One would think video games are supposed to be about a fantasy world, where you take on the role of a super-powered protagonist and havea fun adventure with a happy ending.
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Most of the time, while the player may eventually become powerful, they do so against the odds of a fictional, cruel, brutal world far worse than the one humans currently live in. Some of the worlds are possibilities of the future, while some of them are made up of a programmer’s worst possible imaginations. Below are some of the worst worlds video games have ever produced.
11City 17 – Half-Life 2
Pick Up that Can
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2is basically a non-stop run for the player’s life moment the moment they boot up the game. In this universe, the player plays Gordon Freeman, as he travels the new world after an alien takeover, fending for his life and seeing all the atrocities and horrible species that now populate Earth.
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Antlions, zombie face-suckers, and an authoritarian regime are only some of the horrors that exist on this new earth. At the very least, the technology is pretty great,which includes a rad gravity gun Gordon wields. At least some humans are alive as well, which is nicer than some of the other worlds listed below.
10Greece – God of War
The Gods are Cruel
God of War (2005)
God of War (2005)’s ancient Greece sucks. Just a lot of fighting, sacrificing, and getting caught up in the battle between angry, petty gods. Even worse, the ‘hero’ of this tale is a murdering, amoral warrior out for revenge by any means necessary.
Humans seem basically secondary at this point, barely even needed when it comes to the stories of the Greek gods involved. Even for those gods, life isn’t too grand,since Kratos unalives them and brings a rapture to Greecein hurricanes, storms, and other events that ruin the Greek side of the world.
Uninvite Me, Please
Dead by Daylight
No one would ever want to be invited to the Entity’s world inDead by Daylight. All you do is fight for your life, with the only reprieve being the moment you have exited the gates and get to run for a bit and sit by a campfire before again being brought into a game of being thrown onto a hook, mori’d to death, and potentially puked on until you’re injured.
Even some of the killers hate being there, as the Trapper looks the way they do because of his resistance against the Entity. The only ones having fun there are killers who like to do what they are told, which would be Resident Evil’s Nemesis, and no one wants to be Nemesis.
8Silent Hill, New England – Silent Hill
The Wrong Kind of Therapy
Silent Hill
There are healthy ways to deal with problems, and then there’s the Silent Hill way of dealing with them. Gamers are attracted to theSilent Hillgames almost exclusively for how horrid these worlds can be.
Even worse for the protagonists of these games, they are usually already deeply mentally ill, so while Silent Hill is no fun for the average person, if you have just lost someone or haven’t got much sleep, best of luck with all thePyramid Heads, nurses, and kicking leg monsters.
7Anywhere – Fallout 3
At Least There’s a Dog
WhileFallout 3prides itself on being a role-playing game, many people given the chance would not take on the role of the protagonists in these games. The universe is one where humanity has been through a nuclear apocalypse, resulting in a very diminished population living on the surface or in vaults, which come with their own issues.
Scavengers, radiated animals, and Deathclaws are among some of the worst results of this timeline, and even if as a human one lived in a vault, there’s a chance one of these many vaults turned out to be a horrific experiment resulting in catastrophe. However, there are still dogs in the world, so not all is lost.
6Anywhere – Doom II Onward
Demon Neighbors For Life
Some gamers would say no world is worse than Doom afterDoom 2. Hell literally invades the earth, and byDOOM Eternal, 60 percent of the world’s population is wiped out, and most cities are apocalyptic wastelands covered in fire and bloodied, crumbling, giant mechs.
If a human has survived, it’s likely under the torment of some horrible hellspawn beast, or if someone is very lucky, they are working unsafely for the Armored Response Coalition, or they are part of the demonic cult formerly known as UAC. It is all bad, all the time.
5Basement of Isaac – The Binding of Isaac
That’s What the Tears are For
The Binding of Isaac
The Binding of Isaacis a stellar game with a sad, disgusting underbelly of a storyline. The entire world is shaped around Isaac’s terrible, horrible childhood, and the entire dungeon-like setup is filled with horror after horror for the tear-firing protagonist to blast through.
No person would ever choose to be any character in this game, and every player shuts off the game happy to no longer consider the underlying themes in its world while going back again and again for the addictive gameplay loop.
Everything Sucks Lately
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II
War Hammer 40k loves to advertise how awful its universe is. Earth’s ruler is a corpse who sacrifices people by the millions to keep his eternal warmongering going, while his elite soldiers time and time again must face some of the greatest eldritch horrors the universe is capable of producing.
Fans famously say there is nothing like being an observer of this universe and nothing more, as all hope is lost in this universe, no human progress is possible. Humanity only fights because it must against “the dying light.” Joy.
3Cvstodia – Blasphemous
Miracles Don’t Happen
Blasphemous
Like a morning at church but much more painful somehow, theBlasphemousuniverse takes place in the land of Cvstodia where religion is everything, but everything is suffering. Players take on the journey of the penitent one, who constantly stabs his hand with his own blade to use offensive spells in order to complete his pilgrimage of watching people suffer, slaying people, and getting beaten up by large, beautiful, horrible creatures.
It’s easy to see beauty in the game when you’re on the other side of a screen, but this is a world no one would want to live in, as a horrible entity known as “the miracle” somehow makes life worse for everyone all the time.
2Lordran – Dark Souls
The Age of Darkness Sounds Nice
Dark Souls
The only thing worse than dying is dying over and over, especially in a life filled with stun locks and long falls off cliffs. There really are very few characters one could even consider being in the world of Dark Souls, and while some other universes do have some humor to them, this world seems only funny years later when the clip of the player getting owned goes viral.
Most likely, people are cursed undead, stuck in a cycle of rebirth. That or you’re one of the horrible bosses with a tragic backstory the chosen undead will eventually slay. The only bright spot is maybe Solaire, who, as with all characters in Dark Souls, dies.
