Darkest Video Games
This list represents how dark, bleak, depressing, and very twisted video games can be.
A young man named James Sunderland receives a letter from his deceased wife. He arrives in the titular town of Silent Hill to find his wife, joined by a woman named Maria. The story features enemies based on the psyche of James Sunderland, weird and violent humans lurking in the town, and a psychological horror atmosphere looming over the story.
Finally, in each ending, it is revealed that James's wife, Mary, was mercy-killed by him three weeks ago, not three years ago as James believed. The unusually cerebral atmosphere combined with psychological horror creates a strange experience for those who play it.
Disturbing executions, dysfunctional characters, and a violent atmosphere define this game. When a death row inmate named James Earl Cash is taken to Director Starkweather's films, he is forced to fight and kill to survive the director's twisted games. Cash is pitted against increasingly dangerous and maniacal gangs. Despite promises made by Starkweather, Cash's family is killed, leading him on a path of vengeance to kill Starkweather.
The nihilistic story combined with its violent atmosphere creates a disturbing world where people kill for the sake of sadism.
A recon mission to the sandstorm-wrecked Dubai has gone wrong. At first, it appears to be a generic military shooter story, albeit darker than usual. Things take a dark turn when Captain Martin Walker sees it as an opportunity to find Konrad and be a hero, leading to the White Phosphorus Incident. This marks the point where Captain Walker descends into madness.
The story increasingly becomes harsh, with accusations and condemnations directed against Walker (and the player) as the story progresses until the finale, where it's revealed that Martin Walker and John Konrad are the same person.
The uncomfortably dark and grim atmosphere of the story makes it perhaps the darkest video game ever written. No video game before this had ever accused the player in such a direct way.
A city horrifically torn apart by greed and factionalism, with elements of addiction and political theorists being listened to way too much - what America is becoming. It's a warning about the ills of selfish individualism and cultish collectivism (Bioshock 2).
I'm currently playing Wrath of the Lamb, and boy, it's depressing! It's sort of biblical and has a lot to do with Christianity. Poor kid had a terrible life. Fun to play, though!
The story takes place in a darker and twisted version of Greek mythology. A Spartan named Kratos is tricked into killing his family by Ares, which leads to a story of revenge against the Gods of Olympus. Kratos wants them dead because of everything that happened in the story.
Kratos's increasing thirst for blood and vengeance causes the doom of Ancient Greece, or worse, the world, after he kills the Gods and unleashes Hope from Pandora's Box.
This game is probably the darkest in the series. It centers around themes of death and fear. You have only 3 days to save the town, or else everybody will die. It's a seriously dark turn for the franchise.
This game has a super dark and haunting concept of death and emptiness. You can understand that from the Happy Mask Salesman's quote: "You've met a terrible fate, haven't you?"
A father who wants his daughter back from the Shades in a dying world at all costs, Nier fights his way through the Shades and to the Shadowlord to get his daughter, Yonah, back to him. And this is just the first playthrough.
Further playthroughs reveal more about the Shades and the Humans. Suddenly, the story becomes more depressing and melancholic. The Shades were originally the original humans, not the monstrosities that Nier and the Replicants hated. Nier had doomed humanity to extinction. Worse still, the Replicants were part of a plan to reunite the humans with their material bodies, but this went awry when they gained sentience, and the Gestalts (The Shades) went insane.
The Newcomers
A dark, Gothic narrative surrounds the protagonist you play, as you prey on helpless mortals.
Rule of Rose takes you into a nightmarish world where children are cruel. A young girl named Jennifer is led to an orphanage and is taken to an airship ruled by the Red Crayon Aristocrats. Jennifer is forced to serve them and offer them something each month after finding herself at the bottom of the hierarchy.
To explain the ending of the story would be really bleak. The entire game is about the cruelty done by children and is downright disturbing.
A dark fantasy story where your heroes are a sociopathic prince who wants revenge, a pedophilic maniac, a cannibalistic elf mother, and a little boy who fight against an empire that is even more evil than they are.
That's the kind of story Taro Yoko creates.
All five endings are either twisted or depressing. Each ending leads to stranger and more grotesque events, which are similar to Evangelion, but more violent.
Should be number one for sure. I mean, just listen to its theme song.
The game itself isn't that dark. It's the storyline that makes it seem so.
Child abduction. Child death. Drug abuse.
Fuminori Sakisaka was a young medical student until he suffered a traumatic crash that left him with a brain disorder. He sees everything in a hideous and grotesque way. As he contemplates taking his life, he finds a young girl named Saya.
Unbeknownst to him, Saya is an alien creature who desires to spread her spores and drive people mad due to her appearance. The story goes into a cosmic horror romance where everyone dies or mutates at the end.
At first, when you play this game, it seems like a usual Pokémon game. However, when you reach Lusamine and the Aether Foundation, the game starts to shift its tone, similar to Digimon Tamers and Pokémon Black and White.
The story deconstructs a lot of tropes associated with the Mons genre in a different way, unlike Digimon Tamers and Pokémon BW.
This game has a finale unlike Digimon Tamers, Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, and Pokémon BW. Yes, this is really the dark side of them.
Pokémon Sun and Moon is the darker version of Digimon Tamers, Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, and Pokémon BW. The dark side emerges when you meet Lusamine and the Aether Foundation.
It's funny, weird, heartbreaking, and darker than any game I've played. Within the first chapter, Lucas and Claus's mom, Hinawa, is impaled by a Mecha-Drago, a chimera created by the twisted Pigmask Army. Flint, the father of the kids and spouse of Hinawa, has a mental breakdown and ends up in Tazmily Prison. He is let out, while his son Claus goes to avenge his mom.
Later in Chapter 3, Salsa, a monkey forced to work for the Pigmask Army to get his girlfriend back, is constantly shocked by his abusive "owner," Fassad. Even when Salsa helps him, he still gets electrocuted. Fassad makes people in town buy Happy Boxes and zaps their homes using Thunder Tower if they don't comply.
In Chapter 7, Lucas enters the Pigmask's Chimera Lab. Salsa and his girlfriend are loose, and Lucas must save them before the Pigmasks do. After defeating an Almost-Mecha Lion, he discovers that a creature called the Ultimate Chimera is loose, and if it gets close, Lucas is knocked out.
On Tanetane Island, Lucas and company eat hallucinogenic mushrooms, causing illusions. They see family and friends, but Boney, the only one who didn't eat the mushrooms, knows that they are actually monsters. There are many disturbing moments, like Flint threatening to beat Lucas and mailboxes screaming.
The ending reveals that Porky, the leader of the Pigmask Army, found an unconscious Claus and made him into a human chimera. After coming to his senses, Claus dies, hoping to be with his mother, while the Dark Dragon is released and destroys the Nowhere Islands, likely stopped by Lucas, leading to the creation of a new island.
