HOW TO WRITE A VILLAIN.

Introduction
I'm going to try and teach you several pointers on how a villain should be written.
Please note that some of the things I'll be saying can be concidered an opinion. But it's
an opinion that seems to be shared with most people and therefor I put them in.

Goals
Every character in a game should have a goal. This is no different for a villain. A villain doesn't spend his time laughing on his throne of darkness, that wouldn't make him a threat. The villain wants to achieve something. For example, is it his goal to destroy the world, a person or achieve a higher state of being? These are goals that are repeated often and although they aren't bad, they are concidered cliché. Therefor I'dd suggest inventing a different goal. Just remember that behind each goal there is a motivation.

Motivation
There is a reason he wants to reach this goal. Something in the past or present that pushes him out in the world and makes him actually threatening. Does the town our hero lives in has something that was stolen from the villain? Does he want to destroy the hero because his father killed his wife?

One thing that you must always remember is that a motivation is personal. This goes both ways. A hero's motivation can be personal too. Why would someone bother destroying the Lord of Darkness if he never has done anything to threaten him? If the hero doesn't feel the evil of the villain, why would he go on a life threatening quest to destroy him?

Power
More often then not, villains are extremely powerful. Kings, Emperors, Gods, Immortal Beings, Wizards. But in fact a villain can perfectly be a general. If our lord of Darkness sends out a general to destroy a village. The villagers will see the General as a closer villain then the big bad emperor.Not all villains need immense power. Chances are the higher the vilains power, the less personal the battle with the hero is.

Personality
To quote the Dark Knight: "Some people just want see the world burn". That is a correct quote, some people are just evil for the sake of it. However, this is more the exception then the rule. It is perfectly possible that a villain is good. In his own morals and ideas he might think he's helping everyone he hurts. Or that there is a greater good that needs to be done. Always remember that if a villain is extremely hateable, he's very unhuman and inhumanity isn't easy to write. You would need a reason for his inhumanity and show the slow path from being human to being inhuman.

Therefor a villain can act perfectly human. Don't be affraid to give him some charm, some wit, some friends, a loving wife, a loving family. Those make him 3D instead of 2D those things make him feel like a human being. And the scariest villains are those that are human. I think the player has to be able to relate to a villain, to understand him but also understand that he is a threat.

A villains motivations can be very similar to those of a hero. In fact what seems to be a hero can turn into a villain of he chooses to find his goal in the path of darkness then that of light. There is a very thin line between the two of them.

Some hints
1. Start every character the same way, don’t even think about him being a villain, give him a good and a bad side, a background, a name,…
2. Don’t start with creating your villain or your hero. Start with creating characters and settings and backgrounds and eventually it’ll become clear which one of these characters will be the villain and which one will be the hero.
3. Don’t avoid clichés, use them. Clichés aren’t always a bad thing, avoiding them is. Clichés are used and used and used, for a reason, they work! But don’t use them in the regular sense. A villain might be a Lord of Darkness but for a reason, he can be the heroes long lost father or twin brother. But ONLY if it fits the plot.
4. Make your hero a challenge. Don’t make him stupid, or foolish. What use is a villain if the hero knows his every single move. Heroes and Villains should be equals or I would go as far as to say that the villain should have the upper hand for most of the story.
5. Continuing on #4, don’t make him too big of a challenge, someone who is extremely powerful that he can destroy the world with a snap of his fingers isn’t going to work. You always need to give the player the feeling that they can beat the game.
6. Villains come in all sizes and shapes, don’t create one villain, create several, with several personalities and several goals. Ranging from the evil henchman who wants to take the throne from his evil overlord to the trustworthy General who follows every order to the prisoner going after the hero because the villain has captured his son. Don’t over create villains but understand that if a villain works with his allies, they might have different motivators.