9 games with completely crazy protagonists

The fascination with protagonists who challenge their own sanity is very old. By putting us in the place of someone whose mind oscillates between reason and delirium, these titles create intense, unpredictable and often deeply personal experiences.

Instead of classic heroes facing obvious villains, we enter the human psyche: we see the world through seriously shaken eyes and question what is real. Each of these titles, in their own way, puts you into the head of someone who is on the brink of mental abyss.

Whether by trauma, substances, mythology or scientific experiments, the protagonist’s madness is not just an excuse for scares: it is the narrative engine that makes us question how far the human mind can go.

Manhunt

Instead of a traditional hero, we played with James Earl Cash, a convicted criminal who is forced to participate in a sadistic game by a psychopathic filmmaker. Throughout history, James Earl Cash undergoes intense psychological pressure, deals with hallucinations, or at least with the constant feeling of being watched, and sees his sanity to be tested with each new level of extreme violence.

Manhunt, developed by Rockstar Games, is known for his heavy graphic violence and the questioning of the protagonist’s morality and sanity, which is increasingly involved in a world of horror, with all the worst happening.

Alice: Madness Returns

Following American McGee’s Alice (where we know Alice who returns to a corrupted wonders), in Madness return she faces even more fragments of her traumatized mind: distorted scenarios, whispering voices, and visceral enemies are direct manifestations of her trauma.

Alice is a young woman who was hospitalized in an asylum after the death of her family. Her world is a mix of reality and fantasy, where she fights her trauma in a distorted version of Wonderland. Alice’s insanity is central to the narrative.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice accompanies Senua, a Viking Celtic warrior who embarks on a journey to the heart of the Nordic world in search of the soul of his beloved Dillion. What immediately differentiates him from other adventures is the way he portrays sensitively and immersively the mental suffering of his protagonist.

From the beginning, we are introduced to a deeply marked senua by psychosis. Whispering voices, created with the assistance of people who actually live with mental health disorders, guide (and sometimes confuse) the player, echoing doubts and fears in each step.

Spec Ops: The Line

Immediately, Spec Ops: The Line seems to follow the formulas of war games, but soon reveals to be a deep study on the moral annihilation and psychological fragility of those who wield a weapon. Right away, we are introduced to Captain Martin Walker and his squad, sent to Dubai to investigate a mysterious sandstorm that isolated the city and left behind a trail of destruction.

As the story advances, Walker begins to lose the notion of reality, committing increasingly questionable acts. The game is a critique of the war and the psychological impact it has on the soldiers, showing how the pressure can lead to crazy.

Disco Elysium

In this research RPG, you control an amnesic detective whose mind is fragmented into different personalities, each representing a different aspect of your personality. Insanity is a central theme while you try to solve a mystery and understand who you really are.

What makes Disk Elysium so unique is the system of internal voices, skills that gain their own voice and personality, discussing, mocking or advising you with each choice. Thus, each dialogue becomes a psychological duel where you need to decide which part of yourself will lead.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

Eternal Darkness is a horror game that plays with the player’s sanity. The protagonist faces supernatural creatures and, as his sanity decreases, the game begins to distort reality, with effects that even affect the player’s environment, such as simulating a power outage or changing the camera.

Whenever we come across monsters or grotesque situations, the character’s sanity bar decreases. If she zero, we are victims of illusions to disorient the player: sound and video can fail, the inventory disappears, the game suddenly closes with the end screen.

Silent Hill 2

James comes to the dark city of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his wife Mary, allegedly killed three years ago, asking him to find him there, ”the thick fog, deserted streets and distant sirens suggest an abandoned city, but each corner reveals pieces of tortured memories and guilt -carried symbols.

As James explores environments eroded by oxide and decay, such as the LakeView Hotel and Brookhaven Hospital, it is forced to confront both physical monsters (grotesque creations that reflect their fears) and monsters within themselves.

Max Payne 3

The game follows Max Payne, a former police officer who fights against analgesic addiction and the loss of his family. His journey takes him to Sao Paulo, where he gets involved in a gang war, while his mind is consumed by pain and guilt.

Its growing dependence on alcohol and medicine serves to keep internal demons under control. Max Payne 3 also stands out for the Noir mood transported to a modern tropical scenario, the narrative with bitter narration and its cinematic combat (Bullet Time).

Alan Wake

You take on the role of the bestsellers writer Alan Wake, who suffers from creative blocking and travels with his wife Alice to the quiet city of Bright Falls, seeking inspiration and rest. But when he arrived, Alice mysteriously disappears, and Alan finds himself stuck in a living nightmare, whose contours he himself wrote… or is writing, without remembering.

At the heart of Alan Wake is the protagonist’s own psyche: a man used to weaves stories is protagonist of a horror script that seems to end more than his creative blockade, is a portrait of obsession, guilt and desperate struggle to recover his own sanity.