fancies herself something of a goddess and has no qualms with sacrificing an entire planet to fund a personal bid for immortality.

A villain more than deserving of a good smack on the head with a shovel. During a mission to destroy a cursed amulet, Shield Knight falls victim to a malevolent spirit and transforms into The Enchantress, a sadistic witch who quickly creates an army and takes over the Valley. The Enchantress finds great pleasure in breaking the spirits of vulnerable heroes before driving them to commit heinous acts in the villain’s name. In the DLC prequel campaign “Specter of Torment”, The Enchantress busts a gut laughing while forcing Specter Knight to fight a deranged version of his former partner’s son. The Enchantress relishes the opportunity to spread misery across the globe.

Since RARE's collectathon never takes itself too seriously, the franchise's main antagonist primarily acts as a source of comedy. Along with spending most of the first game bombarding the player with infuriating rhymes, Gruntilda kidnaps Banjo’s younger sister with the intent of stealing her beauty just so she can be more attractive. "Banjo-Tooie" ups the villain's wickedness to a whole new level and even allows Gruntilda to kill a few characters. Now, to be fair, the witch stops rhyming in the sequel, so that sort of evens things out. "Banjo-Kazooie's" universe is so innocent and cheerful, Gruntilda's blatant wickedness stands out even more than usual.

No JRPG villain is complete unless – at one point or another – they aspire to become gods. An extremely potent sorceress fated to fall at the hands of a legendary mercenary, Ultimecia utterly despises mankind and needs no reason to massacre thousands of people. In order to save herself, the sorceress seeks to compress all of time and space, an act destined to leave everyone else an emotionless husk. Obviously, such a consequence only serves to further incentive Ultimecia. Along the way, the villain throws a civilization into disarray by publicly assassinating its president and turns the sweet Edea into a vicious puppet.

If movies and games taught us anything, it is that A.I. cannot be trusted. One day, Edward Diego hatches a brilliant plan to eliminate the ethical restraints of the program in command of Citadel Station located in Saturn’s orbit. Six months later, SHODAN has killed nearly everyone on the space station and plans to take a trip to Earth to exterminate humanity for good. The AI's visual design is genuinely intimidating, but what separates SHODAN from so many evil antagonists is the lack of a motive behind the program's actions. SHODAN believes mankind to be inferior and sees no issue with squashing people like bugs; in fact, exterminating humanity is SHODAN’s right.

And here we have yet another A.I. gone rogue, only this one was organically grown as a giant brain. Her origins remain a mystery but she seems to have deep connections with the extinct Chozo race as well as the Galactic Federation’s own organic supercomputers known as Aurora Units. Designed to bring order to the cosmos, Mother Brain reinterpreted this directive as a justification to whip out and recreate the known universe. Worse yet though is that since she’s organic, when she needs an upgrade, she can grow herself a gigantic body to carry out her goal.

Ok who keeps building all these deadly female A.I. units? While Mother Brain sought galactic genocide and Shodan aspired to become a god. "Portal's" cynical AI only wishes to run some tests. Intended to oversee a research center, GLaDOS celebrates her first day on the job by releasing a deadly neurotoxin, killing nearly everyone in the facility. Throughout the first game and parts of the second, GLaDOS forces "Portal's" silent protagonist through a number of deadly experiments, while typically making snide comments about Chell's weight or status as an orphan. An expert in psychological torture, GLaDOS exists solely to torment her victims in the name of science and could not care less whether someone lives or dies an excruciating death.