History CrapsaccharineWorld / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/WolfensteinIITheNewColossus'' has a moment in Roswell, a charming and bright town similar to so many others from 1960's Americana. But there are Nazi soldiers everywhere, Swastika banners hang from every building, and Klansmen walk around in full costume and talk positively about the purging of undesirables and the next slave auction while people in the street are scared shitless of them.
* ''Wonder Project J2'' is this combined with ArtStyleDissonance. The game's two islands seem like quiet, idyllic places, and the gorgeous, Studio Ghibli-esque pixel art emphasizes this. But when you start exploring them, the first thing you'll notice is that there are soldiers. Lots and lots of soldiers, armed with submachine guns, patrolling almost every part of the game world. Many places are actually locked out at the beginning of the game by soldiers who aggressively get you to leave. There's even one cutscene that occurs when you visit a certain place for the first time [[spoiler:which shows some [[LaResistance revolutionaries]] getting ''executed via firing squad''. Worst of all, the scene is shown ''from the perspective of the revolutionaries''!]] Pretty dark for a game where your main objective is raising a cute robot girl. Oh, and the girl gets to see the aftermath of the aforementioned execution, though thankfully the player doesn't since the soldiers block the view. It only gets worse from there.

** ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' is not an example, since the player is LateToTheTragedy and only sees the city as a gutted urban battlefield, but supplementary material and the later ''VideoGame/BioShockInfiniteBurialAtSea'' DLC show that Rapture in its prime fit this. The underwater city is a gorgeous monument to art deco design, and an Objectivist paradise where entrepeneurs can flourish without business restrictions and artists can create without censorship. But look a little closer and you can see the signs of Rapture's approaching downfall: an increasingly tyrannical Andrew Ryan clamping down on anything that threatens control of "his" city. A MadArtist electrocuting dancers who offended his muse. Growing discontent from all those who played the game of ruthless capitalism and lost, now trapped in an UnderwaterCity they aren't allowed to leave. [[CreepyChild Little Sisters]], orphans (or not) converted into living [[PsychoSerum ADAM]] factories to sate the addiction of a spliced-up population...
** In ''VideoGame/BioShock2'' we see what Rapture looks like from a Little Sister's perspective. [[spoiler: Here, the dilapidated corridors are transformed into an eerily beautiful palace, decorated with heroic statues of Subject Delta's achievements and populated by elegantly-dressed men and women; there are also "angels" lying around the place, asleep in piles of rosebuds and surrounded by clouds of butterflies. However, activating the "gather" command while arround these angels briefly undoes the illusion, revealing that the supposed angel is the decaying corpse of a splicer: the rose petals are actually blood, and the butterflies are... well, flies. Worse still, the well-dressed men and women are really splicers employed by Sofia Lamb; now that they're being paid in ADAM, they're no longer interested in attacking you... [[JumpScare well, almost]]. Oh, and that curious sound of sleigh-bells ringing in the distance? In reality, that's the sound of Augustus Sinclair getting tortured.]] The soft, sad harp that plays throughout only underlines the whole situation.

* The Colossus resort in 2025 is a large floating paradise for the wealthy in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII''. But from the facial recognition ads to the crass, excessive consumerism on display, you can't help but feel at least a bit unnerved. No wonder then that Menendez was able to get many followers, as the whole place is pretty much the poster child for everything Cordis Die is fighting against. [[spoiler: This is also where Salazar makes some peculiar comments hinting at his status as TheMole to Menendez later on.]]

* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''' expansion ''Going Rogue'' took place in an alternate dimension called Praetoria, a gleaming silver and gold utopian empire where everyone is satisfied and [[EvilCounterpart Emperor Cole]] rules humanity with compassion, justice, and honor. The player quickly learns, however, that the utopia of Praetoria is held together by a ruthlessly totalitarian government that uses multiple supernatural methods to keep the population complacent. The city's water supply? Spiked with a potent chemical that suppresses negative and combative emotions. The advanced robotic servants, seen everywhere maintaining, cleaning, and building the city? They are equipped with laser guns and Tesla cannons and can, at a moment's notice, be turned into super-intelligent killing machines by the creator. The psychics on every street corner, scanning the city for crimes in progress? They also scan the minds of everyone passing by, looking for "dangerous" thoughts, like hostility or dislike toward Cole. The Praetorian Police Department are loyal only to their Emperor and will banish anyone deemed a problem into the deadly wasteland outside the city. The police department and the government as a whole are also horribly corrupt, with members routinely abusing their power just to punish those they dislike.\\\
Under the city is little better. There is a CyberPunk-styled Resistance based out of the city's {{Absurdly Spacious Sewer}}s, but it has its own internal problems. Its leadership is split between the Wardens, who want to take down Cole, but leave the structure of Praetoria largely intact, and the Crusaders, who just want to burn it all to the ground, claiming the city is far too corrupt and oppressive to be saved. The sewers are also teeming with Ghouls, zombie-like creatures that are the result of horrific experiments performed by Cole and his Praetors.\\\
Much later, in the ruins of Old Praetoria, the players learned it was far worse than even that. Most of humanity is dead, with [[EldritchAbomination Hamidon]] and his [[GaiasVengeance Devouring Earth]] controlling most of the planet. Praetoria is just a carefully-negotiated region where humanity is allowed to live, as long as the truce between Cole and Hamidon holds. Had the game continued, Issue 24 would have shown the dire consequences of defeating Cole, as the shining city would have become a ruined wasteland covered in monsters trying to slaughter or convert the last humans in the world into more of Hamidon's minions.

** ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' is not an example, since the player is LateToTheTragedy and only sees the city as a gutted urban battlefield, but supplementary material and the later ''Burial at Sea'' DLC show that Rapture in its prime fit this. The underwater city is a gorgeous monument to art deco design, and an Objectivist paradise where entrepeneurs can flourish without business restrictions and artists can create without censorship. But look a little closer and you can see the signs of Rapture's approaching downfall: an increasingly-tyrannical Andrew Ryan clamping down on anything that threatens control of "his" city. A MadArtist electrocuting dancers who offended his muse. Growing discontent from all those who played the game of ruthless capitalism and lost, now trapped in an UnderwaterCity they aren't allowed to leave. [[CreepyChild Little Sisters]], orphans (or not) converted into living [[PsychoSerum ADAM]] factories to sate the addiction of a spliced-up population...

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure'': Crossbell is a hub of international trade, home to the most prosperous bank in the world, it's most beautiful city skyline, as well as being ahead of most of the world technologically, being the first to embrace motorized public transit and the Internet. However, in reality it is in the vice grip of TheMafia, via a bribed CorruptPolitician legislature that tie the hands of it's police forces, and laws designed to encourage infiltration by foreign spies (such as no checks on incoming trains) as it was set up 70 years prior as a buffer state between the Cold Warring Erebonia and Calvard.