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Curated playlist

Male characters in video games

  • Birdie (Street Fighter)4 minBirdie first appeared in the original Street Fighter game released in 1987 as a non-playable opponent. He stood among multiple enemies that Ryu or Ken Masters had to defeat during their journey. The character remained unused in any…
  • Revolver Ocelot6 minRecurring character in Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear video game series published by Konami
  • Liquid Snake7 minFictional character from the Metal Gear franchise
  • Alex (Street Fighter)9 minAlex, the primary protagonist of Street Fighter III: New Generation, arrived on the scene looking like nobody who had come before him in the franchise. Long blonde hair, face paint stretching from his eyes downward, green overalls, and a…
  • Solid Snake10 minFictional character from the Metal Gear series
  • Captain Sawada6 minCaptain Sawada was not supposed to exist. In 1994, when the Street Fighter film went into production, a Japanese martial artist named Kenya Sawada had already been lined up to play Ryu, one of the franchise's most iconic fighters. Capcom…
  • Akuma (Street Fighter)11 minAkuma, known in Japan as Gouki, is a fictional character from Capcom's Street Fighter series who first appeared not through an announcement or a trailer, but as a secret. Players who met the right conditions in Super Street Fighter II…
  • Gill (Street Fighter)7 minGill, the final boss of the Street Fighter III series, is a character built around an unusual contradiction. He wants to conquer the world, yet his designers never wanted him to feel like a villain. He wears almost nothing, stands nearly…
  • Oro (Street Fighter)7 minOro is a fictional fighter in the Street Fighter series by Capcom, and he may be the strangest character ever designed for a competitive fighting game. He stands 161 cm tall, with yellow skin, solid red eyes, and a bald head trailing a few…
  • James Sunderland (Silent Hill)5 minJames Sunderland stands in the rain of Silent Hill, Maine. He wears an army jacket over a gray polo shirt and blue jeans. His blonde hair is damp from the storm that has been falling since he arrived. At twenty-nine years old, James was…
  • Dhalsim9 minDhalsim arrived in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in 1991 wearing a garland of human skulls. He was gaunt and fought in a style no video game character had attempted before. His arms and legs could stretch the length of the arena to…
  • Dante (Devil May Cry)10 minDante, the silver-haired, red-coated demon hunter at the center of Capcom's Devil May Cry series, was almost something else entirely. He was nearly a Western policeman. His early name was Tony Redgrave, a nod to the Resident Evil character…
  • Zangief11 minZangief is a fictional character in Capcom's Street Fighter series. His final size traces to four words from producer Akira Nishitani: "Please make him much bigger." Before that moment, the design team worried he would be rejected for…
  • Big Boss (Metal Gear)9 minFictional character from the Metal Gear series
  • Balrog (Street Fighter)5 minBalrog made his first appearance in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in 1991, throwing punches for a criminal organization called Shadaloo. In Japan, the same character goes by an entirely different name: M. Bison, with the M standing…
  • Ryu (Street Fighter)17 minRyu, the protagonist of Capcom's Street Fighter series, has been the subject of an unusual piece of research. A 2019 study calculated that he would need to move at nearly 70 miles per hour, about 110 kilometers per hour, to actually pull…
  • Sean Matsuda3 minToshi Sadamoto stood before a deadline that threatened to derail Capcom's Street Fighter III: New Generation. The team had run out of time to finish the character Hugo during development in 1997. They needed an empty slot filled…
  • Pyramid Head11 minPyramid Head first appeared in Silent Hill 2, released in 2001, and the gaming world had never encountered anything quite like him. He does not speak. He has no visible face. He drags a weapon so heavy it gouges the floor as he walks. And…
  • Seth (Street Fighter)7 minSeth, the chief executive officer of the Shadaloo Intimidation Network, is one of video gaming's most contradictory villains. He rules a weapons division built on stolen power. A device called the Tanden Engine sits embedded in his…
  • Vega (Street Fighter)8 minVega arrived in Street Fighter II in 1991, unlike any fighter the game had seen before. He was a Spaniard fighting in a style that merged Japanese ninjutsu with Spanish bullfighting, and "Spanish Ninja" was the nickname that stuck. Players…
  • Guile (Street Fighter)15 minGuile has Shadaloo's dictator, M. Bison, by the throat in the ending of the original Street Fighter II. He reminds Bison exactly who he murdered, ready to finish him for good. Then his wife's voice and his daughter's presence stop him from…
  • Ken Masters17 minKen Masters had already spent years fighting in Capcom's Street Fighter series when a single defensive read turned him into a legend beyond the arcade. At a tournament, with 26 seconds left on the clock, Daigo Umehara's Ken blocked and…
  • Mega Man (character)10 minMega Man is a blue robot with an arm cannon who has been battling the same mad scientist, Dr. Wily, since 1987, and somehow the world never gets tired of watching him do it. He was created by Akira Kitamura for Capcom's first game in the…
  • Cloud Strife11 minCloud Strife first appears on screen as a mercenary blowing up a power plant for money. He is cold, aloof, and utterly uninterested in the cause he is nominally fighting for. Yet the 1997 role-playing game Final Fantasy VII asks the player…
  • Psycho Mantis10 minFictional character from Metal Gear Solid
  • Dee Jay8 minDee Jay made his first appearance in 1993, bursting onto screens in Super Street Fighter II as one of just four new fighters added to the roster. He was a Jamaican kickboxer and breakdancer with a grin on his face and a music career he was…
  • F.A.N.G. (Street Fighter)9 minF.A.N.G entered the Street Fighter series in 2016 with an obsession he wore openly: the number 2. His introduction cutscene had him promising to defeat his opponent in exactly two minutes. He proclaimed himself the second most important…
  • Sagat (Street Fighter)7 minSagat towers over every other fighter in the original Street Fighter at 226 centimeters tall, bald, scarred, and wearing a black eyepatch. When the game launched in 1987, he stood alone at the end as the sole boss fight, a final wall for…
  • Sodom (Final Fight)6 minSodom is a fictional character from Capcom's Final Fight and Street Fighter series, and he may be the most self-defeating figure in all of fighting game history. He dresses in a samurai kabuto, tabi, geta, and blue jeans. He wields ancient…

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