For a war that affected nearly every country in the world, only a few nations seem to get mentioned when we talk about World War II. Germany, England, Russia, Japan, and the United States are sure to come up, but many more countries get left out. The other nations of the world were involved, though—and we forget that some of those places did a lot more than you might realize.

10 Australia Fired The First Allied Shot

On September 4, 1939, the morning after Great Britain declared war on Germany, a boat passed by a fort at Point Nepean. The fort’s personnel called for it identify itself, and when it refused, they became panicked that it might be a German ship, bringing the war to Australia. The fort launched a warning shot across the bow of the ship, sending what some consider to be the first Allied shot of World War II.

The shot itself isn’t that remarkable. The ship turned out to be Australian after all, so it wasn’t even against an enemy ship. The gun battery, however, is. By sheer coincidence, the very same battery also fired the first Allied shot of World War I.

The Australians would fire many more. By the end of the war, 27,000 Australian soldiers had given their lives.

9 Canada Built The Third-Largest Navy On Earth

At the beginning of World War II, Canada was not a major military force. Despite its large size, it had a population of only 11 million and was armed with a navy of only 15 ships and an air force of 235 pilots.

When Germany invaded Poland, though, the Canadians started getting ready. In ten days, Canada invested $20,000,000 into building up its armory—and they started building. They trained nearly 50,000 pilots and built 800,000 trucks, 471 naval ships, and 16,000 aircraft. And they sent 730,000 men off to fight.

They were the biggest contributors to the British air training plan and gained a worldwide reputation for their air force. Most amazingly of all, by the end of the war, Canada had the third-largest navy on the planet.

8 India Had the World’s Largest Volunteer Army

When India called on its people to fight, they signed up. An incredible 2.5 million Indian men volunteered to fight in World War II, forming the largest volunteer army in the world. Not every one of them ended up on the front lines. Some worked in factories or defended the country against air raids.

Those who did, though, made a massive difference. One group called The Fourteenth Army, a mixed force of British, Indian, and African soldiers, recaptured Burma. It was a turning point in the war, and by the end, 30 Indian soldiers had earned the Victoria Cross, the highest British medal of honor.

7 Malays Fought England’s Last Stand In Asia

In 1942, the Japanese advanced on Singapore, a major strategic point for the British army. England’s military base there was their access point to Asia, and without it, they would be at a major disadvantage. England’s last stand, though, wasn’t fought by British soldiers; it was fought by Malays. A man named Adnan Saidi and his unit held the ground at Opium Hill, determined to hold against the Japanese to the last man.

At one point, a troop with turbans on their heads dressed in British-Indian uniforms came toward them. At first, they seemed to be a relief army from India, but Saidi noticed something was off. These men marched in lines of four, while the British usually marched in lines of three. They were Japanese soldiers in disguise. Saidi’s men opened fire, and the assault was stopped.

After that, the Japanese got frustrated and launched an all-out attack. Still, Saidi and his men stayed and fought, shooting until the last bullet was fired—and fighting with bayonets after that.

All but one man died. The Japanese overran the place, and Britain lost its key base in Asia. But the Malays, at least, gave them a fight.

6 Switzerland Wasn’t Entirely Neutral

The Swiss didn’t just sit there and let World War II happen. Officially, they were neutral, but they still played a role. They didn’t want the war coming across their borders, and they defended their airspace.

At one point, this meant shooting down 11 German planes that entered Swiss airspace en route to France. The Germans were furious. They demanded an apology and threatened to retaliate. The Swiss, though, threw the blame right back at them and demanded that they stop flying over their land.

When the Allies started fighting back, Switzerland wasn’t always left alone. Some of the bombings meant for Germany landed on them, including a US bombing that killed 100 people. The Americans insisted that it was an accident, although the Swiss weren’t so sure.

By the end, the Americans had blasted Switzerland with enough of an onslaught that they had to pay more than $14 million in damages.

5 Kenya Fought Against Both Italy And Japan

Nearly 100,000 Kenyans signed up to fight in the King’s African Rifles. They were, by far, the biggest part of Britain’s African army, making up one-third of its soldiers, and they played a big role in the war in Africa. The Kenyans defended their land against an Italian invasion and helped the King’s African Rifles fight—and stop—the Italian invasion across East Africa. After that, they went on to Madagascar and Burma.

The Kenyans struggled with racism throughout the war. African soldiers were paid less than white ones and could never be promoted to a commanding rank. Still, they found some ways to take advantage of the stereotypes against them. One soldier told a writer that, to terrify Japanese soldiers, the Kenyans would pretend they were cannibals getting ready for a taste of Japanese.

4 Poland Broke Enigma First

Alan Turing gets all the credit, but he was actually the second person to crack Germany’s enigma code. The first was Marian Rejewski, a Polish cryptographer.

As early as 1932, Poland had started work to crack German’s complex enigma code. Working with documents stolen by French spies, a Polish team struggled to duplicate the enigma machine—and it worked. Rejewski managed to solve the cypher and made the first duplicates of the enigma machine.

Unfortunately, the Germans realized that their code had been cracked and increased the complexity tenfold. The Poles were stuck, and in 1939, realizing that an invasion was imminent, they sent all their work to England for the British to carry it on and braced for the worst.

That work made it to Alan Turing, who built on it to crack the more complex code, but he never would have done it without the work of Marian Rejewski.

3 Finland Held Off An Invasion Of One Million Russians

In 1939, Finland entered World War II. The Soviet Union had been trying to barter a trade, wanting control of several Finnish islands, but when Finland refused, they moved their troops in.

The Soviet army was massive. There were one million troops marching on Finland, leaving them outnumbered three to one. Finland called for help from Britain and France, but none came, so they had to fight the Soviets themselves.

Finland lost—but they dealt a major blow to the USSR in the process, killing 320,000 Soviet soldiers. Finland only suffered 70,000 casualties. The Finnish had to give up some of their land, but they shot a major hole in the Soviet army.

2 Almost Every Soldier From One Armenian Town Earned A Medal

In Armenia, a small mountain village called Chardakhlu played an incredible role in World War II. Of the 1,250 villagers who were enlisted to fight in the Soviet army, 853 were awarded medals, 12 went on to be generals, and seven became heroes of the Soviet Union.

Two men from the little town made it to the highest echelons of the Soviet army. Hamazasp Babadzhanian became the chief marshal of the armored troops of the Soviet, while Ivan Bagramyan became the marshal of the Soviet Union.

By the end of the war, the little town had some of the most decorated fighters in the country. Nearly every man came home with medals on his chest—or didn’t come home at all.

1 Russia Killed Eight Out Of Ten German Soldiers

Admittedly, Russia isn’t exactly an overlooked country in World War II. It’s well-known that Russia played a major role in the war, but most people don’t realize how massive that role was.

We’ve heard a lot of boasts about the United States turning the tides of the war, but the credit really should go to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was responsible for 80 percent of all German casualties. And the USSR came into the war late. If we start counting from 1941, the Soviets are responsible for 95 percent of all German casualties.

A lot of this happened during the Battle of Stalingrad, where Russian soldiers wiped out 20,000 German men each day. Russia’s army was more than big; it had its fair share of talent, too. Nine out of ten of World War II’s deadliest snipers were from the USSR.

The Soviet Union didn’t just play a role in the battle against the Germans—they completely devastated them.

Ever wondered whether Japanese Samurai could beat Spanish Conquistadors? Or if the Roman Legion could fight an ancient Chinese army, or if an army of War Elephants would stand a chance against modern artillery?

Some of those “who would win” battles that we love to wonder about do not have to be imagined—they have played out in real life. Scattered throughout history, there are moments when fighters and armies that no one would ever have expected to meet, stared each other down across a battlefield. And only one side walked out alive.

10Japanese Samurai vs. Spanish Conquistadors

In 1582, a group of Spanish Conquistadors found themselves face to face with a band of armored, katana-wielding Ronin Samurai.

The Spaniards had been trading in the Philippines when Japanese pirates started raiding the countryside. Determined to protect their trade partners, 40 Spanish men moved out against the Japanese pirates. They spotted an incoming ship, engaged it in battle, and boarded the ship —and there, they found a group of Samurai waiting for them.

The Samurai wielded katanas, backed by Japanese pirates carrying muskets. The Conquistadors had pikemen, backed by Spanish Musketeers. For the first time in history, European pikes clashed with Japanese steel.

Winner: Decisive Spanish Victory

The Samurai did not stand a chance. The Conquistadors had stronger armor that they could not penetrate, and the Musketeers backing them up were better shots, with more reliable weapons. Not only did they beat the Samurai, but the 40 men went on to fight off a fleet of ten Japanese ships commanding thousands of men.

When it ended, the Spanish leader, Juan Pablo de Carrion, threatened to bring over 600 more men if the Japanese did not leave the Filipinos alone. The Japanese, without firing another shot, ran for their lives and stayed as far away from the Philippines as they could.

9War Elephants vs. Artillery

In 1825, a desperate Burmese commander, struggling against the encroach of the British Empire, sent out his best hope against the British artillery: an army of war elephants.

The Burmese commander, Maha Bandula, had just managed to repel a British attack against his base in Danubyu. He had won a rare chance to turn the tide in a war against an army with superior technology, and he took it. Bandula launched a counter-attack, led by his best soldiers, his cavalry, and 17 battle-trained elephants.

In ancient times, it would have been an unstoppable force—but now they were fighting against an army with guns and artillery, in an ultimate battle of the old world against the new.

Winner: Decisive Artillery Victory

The war elephants did not even make it to the enemy lines. As soon as they came close, the Burmese forces were blown away by a hail of rockets and shells. The elephants died before they could do any damage at all, and the cavalry could not even make it into range.

After the battle, the British attacked again and, this time, Bandula and his men had to evacuate. The Burmese fought as hard and as long as they could, but war elephants were simply no match for British artillery.

8Viking Raiders vs. Native American Warriors

When the first Vikings landed in the New World, in the tenth century A.D., they came face-to-face with a native tribe. It did not go well. The two sides scuffled and argued and, in short time, the world saw all-out battles between Vikings and Native Americans.

Thorvald, the son of Erik the Red, got into fights with the locals in Newfoundland, who were likely Inuit. One argument went sour, and Thorvald ended up kidnapping and killing eight people. After that, the Vikings were clear enemies—and Native Americans became determined to chase them off.

Winner: Eventual Native American Victory

One-on-one, a Native American Warrior probably would have lost to a Viking, but they were a bit smarter about it. They chased away Thorvald by taking a hide-covered boat down a fjord, launching a volley of arrows at the Vikings, and then paddling away before they could strike back. The Vikings tried to take cover, but one of the arrows got Thorvald and killed him.

After Thorvald died, the Native Americans managed to chase away the Vikings altogether. They built a catapult and put a Viking town under siege, killing two of the Vikings within and chasing the rest away. Under the threat of constant harassment from Native Americans, the Vikings, in time, gave up and left the New World behind.

7Shaolin Monks vs. Pirates

In 1550, a motley crew of Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese pirates, using Western weapons, found themselves against an unlikely opponent. A group of Shaolin Warrior Monks had stepped down from their monastery—and they were ready to pit their Kung Fu against the pirate’s guns.

The pirates had been ravaging the Ming kingdom for years and, desperate, the Emperor called on a 1000-year-old Shaolin Monastery for help. The monks there were unparalleled masters of Kung-Fu, but they usually fought with staffs, while the pirates had advanced Portuguese guns and cannons. It was a battle of training against technology—whether sheer devotion to martial arts could overpower European weapons.

Winner: Decisive Shaolin Monk Victory

The monks fought the pirates in four battles and won three of them—but the best example is the Battle of Wengjiangag. There, 120 monks faced against 120 pirates—and the monks slaughtered their enemies. The pirates only managed to kill four monks before they were run down and massacred. Nearly every single one of the 120 pirates died, often beaten to death with iron staffs.

6Tiger vs. Lion

The ultimate battle for the King of the Jungle has been fought more than once. In nature, tigers and lions will usually leave each other alone—but pitted before an audience, that can change. Both the Romans and the Indians have had the big cats of the jungle fight before the eyes of a roaring crowd.

The Romans did it first, in the first century A.D., and the Indians copied them in the 19th century. In India, the fight was arranged by the Gaekwad of Baroda, who was so sure that the lion would win that he put down a 37,000 rupee bet.

Winner: Decisive Tiger Victory

Both times, the tiger won—and not even by a small margin. A witness to the Roman fight said, that not only did the tiger kill the lion, but she ripped it to shreds. And, in India, the Gaekwad of Baroda had to pay up his 37,000 rupee bet.

In nature, though, the animals would not have fought. The tiger “attempted nothing of the sort while she lived in the depths of the forest,” the Roman poet Martial wrote after watching the fight, “but since she had been among us, she has acquired great ferocity.”

5The Mongolian Horde vs. European Knights

After the Mongolian Horde had swept through Asia, laying every person who stood in their way into the dust, they did not stop fighting. They pressed on into Europe—and there, went head-to-head with armored European Knights.

The Mongolians fought a whole war against the Europeans, but we will focus on the Battle of Liegnitz in 1241. Here, 70,000 Mongolian warriors, under the command of the grandson of Genghis Khan, brought their army against the Kingdom of Poland and the Knights Templar. Polish knights with lances and broadswords went head-to-head with Mongolian horsemen and their bows and arrows.

Winner: Decisive Mongolian Victory

The Europeans were not ready for Mongolian tactics. The Mongolian horsemen would feign attacks and fake withdrawals, slowly draining their enemies with a barrage of arrows while keeping a safe distance from their swords. The Knights, who were used to just charging and battering whoever was closest, did not know how to deal with it.

The Mongolians had killed 25,000 people before the battle was over. They managed to fill nine sacks full of ears torn off their enemies, and they cut the Polish Duke’s head off and paraded it around on the tip of a spear.

4Warrior Monks vs. Samurai

In 1180, the Japanese Prince Mochihito, after a failed attempt to steal the throne, hid out in a Buddhist temple. An army of samurai warriors was after him, and he had only one hope to stave them off: the temple’s warrior monks.

The samurai charged the temple and attacked, and the monks had to fight them off. These monks were not just using staffs—they had bows, swords, and daggers, but they were up against a whole army of armored samurai.

Winner: Short-Lived Warrior Monk Victory

The Warrior Monks managed to hold them off—and the stories left behind about their victory are so incredible that it is hard to separate fact from fiction. Legend has it that one of the monks stopped an incoming arrow by slicing it in half in mid-air, while another single-handedly killed 26 samurai.

Their victory, though, did not last. Even if they held off the first attack, the samurai came back—and this time they brought 10,000 soldiers with them. The monks did not stand a chance against that many people. The monastery was captured and burned to the ground, and Prince Mochihito was killed.

3Roman Legionnaires vs. The Chinese Army

In 36 B.C., a Roman legion went missing. There is some dispute about what actually happened to them, but according to one theory, they went out east and ended up finding themselves amongst the Mongolian Huns. They thought they had found refuge. Soon, though, the Chinese Han army was at their gates—and, for the first time in history, Roman soldiers were face-to-face with Chinese warriors.

The Chinese soldiers would have had an infantry and a cavalry, trained in the Chinese art of deception and war—but the Roman legion had its shields. Chinese witnesses record seeing 145 foreign soldiers holding their long, rectangular shields close in an impenetrable tortoise formation.

Winner: Technical Chinese Victory

The Han Chinese won—but it was not really a fair fight. There were only 145 Romans there, and though they were backed by the Mongolian army, the Chinese had them drastically outnumbered. The Roman fighters, though, held their own well enough to make an incredible impression on the Chinese. When the battle was over, the Han Chinese enlisted every surviving legionnaire into the Han army.

2Viking Raiders vs. The Islamic Caliphate

Viking raiders wreaked hell upon Europe—but in 844, their attacks made it far enough south to come face-to-face with another type of enemy: the Islamic Umayyad Emirate.

Islam, at this time, was spreading across the world, and a huge part of modern Portugal and Spain were ruled by an Islamic dynasty. They were led by the Syrian Abd al-Rahman, who first got word that Vikings were coming when his men spotted nearly 100 Viking ships off the coast of Lisbon. Viking raiders were coming—and, for the first time, they were against the armies of Muhammad.

Winner: Eventual Islamic Victory

The Islamic fighters won—eventually. Early on, though, it did not go particularly well. The Vikings crushed Lisbon and burned much of it to the ground. Then, for a month, they rampaged their way through Portugal, slaughtering the men and forcing the women and children into slavery.

The tide of battle turned, though, when the Islamic Army started using war engines. Once reinforcements and equipment came from their capital, Corboda, they actually stood a chance. They got vengeful. They took no prisoners. They burned the Viking ships and everything they owned, and every Viking they could get their hands on was killed.

1A Roman Emperor vs. A Killer Whale

Okay, this fight probably never occurred to anybody—but it happened. In the writings of the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, he records seeing something incredible: “A killer whale was actually seen in the harbor of Ostia, locked in combat with the emperor Claudius.”

A ship had capsized and filled the harbor with leather hides. The leather lured in a hungry whale, who got stuck in the shallows and caused havoc by splashing about. Claudius decided that this was an opportunity for one hell of a show—so he invited the whole Roman public to watch him fight a whale.

Winner: Technical Roman Victory

Claudius did not play fair, of course. He brought out a whole crew of ships and surrounded the whale to ensure he did not end up getting killed by an animal in front of the crowd. Even then, the Romans did a lot worse than you would expect.

The cornered whale blew water out of its spout and overturned a boat, sinking it and everyone on board. After that, every Roman on every boat just started hurtling lances and spears at it. They killed the whale, but it was hardly the one-on-one fight the public was promised—and, if you are counting casualties, the whale won.

More than any other artistic medium, video games are constantly reinventing themselves. Every week, developers release a new game with its own unique controls, goals, and interface.

The movie experience, on the other hand, is one-size-fits-all; if you know how to watch Alice make her way through Wonderland, and you’ll do just fine watching Freddy slash his way through Elm Street. But as gamers know, you can log a hundred hours in a Final Fantasy and still need just as many hours to learn how to play Civilization 5.

Though every release is unique on some level, a few games changed the landscape so drastically—or even built the landscape themselves—that they’ve become icons. Here are ten of those legendary video games that, for better or worse, changed how games are played.

Related: 10 Bizarre Ways People Have Beaten Games

10 The Stanley Parable

Anyone who has played more than ten minutes of The Stanley Parable knows why this game found its way on this list. The game, more commonly referred to as an interactive drama, was written by the ever-interesting William Pugh, and it rapidly inspired a series of indie “non-game” games.

The Stanley Parable sees players as Stanley, an ostensibly humdrum office worker, who suddenly finds his life upended in a major metaphysical way. The game begins with a narrator that explains everything happening to Stanley at his office, but players are quickly allowed to act in defiance of the narration.

This leads to a grapple for control between player and narrator, and then…nothing you would ever expect. Players end up behind the scenes of the game itself, inside an entirely different game (no spoilers here), and eventually confront an existential crisis. This game is about as far from Pong as it gets.

9 SimCity

SimCity invented a genre. More than that, SimCity invented a meta-genre that incorporates multiple new game styles. Even more than that, SimCity fundamentally changed how people thought about video games.

Every video game that relies on city-building (or base-building, fort-building, etc.) owes its existence to SimCity. Designed by Will Wright, SimCity actually came about while Wright was developing another game. Wright found that designing the game’s levels could be more fun than navigating through them. So, he built a game entirely about building levels.

Aside from the building aspect, SimCity also inspired the original “non-games,” also known as “software toys,” that gave the players the tools to create their own experience rather than force them through pre-made objectives. The surprising commercial success of SimCity and its counterparts led to many video games companies shifting their goals from strictly action-shooter-based narratives.

8 P.T.

If you have heard of P.T. at all, you’ve probably heard A. how terrifying it is, and B. how much truly baffling content its creator, the legendary Hideo Kojima, decided to pack into its tiny shell.

The essential premise of P.T. is that players find themselves in a hallway, and no matter how many times they find the exit, they always find themselves back in the same hallway. With every attempt, new iterations of the hallway become more and more surreal and terrifying until, well, there is not much of an ending at all.

P.T.’s “bottle-episode” meets “never-ending psychological prison” mechanic has since become the blueprint for scores of modern horror games. Even horror games that don’t adhere to the P.T. formula at their core now frequently include P.T. segments, brief slices of the inescapable, personalized hell that P.T. popularized.

7 Grand Theft Auto III

Open world games, also known as sandbox games, have existed almost as long as video games themselves. Grand Theft Auto III did not invent the sandbox. It did, however, create a near-ubiquitous standard for the genre that most popular open-world games have since utilized.

Essentially, Grand Theft Auto III combined its city neighborhood open world with simulations that act independently from the game’s narrative. This mixture led to what designers call emergent gameplay—events and interactions in the game’s setting that emerge “on their own” and can therefore surprise the player.

For example, the traffic in GTA III, both pedestrian and vehicular, moves around in accordance with basic traffic laws and behaviors. The player, then, can interact with the traffic at any point along their journey, creating near-limitless variations on what that interaction may entail and where.

6 Assassin’s Creed

While we’re on the subject of open worlds: have you ever noticed that a surprising number of open-world games these days play almost identically? Similar open worlds, sandbox enemies and allies, a combination of crouch-based sneaking in tall grass and regular movement outside it, parkouring up cliffs, sidling along walls, attacking enemies from ledges, and the way the map is divided into sections that each have their own “tower” that players climb to learn about that section?

We have the Assassin’s Creed series’ many innovations to thank for that. Just to name a few games that iterated on the AC formula: Shadow of Mordor & Shadow of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, the Arkham Trilogy, Ghost of Tsushima, and Spider-Man PS4 & its spinoff.

5 EverQuest

EverQuest is the MMO. All modern MMOs, or massively multiplayer online games, owe their existence to EverQuest.

Though other games (most of which were shared text-based adventures at the time) had dabbled in large-scale multiplayer games online, it wasn’t until EverQuest’s 1999 release that the MMO genre was truly born.

Every basic mechanic you find in almost every modern MMO began with EverQuest; the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired classes and numeric combat, the use of an open world, the combination of player-vs-player and player-vs-environment action, guild systems, and cooperatives raids—all of them stem from EverQuest.

4 Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat was not the first fighting game, nor the genre’s first breakout success. Ironically, the biggest ways Mortal Kombat changed video games had little to do with its actual gameplay. In fact, Mortal Kombat revolutionized almost everything except how we fight. Namely, our fascination with hidden characters and levels and what age group can buy a given game.

Though Street Fighter beat Mortal Kombat to the (literal) punch, MK took Street Fighter’s mechanics and made them twice as interesting. For one, MK created the fighter genre’s reliance on hidden-button combos, including the series’ trademark violent, explosive finishing moves. It also made hidden levels and characters, unlockable only by strict and often surprise conditions, the norm for fighter endgames.

Lastly, more than any other game, MK led to establishing the ESRB, the organization that rates and sorts games into different age levels. Due to panicked parents watching their kids deal bloody damage to each other in MK, the Senate called a hearing in 1993 to address violence in video games. Its result was, for better or worse, the ESRB, and also why this writer, when they were ten, was unable to buy their own copy of Conker’s Bad Fur Day.

3 Doom

The reason Doom ranks so highly on this list may surprise some fans. It’s not for almost single-handedly cementing what it means to be a 3-D shooter because Wolfenstein 3D also deserves a lion’s (or wolf’s) share of that accolade. Instead, the original Doom changed games for two completely separate reasons: local multiplayer and modding.

Doom allowed players to link via local area networks and fight each other, a first for 3-D shooters. Nowadays, many shooters are often built around these “death-matches” more than their single-player stories.

Doom’s creators also allowed the source code for the game’s engine, the appropriately named Doom Engine, to be used publicly. Because of this charity, players were able to design their own Doom levels on top of the game’s existing levels. These days, the practice has become common, referred to as modding.

2 Super Mario 64

3-D platformers exist because of Super Mario 64. It is that simple. In designing SM64, the iconic Shigeru Miyamoto completely set the standard for 3-D platform games, a standard that, even 25 years later, has yet to be seriously broken.

Miyamoto developed the game before 3-D game systems had even been properly released. Using systems built exclusively for 2-D gaming, he had to conceive of and design a 3-D world and then an entirely new control system so players could navigate that world.

The game’s single biggest contribution to how we play games is its invention of a player-controlled, 360-degree analog camera. The genius invention allows players to move the camera to whatever angle they choose, making the environment seem truly 3-D.

1 The Legend of Zelda

Saved games. Need we say more? Prior to the release of The Legend of Zelda, video games had to be beaten in one sitting, or players had to start from certain checkpoints through the use of unlockable cheat codes. After Zelda, which included its own battery-powered RAM in the game cartridge itself, players could now record their progress in a game and return to the same spot whenever they chose to.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the effect that saving had on the video game industry. More than any other single innovation, the ability to save games led to designers shifting away from one-and-done, arcade-style games to longer, story-driven experiences.

Because of this, The Legend of Zelda may be the most influential game of all time. And that’s not even including the game’s own merit, which is impressive, especially considering its place on virtually every “best-of” list in existence.

Bollywood is noted for hero worshiping where heroines either play the stereotyped love interest. arm candy, adding mere glamour, singing and dancing around trees and gardens. And most yesteryear actresses stuck to the notion of essaying positive roles. With stories getting gritty and actresses opting to explore characters with layers and shades, bollywood has finally provided Women the opportunity to break away from these stereotypes and many actresses have come forward to play the negative lead. Here is a list of Bollywood Divas that went Dark and did it with finesse.

10. Vidya Balan in Ishqiya

One of the most versatile actresses of Bollywood, Vidya Balan played the rustic widow Krishna, who uses others to reach her goal of avenging her dead husband. In a film starring great actors like Nasiruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi. Vidya Balan shines through and proves her metal.

9. Shabana Azmi in Makdee

Shabana Azmi portrays the con woman who fools the village as the witch of the haunted mansion. It was Azmi eating a chicken leg in the movie that instilled the elements of horror in this horror comedy of 2002.

8. Priyanka Chopra in Aitraaz

The beautiful Miss World 2000 chose to essay the role of a psychotic  seductress Sonia who was ready to plot and go to any lengths to reach her goals. Choprra is one of India’s most successful as well as beautiful women.

She bagged the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in a Negative Role, 2004.

7. Isha Koppikar In Quyammat/Krishna Cottage

Her performance in both the films was very well received. She played the role of Disha, a girl who died 22 years ago and whose spirit has come to get her love back. Isha plays the character with such outright intensity that would leave you in chills.

6. Konkona Sen Sharma in Ek thi Daayan

Konkana Sen Sharma played the role of a witch from Indian myths, and she sure was bewitching and in the penultimate moments of the film with the revelation of her true identity it does get scary.

5. Preity Zinta in Armaan

Known for her bubbly, vivacious and fun roles, Preity Zinta played the role of jealous, spoiled  Sonia Kapoor with such menace that even though the film didn’t fair well on the box office, it was Zinta’s role that remained memorable.

4. Katrina Kaif in Race

No one could imagine through the first half of the movie that the innocent harmless secretary could transform into the lover of the scheming younger brother who helped him in killing the elder brother for his property. But the charming Katrina Kaif did it oh so convincingly. An actress famous as the barbie doll of bollywood, Race helped her prove her versatility.

3. Kareena Kapoor Khan in Fida

Kareena Kapoor played the negative role in Fida also starring Fardeen Khan and Shahid Kapoor. Where she lures a young man into the ruse of her love and then scapegoats him with the help of her partner into a criminal conspiracy. Kareena Kapoor Khan as Neha was beautiful and dangerous at the same time. A woman willing to destroy the life of an innocent boy to become rich.

2. Kajol in Gupt

Kajol was on peak of stardom playing the roles of the ideal daughter, love interest, girl next door etc.. But she showed a different shade and her acting prowess in Gupt as the manic lover who commits grave crimes. Kajol received the filmfare award for Best Performance in a negative role, 1997. See the list of Bollywood’s most iconic actresses.

1. Tabu in Andhadhun/ Maqbool

Tabu is one of the most beautiful and talented actresses, she was unforgettable in the role of Nimmi in Maqbool a retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where she brings to the fore the madness of Lady Macbeth with such innocent yet menacing charm. In Andhadhun, she is the plotting, betraying manic murderer yet it is her performance that stole the show.

Honourable Mention

• Supriya Pathak in ‘Goliyon in Rasleela, Ramleela’: The ruthless lady Don in the rustic settings of Gujarat and the matriarch of the house, Supriya Pathak as Dankor Baa who would even chop off her daughter’s finger for the honour of the house. Though she goes through a change of heart in the finale, the performance got her many awards for Best actress in a supporting role.

• Kangana Ranaut in Krrish 3: Playing the role of the shape shifting villain Kaya, in the sci- fi Superhero franchise Krrish, Kangana Ranaut played an important role in the narrative of the movie.

Article written by: Sneha Sharma