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| 3 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
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| 6 | [[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/ThisWarOfMine https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/this_war_of_mine.png]]]] |
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| 8 | [[CrapsackWorld These types of worlds]] are common in video games, because they give a player a great justification for the large number of enemies they typically have to deal with and the conflicts they find themselves in. |
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| 11 | * ''VideoGame/TheAgeOfDecadence'': The setting of the game fits the title. The game starts off in the middle of a dark age, following a great war that is shrouded in myths and legends. Poverty runs rampant, brutal violence is an everyday affair and war is always looming on the horizon. |
| 12 | * ''VideoGame/AirForceDelta Strike'': Earth is under constant, unrelenting assault from the OCC, who use just about every cool, technologically advanced weapon imaginable from artillery-wielding rolling tires, to [[CoolAirship giant flying battleships]], to multi-shot [[WaveMotionGun rail-guns big enough to]] ''[[WaveMotionGun fly into]]''! |
| 13 | * Both worlds in ''VideoGame/AliceMadnessReturns''. |
| 14 | ** One is the once-[[GhibliHills beautiful]] Wonderland, slowly being corrupted by Alice's own psyche, and filling with [[CreepyDoll creepy dolls]] and [[TheCorruption ruin]], even without getting into level-specific features such as the dodo "misery-ium" in Hatter's Domain, the Ink Wasps' brutal oppression of the ants in the Oriental Grove level, and the [[BigBad Dollmaker's]] Workshop. |
| 15 | ** The other, Alice's "real world" is a {{grimdark}} Dickensian London where practically everyone has an agenda and/or one of the worst lives in existence, even without [[spoiler: [[PsychoPsychologist Angus Bumby]] running around pimping orphans]]. |
| 16 | * ''VideoGame/ApexLegends''[='s=] Outlands don't seem like an especially pleasant place to live. Psmanthe has ridiculously bad wealth disparity, with the richest residents enjoying lives of decadence on its moon and [[FloatingContinent Olympus]] while the surface city Malta is a ViceCity. Gaea's city Suotamo is much the same, and the wildlife populating the rest of the planet are viciously savage. Salvo is a planet wracked with constant war. Boreas' moon has been destroyed, with the side effects of it poised to [[DoomedHometown render the planet unlivable in a few decades]]. Harris Valley is one of the few places in the Outlands that regularly sees gentle peace, but [[TownWithADarkSecret it's owned by ex-IMC gangsters ready to torch it at a moment's notice]]. The Outlands might be better off as a whole for the removal of [[TheEmpire the IMC]] as its leadership, but their remnant companies such as Hammond Robotics are still present and active in the Outlands, not to mention their connections to the closest thing the Outlands has to an overarching government; the Mercenary Syndicate, [[MeetTheNewBoss who seems eerily close to the old IMC]], down to having their enforcers dress in a similar white armor to IMC footsoldiers. The crappy state of the world is rarely the focus of the story though, which tends to use it as a backdrop to focus on characters instead. |
| 17 | * The world of ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'' is plagued by great Catastrophes— manifesting in forms such as storms, earthquakes, and falling meteorites — forcing civilizations to adopt a nomadic lifestyle with the help of mobile cities. The mineral left behind in the site of these Catastrophes, Originium, is valued as a wonder material that can be used in all sorts of applications, but are also able to fuse with living flesh when handled incorrectly, leading to the emergence of the Infected. The Infected are discriminated heavily because they become living vector of Oripathy, which have 100% mortality rate. That's still not counting [[AristocratsAreEvil the corrupt aristocrats]], [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corporate big shots]], and [[MadScientist less-than-sane scientists]] that litter the world. |
| 18 | * Zalanthas in ''VideoGame/ArmageddonMud'' is one through and through. The world has a desert climate, with wildlife that is extremely dangerous and aggressive, with metal being so scarce that any survival gear has to make do without it. The centres of civilisation that do exist are all invariably ruled by autocrats, corrupt officials, and packed with scores of thieves and criminals. To top it all off, the resident pair of [[SorcerousOverlord sorceror-kings]] running the most powerful cities out there are heavily implied to be directly related to the world's crapsack state. |
| 19 | * ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' depicted this kind of setting pretty early in the series, and has gotten worse with each new installment. |
| 20 | ** ''Armored Core V'' takes it up another level. The story starts out with the heroic rebels trying to overthrow Father, the resident dictator who controls a massive city that serves as the only real bastion of civilization in the region, which itself is cut off from the outside world by the after-effects of a massive war that polluted the land around it. Eventually Father gets overthrown, but ''immediately'' afterwards the [[ManBehindTheMan Corporation]] comes in and starts wiping out the rebels. In the resulting chaos, the city is abandoned and the rebels wander aimlessly, breaking up into many groups of ever-warring migrants who are constantly claiming and losing territory in the never-ending war that serves as the multiplayer mode. So instead of a single totalitarian dictatorship that rules over a megacity, you end up with what is effectively UsefulNotes/{{Somalia}}. [[InSpace With]] {{mecha}}. |
| 21 | ** The sequel Verdict Day up's the ante with having the "Somalia with mecha" and upping it to a global scale. This series doesn't catch a break, then again most games that Creator/FromSoftware make ever get one. |
| 22 | ** ''Armored Core 4'' and ''For Answer'' may also qualify. The world is ruled by a series of various oppressive MegaCorp's who wage war with each other for resources and influence, and has stables of pilots piloting their titular mechas which are equipped with weapons and shields that all the while corrode and poison the landscape. Taken to its literal extreme in For Answer where the only set of clean air on the planet is literally high up in the stratosphere, where many influential members of society reside while many of the soldiers and common folk waste away on the surface. To drive the point across, it's implied that the events of 4/For Answer occurred decades, maybe even centuries before V/Verdict Day. |
| 23 | * Implied through the emails in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI''. [[spoiler:Africa's population has been decimated by a plague, massive number of illegal immigrants are crossing the U.S.-Mexican border...into Mexico, and hurricane season no longer exists, since hurricanes happen all throughout the year thanks to climate change.]] |
| 24 | ** [[spoiler:And one continent doesn't exist anymore.]] |
| 25 | ** [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking And the entire movie industry]] was killed by [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil online piracy.]] |
| 26 | ** Lampshaded by Dr. Warren in the first game. He said that there's no difference between the time of the Third Crusade and the time of the future, that people were just as violent and destructive then as now. And the second game reveals that the time of the Renaissance was even worse than both of them together. |
| 27 | ** The premise of the series as a whole. History is all a lie, the product of mind-controlling artifacts left behind by [[AncientAstronauts the First Civilization]], who created humanity presumably as slaves, and the two competing factions trying to recover them. Today, the Templars control the most powerful corporation in the world and want to enslave the human race, while the Assassins are stuck waging a guerilla war from the shadows after the [[ThePurge Great Purge]]. Oh, and there's a solar cataclysm on the way. |
| 28 | * ''VideoGame/{{Baroque}}'' starts--and ends--in a barren wasteland, the world having been destroyed some time ago in a massive cataclysm known as The Blaze. Which is somehow [[NiceJobBreakingItHero your fault]]. And [[LaserGuidedAmnesia you don't remember anything about it]]. |
| 29 | * ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'' is set in a CosmicHorrorStory where Solus is the last start remaining after [[EldritchAbomination Valresi]] has darkened other stars. The remaning civilizations ([[TheRepublic United Peacekeeping Republic]], [[TheEmpire Jennerit Imperium]], [[NatureHero The Eldrid]], [[MegaCorp Last Light Consortium]], and [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores The Rogues]]) are not only struggling against them but also [[WeAreStrugglingTogether eachother]]. Out of all the factions, [[TheRepublic United Peacekeeping Republic]] is one of few benevolent factions but not [[WellIntentionedExtremist with a few skeletons in their closet]] (namely their [[ObstructiveBureaucrat immense redtapes]], [[ClonesAreExpendable genetic experiments]] that resulted in failures like [[CloneDegeneration Whiskey Foxtrot]], and failed invasion of Ekkunar). Then things got worse when [[TheEmpire Jennerit Imperium]] was knocked out of the war when Rendain overthrew Empress Lenore and joined the Valresi. [[spoiler: Though it could be WorldHalfFull with the titular [[RagTagBunchOfMisfits Battleborn]], a coalition made up of those who wish to fight together than die alone, managing to defeat Rendain and finally giving Solus with a chance of survival in struggle against the Valresi.]] |
| 30 | * ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142'' applies for this trope. Earth is in the midst of a new ice age and two superpowers are battling for what little unfrozen land they can get. |
| 31 | * ''VideoGame/BattleBrothers''. Orc marauders constantly threaten the villages and small towns, bloodthirsty monsters lurk in the woods, bandits prey on travellers and [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier "grave-robbers"]] are afoot. [[GrimUpNorth In the frozen north, living is harsh and constantly threatened by raids from tribes of barbaric, war-loving men]]; and the southern cities are presided over by leadership who are decadent and corrupt to a degree that makes the northern noble houses look tame, and slavery and gladiator fights to the death are part of life. And when the Late Game Crisis kicks in, things get worse: take your pick between the Orcs uniting under one banner and warring to tear down the world of men, an ancient undead empire arises from under everyone's feet to reclaim what was once theirs, the northern and southern kingdoms clash in a Holy War, or simply the nobles petty bickering spills out of the DecadentCourt and out into open warfare. It's repeatedly underscored that mercenary work, while profitable, [[DudeWheresMyRespect is unglamourous and inglorious]] and your employers rarely acknowledge your successes or mourn your losses. |
| 32 | * The ''Under the Burning Suns'' campaign in ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'' is set in a barren and desolate world where the days are scorching hot and the nights are hauntingly cold, the surface is largely overrun by constantly warring orc tribes and roving hordes of undead, and the civilizations of elves and men have long-since collapsed leaving bands of scattered survivors to move between ghost towns. Things aren't much better for the dwarves and trolls, who have evaded the sun's wrath but are locked in a brutal ForeverWar with each other. The sequel makes things even more crapsack by adding [[spoiler:{{Cyborg}} alien invaders and the demons of hell]]. |
| 33 | * The world as depicted in ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' and [[VideoGame/Bayonetta2 its sequel]] falls pretty firmly under its umbrella. Reality is split into three realms; Earth, Inferno and Paradiso. The denizens of Inferno are demons, who regard humans as nothing but resources, seeking to harvest their souls by slaughter or pact and consume those souls to increase their own power. Even the Umbra Witches, who make pledges with demons for BlackMagic that they use as TheSacredDarkness, do so knowing full well that their inevitable fate is to be utterly annihilated to empower whatever demon manages to ingest their soul after they die, a fate so terrible that all witches are sealed inside special tombs to spare their living sisters the pain of acknowledging it. On the other side, there's the Angels of Paradiso... who are actually nightmarish {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who try to look more appealing by covering their multiple eyes, dripping red flesh and other inhuman aspects in marble, gold and gems, and who [[GodAndSatanAreBothJerks are absolutely no different to demons]] in regards to their opinions about and uses for humans. Lastly, ordinary humans can't ''see'' either of them and certainly can't hurt them, as they're effectively immune to non-magical weapons. |
| 34 | * ''VideoGame/BioShock'' has as its theme how the best-laid plans of men will collapse under contact with human failings. This is aptly illustrated by both Rapture, the crumbling, leaking city under the sea where anyone who's not insane is trying to use you, and Columbia, the flying city that regularly has pieces fall from the sky... which is probably a better fate for anyone on them than ''living'' in the city. |
| 35 | * The CosmicHorrorStory that is ''Franchise/BlazBlue''. |
| 36 | ** Half of humanity died from the Black Beast's rampage across the world and said monster's fumes destroyed virtually the whole planet's ecosystem. The humans who managed to survive that are now governed by a totalitarian institution known as the NOL. This totalitarianism eventually resulted in several Hierarchichal Cities to defect and form their own sovereign nation, only to be destroyed in the Ikaruga Civil War, which put the NOL's authoritarianism on full display. Furthermore, the government imposes restrictions on anyone who uses magic artifacts known as Ars Magus, and anyone violating them will be killed on sight. And what about the NOL's authoritarianism? It is actually a case of [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well Intentioned Extremism]], and if they disappeared, random people would be able to start picking up dangerous [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts Of Doom]], enabling seeds of further war and chaos to spread in this world that is already teetering on the edge of destruction. So it's either totalitarianism, or a world in utter chaos. But it's actually worse than that. |
| 37 | ** The main three characters [[DysfunctionJunction are traumatized, broken, neurotic and mentally unstable to begin with]], and the rest of the cast is similarly lacking in mental faculties. Also, the entirety of existence basically revolves around the Hedgehog's Dilemma, which is the philosophical notion that if you go near other people, you become Hell to them and they become Hell to you, but when you go far from them, you cannot survive. The biggest idealists and those who aren't [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]] {{jerkass}}es are basically the resident [[TheChewToy chew toys]] and generally laughed at. Furthermore, virtually the entire world's ills can be traced to a master manipulator named Yuuki Terumi, and if you're female, enjoy being [[BreakTheCutie broken physically and mentally by him]] [[ForTheEvulz for his own amusement.]] Adding to it is that he's accompanied by a MadScientist who wants to turn everyone else into lifeless dolls so he can be God, and a literal Death Goddess who wants to reduce the whole world into nothingness, [[spoiler:who actually manages to do that and it took a ''lot'' of effort from the main protagonist to make a new one, [[AWorldHalfFull and one that's at least livable]] at that]]. |
| 38 | * Yharnam from ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' isn’t a very nice place to live and was like that even before the [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent Scourge of Beasts]] overran it. The city is run by a CorruptChurch whose leaders are more interested in performing depraved experiments ForScience than running things in a benevolent manner. People are openly [[FantasticRacism distrustful of outsiders]] and hopelessly addicted to the blood distributed by the Healing Church. When the Scourge hit, Hunters and common citizens took to the streets to ward off the Beasts, only to end up dying, going insane, or becoming beasts themselves leaving the remaining citizens trapped in their homes while various monsters roam around. [[spoiler: All of this is before you learn of the CosmicHorrorStory the world finds itself in at the hands of the [[EldritchAbomination Great Ones]]. The game being heavily implied to take place in a literal nightmare probably has something to do with the miserable state you find Yharnam in.]] |
| 39 | * The planet [[DeathWorld Pandora]] in the ''{{VideoGame/Borderlands}}'' series is a [[BlackComedy darkly humorous]] example of this trope. Although it was originally colonized by the Dahl corporation in the hopes of turning it into a lucrative, prosperous mining settlement, it was found to be an almost completely barren and borderline uninhabitable wasteland. And that was before the planet's spring cycle began seven Earth years later and the pathologically aggressive and incredibly dangerous local wildlife woke up from hibernation, causing Dahl to pull out almost immediately, leaving their equipment and personnel behind. Then, of course, the huge number of prisoners and handful of colonists settled into a state of lawlessness, respectively becoming the several thousand murderous bandits and a few scattered pockets of civilization trying to scrape by. The entire planet is practically one big frontier with settlements [[ScavengerWorld scattered among the ruins]] of Dahl's old colonization efforts, plagued by a scarcity of food, water, electricity and medical supplies, and the near-complete lack of anything resembling functioning infrastructure or an effective government. Death is so common that you rarely see an NPC express grief, even when close friends or relatives are killed. Of course, it's set as a [[AdventureFriendlyWorld world rife with adventure]] for those brave and strong enough to survive in the wilds, and most of its denizens are actually pretty entertaining, even if they're desperately trying to kill you. Oh, and one of the staples of the game is that there's [[GunPorn lots, and lots of guns]]. |
| 40 | ** According to extra details and subtle implications throughout ''The Secret Armory of General Knoxx'', the rest of the galaxy is no better off. The {{Mega Corp}}s run everything and are heavily corrupt and incompetent, human life is worthless, and {{nepotism}} is rampant (to the point General Knoxx takes his orders from an Admiral who is a ''five year old''). Some aspects of ''The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned'' paint the background this way as well. For example, listen to the automated messages in Jakob's Cove, which include things like admonishing the now-gone survivors for using weapons designed by other corps because Jakobs doesn't produce the [[KillItWithFire Fire ammo tech modded]] gear that is so helpful for fighting off the zombies. |
| 41 | ** Things aren't much better in [[VideoGame/Borderlands2 the sequel]]. In addition to the above, the planet has now been taken over by a CorruptCorporateExecutive with a major god complex. |
| 42 | ** Actually in the sequel, there's a lot more expression of grief. The bandit [=NPCs=] will acknowledge that someone near them died, and the Hyperion guards will actually admonish you with phrases like "[[{{Retirony}} He was two days from retirement]]!" |
| 43 | ** ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' takes players beyond Pandora, confirming that most of the other planets are just as crapsacky, each in their own special way. |
| 44 | * The world of ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'' looks funny and slapstick, right? Except for the cheap circus with the freak show, the children crying from hunger in Whale Cove [[spoiler:after you personally take away the family's source of income]], the face-huggers, the witch's tower filled with beautiful men turned to stone, and the whole [[spoiler:men being seduced to evil and turning into monsters, in service of a dark god you thought was really Saint Eva]] thing. |
| 45 | * ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' opens in a world which has gone through 4 centuries of world war, with fears of a fifth breaking up soon. Most of the East Continent's towns are in varying levels of ruins and poverty, with the less fortunates being victim of the FantasticNuke owned by the Western Empire, which has left ''entire patches of them'' contaminated and unusable until they are cleansed, which in the best scenario can take up to several years. |
| 46 | * In ''[[VideoGame/BreathOfFireDragonQuarter Breath of Fire V]]'', the entire population of the world lives underground due to the surface having been rendered "uninhabitable". Not too bad, until the logistics of proper air control is brought into question. Their solution? Genetically engineer little girls to suck up the pollution (Who then die). Oh, and everyone has a D-Ratio, essentially an unchangeable classification of how valuable you are as a person. A 1/8192 is doomed to a life of menial labor. And the main character has a Dragon inside him, just waiting to bust out like something out of ''Franchise/{{Alien}}''. And this is not a story element, the player can cause this to happen in an irreversible way to force the game to be restarted. There's a reason the New Game+ option in this game doesn't require the player to beat it. |
| 47 | * The world at the start of ''VideoGame/{{Breath of Fire|I}}'' is practically under the control of [[TheEmpire the Dark Dragons]], with most of the towns being screwed over by them either ForTheEvulz (Gant, Prima), ForScience (Gust) or for particular {{Revenge}} (Tantar/Tuntar, Carmen). Those who can don't even try to stand up to them, as anyone who did ended up either dead (or close to, like Wyndia's king) or captured (Tantar's chief, Ox and Mogu's tribe). |
| 48 | * ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'': |
| 49 | ** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'': To elaborate, the ''Modern Warfare'' universe at first seems to be a slightly different version of our world today. For all of the first two missions. When, via ControllableHelplessness, you are shot in the face point-blank range by a power hungry warlord, you realize that this world ain't particularly friendly. When [[spoiler:you lose your entire troop regiment to a ''goddamn nuclear bomb'', and die slowly due to radiation]], the crapsackiness of this world sets in. Believe it or not, [[FromBadToWorse it gets worse]] as the game goes on. You learn that Russia is being torn apart by a civil war between hard liners called the Ultranationalists and a Russian army that can do all but very little to hold them back. Next, during a flashback, it's revealed that low-level terrorist groups have more than ready access to nuclear weaponry. However, this all gets eclipsed by the American campaign in the second game. Those hard liners? They took power. And, wouldn't you know, they've just been itching for a reason to attack America. Needless to say, it's given to them. [[spoiler: By you, no less.]] You spend the rest of the American campaign defending a war-torn UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC from the Ultranationalists. To finally let you know how much the world in ''Modern Warfare'' sucks, [[spoiler:when you kill [[BigBad General Shepherd]], the guy who [[TheChessmaster instigated all of the crapsackiness]] of the second game, it does ''absolutely nothing'' to stop his plans. In fact, he's already succeeded. All you did is prevent him from seeing it.]] Oh it does get worse in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare3''. VERY MUCH SO. Just from looking at a few teaser trailers, the world is fully engulfed in a Third WORLD WAR. And considering this series track record with nukes,expect them to be dropped like rainfall. Ironically, no nukes in ''Modern Warfare 3''. You do get to see New York City get torn apart. Later on European cities start resembling themselves in 1944-45. Use of poison gas in several of those same European cities just makes things worse. |
| 50 | ** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'': Oh yes. The future here is crushingly dark. Natural disasters, riots, terrorist attacks, endless mechanized warfare, and forced human experiments are the state of the world at the ''start'' of the game. Naturally, this being ''Call of Duty'', it's going to get a lot worse from there... |
| 51 | * ''VideoGame/{{Caravaneer}}'' is set on the Earth wrecked by shifts in weather patterns and overpopulation. While communities have been built and trade resumed, armed bandits ravage caravans and life for many is still nasty, brutish and short. The situation is not helped by the fact that the closest thing to proper security would be the police patrolling near Qubba, who would ask the passing caravans large sums of money even after they're already paid. The government of the region is led by a corrupt PresidentEvil who is accused [[spoiler: correctly]] to be collaborating with robbers, letting them operate freely outside of the core region in exchange for gold and stolen goods. Many location names are BilingualBonus for every negative connotation (Verdammter Platz being "doomed place" in German) The situation is somewhat better in the sequel, as the Desert Patrol overthrowing the corrupt government is the canonical ending of the first. Nevertheless, the post-apocalyptic landscape is still rife with banditry and slavery. In addition, some of the towns and the Man of Zinc church even endorsed a slave trading conglomerate called Workforce Merchants. Though life can be [[WorldHalfFull improved]] if the player made the right choices. |
| 52 | * ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'' shows what kind of world you saved in the previous game. The land is barren and lifeless, gravestones are everywhere, people are too poor to afford anything but unfurnished brick rooms, most will lie to you or tempt you with sin, expensive mansions once owned by the rich have signs of torture and enslavement, and creatures don't even bother to inhabit areas that people have long since abandoned and left to crumble. A lot of it is due to ''Dracula's Curse'', but there's a reason why most of the games take place inside Castlevania -- who's to say things are better on the outside? |
| 53 | ** Made a ''little'' better in later games, particularly ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'', where the HubLevel is a small, well-kept village (well, well-kept once you save the villagers). Still, being attacked by Dracula and his monstrous hordes every few decades earns the world a few points in the "crapsack" column. |
| 54 | ** Whenever the world turns into one, it's usually a sign that Dracula's coming back (it's certainly no coincidence that he returned just in time for ''both'' World Wars.) |
| 55 | ** The ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow Lords of Shadow]]'' AlternateContinuity shows an entirely different setting, but no less messed up than the original: the Earth was separated from Paradise by an spell cast by the titular Lords of Shadow, leaving the souls of the dead to wander the living world aimlessly. Monsters of all kinds also rampage through the land and at least one entirely civilization with its own distinct culture and technology was ''wiped out'' by them in the distant past. The [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow2 sequel]] shows things have not gotten much better; while the Lords were seemingly defeated and their spell was reversed, an new evil emerged from the EvilPowerVacuum namely {{Dracula}} [[spoiler:(to be specific, the previous main protagonist ''is'' Dracula)]], who also begins his genocidal campaign against humanity. |
| 56 | * The post-apocalyptic ''VideoGame/CavesOfQud'', featuring the usual irradiated wastes and ruins infested with mutants and [[KillerRobot killer robots]]. Civilization? Small, isolated, and still in such a hole that ''purified water'' is precious enough to be used as currency. Hey, at least there are also lush jungle regions... filled not only with mutants (some of whom are heavily armed), but [[EverythingTryingToKillYou plants that want to shoot you, terrify you, bleed you dry, or rust all your equipment]]. |
| 57 | * ''VideoGame/ChaosField'': Its world is facing destruction and ruin after the titular "Chaos" Field was suddenly opened and a mysterious alien force seeks to conquer the "Order" Field. Mankind is facing the threat of annihilation after hopeless attempts to fight back proved fruitless for many years. |
| 58 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' - 12,000BC and 2300AD. In the former, the majority of humanity is left cowering in caves on a frozen planet (it being the Ice Age); the lucky few with magical powers live on a FloatingContinent cluster... which is being held up by the stolen power of an EldritchAbomination that slumbers within the planet. Their ruler has gone mad from this power, and the only decent person among them is doomed to a terrible fate. The latter is 301 years after the EldritchAbomination emerged and laid waste to the world. What's left of the human race survives in a constant state of starvation, the machines that maintain their lives on the verge of breaking down, and many are left to think they're alone because the landscapes between their domes are inhabited by horrible mutants. And down south, a [[AIIsACrapshoot mad AI]] is turning humans into energy for her robot army. You cannot fix 12,000 BC, only survive its collapse; fortunately, preventing the horrors of 2300 AD is the goal of the game. |
| 59 | * Apparently, crapsack worlds just [[AfterTheEnd arise naturally]] if you keep playing ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} II'' for [[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/12/man-plays-civilisation-ii_n_1589153.html?just_reloaded=1 long enough]]. The year is 3991. Only three civilizations are left, and they're locked in a [[HopelessWar Hopeless]] GuiltFreeExterminationWar, and have been for the past 1700 years. The war has killed the vast majority of mankind (90% of people are dead), the polar ice caps have melted and nearly all of the earth's surface has been reduced to radioactive swampland where hardly anything ever grows, nuclear attacks on what's left of the cities are an almost daily occurrence (either from [=ICBMs=] or terror attacks), and all industrial capacity for all three nations is spent entirely on producing more munitions to fight on the frontlines, which haven't moved at all. |
| 60 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries'' isn't any better. The world keeps getting devastated by two superpowers for no other reason than they distrust each other. And thanks to Creator/TimCurry, [[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 now there's a third superpower to join the fray]]. |
| 61 | * Pretty much all of Earth in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars''. There's the politically unstable hellholes of the Yellow Zones, which are ravaged by war, disease, famine, and Tiberium. Then there's the Red Zones, which are completely uninhabitable by human (or any carbon-based) life, and filled with the horribly lethal Tiberium. The only nice place to live is the Blue Zones, which are clean, healthy, pristine, and.... wait, what are those ScaryDogmaticAliens doing here? ''...oh, crap.'' |
| 62 | ** And this was an ''improvement'' from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'', where the atmosphere and oceans had been contaminated enough to leave the human race months from extinction, with the few safe population tucked away in the arctic. |
| 63 | ** By ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianTwilight'', Tiberium infestation reaches the point where only 2% of the world is inhabitable at all. |
| 64 | * Grimsborough in ''VideoGame/CriminalCase'' Season 1. Aside from AlwaysMurder which is the game's main theme, there's also a lot of gang warfare and mob rivalry going on in Grimsborough, at least one DirtyCop has affected the Grimsborough P.D., and the rich care more about their money and status than about the feelings or welfare of others. |
| 65 | * ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}}'': Alcatraz describes that the world apparently became like this in the years between 2010-2020. There were a couple of economic crashes (the "Double Dip"), multiple wars in Asia and South America, new epidemics (at least one of them weaponized by Egypt against Syria in the "Water Wars") and a number of Secession Riots in Texas, which were quelled with Marine deployment. Things are ''so'' bad that the USA is under a DHS-enforced media-blackout, cellphone restriction ''and'' a No-Fly zone, all of them voted into long-term law. As for the rest of the world, we literally ''don't'' know what is happening after the Ceph awakened. |
| 66 | ** In ''Legion'' Watts points out that the Ceph's cryogenic weapon would set off environmental catastrophes ''worldwide'' - which corrupt governments were able to spin into Soviet Russia-level authoritarianism. Ceph hives are slowly waking up, causing [[FastTunnelling city-smashing earthquakes]]. And on top of that, bioterrorism is a growing concern - Alcatraz compares the Ceph bioweapon to ''enhanced necrotizing fasciitis'' that ''somebody'' turned loose in the Middle East to defend the pipelines. |
| 67 | ** Just in case anyone thought that there was a chance that humanity might be able to match the Ceph directly, that prospect is thoroughly dashed in ''Crysis 3'', where it's made clear that [[spoiler: the Ceph are billions of years old, utter masters at adaptation to ''any'' environment in the galaxy, and have colonized millions of planets across multiple spiral arms of our galaxy alone.]] Also, the Ceph's tech is so far beyond humanity's that [[spoiler: the Ceph that humanity has been fighting are their equivalent of cavemen with clubs.]] |
| 68 | * Holy crap, does the world of ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' suck. Corporations rule politics with a ruthless, iron fist, and the difference between inescapable poverty and and ostentatious wealth is a razor-thin line; the world is heading towards a total ecological meltdown from the overt abuse of the environment and governments being completely toothless to stop it, with everything in America from healthcare to the barest of luxuries cost a stupidy-high amount of money designed to gate off against anyone poorer. To really emphasize how bad life is, look no further the the game's setting city, [[WretchedHive Night City, California]], where homelessness is upwards of '''300%''', with Night City ''also'' being voted the 'worst city in America' due to its ridiculous crime rates and the aformentioned poverty gap. [[SarcasmMode Hope you enjoy your stay]]! |
| 69 | ** To really get to the down and dirty why life here sucks so much, look no further than a news host during the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNC6MEA4rQk Postcards from Night City]] trailer, where she says cheerfully "We are ''fucked'' America, and I don't know how we're gonna fix it.". And that's possibly the most recurring theme of the setting, to make matters worse; no matter what you do and what path you take, [[spoiler:the story's protagonist, [[PlayerCharacter V]], is doomed to die either at the end of the story at worst and within ''months'' at best, with your entire journey to upend the world's order [[AllForNothing reduced to nothing]]. And mind you, the ending where you only have half a year to live ''is the GoldenEnding.'']] Yep, [[ShootTheShaggyDogStory it's that kinda story, folks.]] |
| 70 | ** One bit character mentions that Antarctica's "low" homicide rate of 70 per year and 100,000 inhabitants make it sound like a paradise. As of 2020, the only countries in the world with homicide rates over 50 per year with 100,000 inhabitants are active warzones. |
| 71 | * ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'': Earth is a war-torn mess of chaos where the vast majority of the population are damned, with the percentage growing by the day. The Inferno was initially simply a prison for damned souls, but Lucifer made it into his own personal torture pit where all else is in constant pain. Paradise does exist, but [[DevilButNoGod we never see it]]. |
| 72 | * ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': Your home base is continuously rife with famine, crime, chaos, plagues, and bandit raids. The surrounding areas are filled with bandits, cultists, deep-ones, {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, homunculi, monsters, mutants, undead, vampires, and they all want to kill you. Your team of 'heroes' is made of deluded ex-KnightTemplar, criminals, cultists, and outlaws, all of whom are continuously driven insane by frequent suicide missions. ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeonII'' then takes you to places outside the Hamlet...to a world where the fields are overrun by eldritch rot and MeatMoss, the forest is full of vine-wrapped undead, the coast's inhabitants have formed a pact with an EldritchAbomination and become FishPeople of varying levels of horror, the cities burn as religious zealots purge them of knowledge and learning, and the Swine from the first game spread and mutate in the underground Sluices...all on the endless road to the looming Mountain - although, unlike the bleak ending of the first game, [[EarnYourHappyEnding you can win a respite, at least]]. |
| 73 | * Earth becomes this in ''VideoGame/{{Darksiders}}'' after suffering through a premature Apocalypse in the beginning of the game. Humanity itself has died off. The world is littered with the ruins of civilization. Sandworms patrol entire deserts created from human ashes. All while the forces of Heaven and Hell wage their meaningless war for supremacy. |
| 74 | * The world of ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' isn't a happy place at all. The [[CosmicKeystone First Flame]] that gave power to the Gods and their miracles are going out, leading to most places in the world to have endless nights (as among said miracles is ''the sun itself'', though it's worth noting that before it existed, there was still life and no cold... somehow -- so at least that's a plus). Mysterious brands called the "Dark Signs" are cursing humans with [[ResurrectiveImmortality undeath]] (including the player character) whom are doomed to lose their humanity and become insane Hollowed monsters. The gods of the world are also suffering, except two [[spoiler:Gwynevere and Gwyndolin]], and they either abandoned their people to their fate or care more about their own power and influence than about fixing the world. One god is a shadow of his former self after some of his power was stolen by a mere mortal, another lost her sanity when she tried to create a Second Flame and is now the source of all demons (oh yeah, demons prowl this world too), and the last one sacrificed himself to a horrible burning existence to keep the flames going just a little longer. There's also no guarantee that either choice you make at the end of the game will make the world a better place for anyone. |
| 75 | ** Arguably even worse in the [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsII first sequel]], as you learn that whatever you did [[YouCantFightFate didn't actually change anything]]. A somewhat alternative [[TheCycleOfEmpires cycle of Empires]] exists where every Empire is first united by a good leader under which the people flourish. Then, [[TheCorruption the Undead Curse]] returns and - while the leaders desperately try everything to stop it - a quick collapse is all but guaranteed. Naturally, the game occurs [[AfterTheEnd after said collapse]]. |
| 76 | ** And then, as if it wasn't bad enough, the [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII second sequel]] comes in showing how the repeated cycles of light and dark have taken their toll on the world. Hollows from all the previous undead curses have built up their ranks and been around for so long, they've started to become BoredWithInsanity and built their own society of Londor, based around the [[TheFundamentalist incredibly strict]] Sable Eye Church. The Kingdoms dedicated to following the footsteps of the (now-dead) Gods and maintaining the First Flame fell due to their princes no longer willing to maintain the cycle of fire, a decision that was also made by even the old Lords of Cinder, who ''already'' sacrificed themselves to the Flame just like your previous player characters. Even the world itself is refusing to go on, becoming an ashen wasteland turning in on itself in an ''Film/{{Inception}}''-like fashion at the Kiln of The First Flame. The only way for things to ever improve is to simply ditch the world and move on to a new one, [[spoiler: and in fact, that is exactly what happens at the end of the ''Ringed City'' DLC, marking the end for the ''Dark Souls'' series]]. |
| 77 | * ''VideoGame/DayZ'' simulates how a real life ZombieApocalypse would go. Supplies are scarce, zombies are everywhere, and all the other players in the game will be more than happy to kill you just for your can of beans. The gameplay itself also lends itself to the trope quite well; firing guns will attract zombies and paranoid/rogue players towards you due to the noise, having your legs broken forces you to crawl everywhere and only morphine can fix broken bones, losing blood makes it hard to see or aim and losing too much blood can make you fall unconscious at random times, you have to keep eating and drinking to keep your energy up, and you never know if the other players helping you are going to back stab you later. Even being shot once is enough to break your bones or make you lose a ton of blood. Needless to say, only the strong survive and even they can't survive forever. |
| 78 | * Let's take a look at a tropical holiday spot in the Pacific. A nice place frequented by tourists. The perfected getaway location. [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Where the natives practice cannibalism and the resulting disease has mutated into hell on earth.]] There is very little in the way of shelter, even less in the way of defending against the infection, the few survivors are either evil, go crazy, or otherwise doomed, with it heavily implied there are no survivors, period. This is ''VideoGame/DeadIsland.'' |
| 79 | * Comedic aspects aside, the world of ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' [[VideoGame/DeadRising2 and]] [[VideoGame/DeadRising3 its]] [[VideoGame/DeadRising4 sequels]] is a messed up place. |
| 80 | ** Thanks to a group of American cattle researchers in a small Central American town, an attempt to solve a beef shortage lead to the discovery of a parasitic wasp whose offspring can infect a host and turn them into zombies. Naturally, during experiments, the queen wasps escaped the lab. Rather than a full-on ZombieApocalypse, there have instead been multiple outbreaks, where thousands of people end up either being eaten, experiencing horrific trauma, or becoming zombies themselves. The worst outbreaks have lead to cities being firebombed out of existence, like Las Vegas. |
| 81 | ** Some who don't die in the outbreak end up snapping and turning into violent psychopaths. These range from criminals and sociopaths who just want to fulfill their blood lust, [[KnightTemplar Knight Templars]] and [[CrazySurvivalist Crazy Survivalists]], to [[TragicMonster ordinary people who went insane from the trauma of losing loved ones, failing to save others, or just watching the world fall apart around them.]] |
| 82 | ** [[ZombieInfectee Zombie infectees]], who number in the millions, have the option of using a drug called zombrex to temporarily stave off transformation, but it's very expensive and supplies are tightly controlled, not to mention they face [[FantasticRacism widespread discrimination]]. Many of them are fitted with government-mandated [=GPS=] chips as a precautionary measure. [[spoiler:And it turns out that Phenotrans, the company making zombrex, ''intentionally'' starts outbreaks to secure a steady supply of queens to create the drug in the first place.]] |
| 83 | ** Many find ways to profit off the outbreaks. One of the most controversial is the ImmoralRealityShow ''Terror is Reality,'' where contestants compete to kill as many zombies as they can with wild and brutal takedowns. While many in the audience enjoy the spectacle, seeing it as payback for the lives lost in the outbreaks, critics rightfully point out that every zombie they kill used to be a human being with friends and family of their own. Still, many compete just to get their hands on the zombrex they or their loved ones need. |
| 84 | ** [[spoiler:[[GovernmentConspiracy Conspiracies]] abound within the higher ups. At least one military general intends to use the zombies to stage a coup and become dictator of the U.S. While he's killed by his own men when they find this out, one ending has him successfully plunge the country into civil war.]] |
| 85 | * The ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' universe is not a happy place for anyone [[spoiler:except maybe the Brethren Moons.]] Humans have resorted to planet-cracking for resources. The government does terrible things out of sheer desperation to solve the energy crisis because planet-cracking isn't enough anymore. An insane cult that worships mysterious alien artifacts is gaining ground. Said artifacts inevitably drive people insane and transform them into flesh-eating Necromorphs. The government can't destroy/seal away said artifacts because they are the only possible solution they can find to the previously mentioned energy crisis. [[spoiler:Said artifacts are nothing but SchmuckBait to facilitate the Brethren Moons' lifecycle.]] The third game reveals that this awful situation has been repeated countless times with different alien civilizations. It's reflected in the games' environments as well. Everything looks dark and rusted, with the exception of the third game which takes place on an icy hellhole of a planet. |
| 86 | ** By the end of ''Awakened'', [[spoiler:the entire universe goes to hell now that the Brethren Moons begin to attack Earth and there is virtually nothing the protagonists can do. If there's ever a sequel, which is looking increasingly unlikely, then TheBadGuyWins]]. |
| 87 | * Ah, ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls''. The world is being swallowed by a [[FogOfDoom colorless fog that unleashes demons]] because someone had the bright idea to awaken the [[BigBad Old One]] from his sleep. Boletaria, the kingdom where the game takes place, has been almost completely destroyed, and very few people who are still sane and still have their souls remain. The rest have been eaten by demons. Even BEFORE the events of the game, it's a crapsack world; The Land of Defilement is filled with trash and filth, and the lost and unfortunate make their home there. When the demons arrive there, it's actually an improvement. The island of the Shadowmen was formerly full of people who cared more about the dead and storms than the living. The God of Demon's Souls turns out to be [[spoiler:none other than the Old One himself]]. Even at the end of the game, you can't catch a break; your choices are to either: A, [[spoiler:Allow the Old One to go back to sleep and become a Monumental, half-living yet aware statues who are supposed to be immortal, but die anyway, and be charged to watch over this crappy world for the rest of your unnatural life,]], or B, [[spoiler:Kill the Maiden in Black, join with the Old One, and destroy the world as you know it.]] |
| 88 | * The ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'' series makes the otherwise detestable and villainous lead character likable and somewhat sympathetic by planting him in a Crapsack World, in this case a warped and insane version of America during the Cold War. |
| 89 | * ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' A devastating plague is storming throughout the world, a good deal of food seems to be limited to [[FutureFoodIsArtificial processed artificial food]], and not to mention the all the secret cabals running about in the background. The world could also be considered AWorldHalfFull however, depending on what ending you choose. |
| 90 | ** The sequel is once again a Crapsack World, and there aren't really any AWorldHalfFull endings this time. |
| 91 | *** Theoretically, the [[spoiler:Omar]] ending is better than the alternatives. [[spoiler:You take out all the assholes pulling the strings, leaving the one group that gives a crap about the common man. Sure, the world will kinda suck for a while, but the entire point of the Omar is that humanity can survive this. And once everything is in place on the ground, the stars are waiting.]] |
| 92 | *** Technically, the [[spoiler:AI]] ending is considered better by many players. [[spoiler:You cause all of humanity to be included into a Borg-like collective intelligence overseen by a benevolent hybrid of an AI and the previous game's protagonist. Inclusion is mandatory, but global conspiracies and the need for world leaders of any sort become irrelevant in the new order.]] But the whole point of the game is how one person's choices can make a massive difference. Each of the endings may be considered a AWorldHalfFull ending depending on the player. |
| 93 | ** ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' actually plays this down a little. There are still problems, but there are also extremely prosperous areas, and augmentation is widespread. Again, the game has MultipleEndings, where if you choose [[spoiler:Sarif]]'s, it causes things to potentially improve for humanity as well as arguably diverging the storyline from being a prequel to ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', while others will let them carry on as they were or get worse. |
| 94 | ** ''VideoGame/DeusExMankindDivided'' cranks it up to its full glory. In the canon storyline, the public realizes that cyborgs can now be controlled through their augmentations and transformed into adrenaline-pumped killing machines, [[HellHolePrison so cyborgs are now imprisoned in quarantine zones and treated as sub-human]], [[ANaziByAnyOtherName with plans to eliminate / enslave them for good]]. [[ThenLetMeBeEvil In response, most of the cyborgs form terrorist groups and fight back]], [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized with civilians taking the brunt of the damage]]. Meanwhile, TheIlluminati just smile as their plans for total control jump to lightspeed through the slaughter of innocents on both sides. |
| 95 | * The world of Sanctuary from the ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' series. The first game ''starts'' with the noble king of Khandruas going insane and being corrupted and his kingdom being destroyed. Then you have to kill the undead king, plus demons are killing people, the prince has been kidnapped and possessed. After 16 annoying levels you finally make it to the BigBad, the title archdemon and beat him... except the prince is now dead and you just became Diablo's new, more powerful host. The second game lets you kill most of the Seven Great Evils... too bad it turns out they all end up getting revived, and the thing holding some semblance of stability over the world is destroyed. So horrible monsters are even more common. Did we mention there is no god[[labelnote:Spoilers!]]There actually is, but he's been dead for ages and his corpse is the High Heavens[[/labelnote]] and some of the angels (Imperius and Malthael being the most notable) are humongous {{jerkass}}es? |
| 96 | ** Humans get a vast power boost because of the destruction of the Worldstone. In the long run, [[AWorldHalfFull there may be some hope.]] They're supposed to get stronger than demons or angels... but in the end it's still fifty-fifty because even according to the most benevolent angel (Tyrael), [[HumansAreFlawed the heart of men is susceptible of temptations to evil]], therefore there's an equal chance that they instead make it worse. |
| 97 | ** ''VideoGame/DiabloIV'' reveals the world is a much darker place now after we learn [[spoiler:the actions of Malthael and Diablo literally killed millions of people]]. |
| 98 | * The world of the ''VideoGame/{{Disciples}}'' games is a pretty GrimDark place. Almost ''all'' of the gods are JerkassGods, the most sympathetic gods are the ''[[GodOfEvil gods of the evil factions]]'' (the Satan expy was wrongfully accused and driven mad by imprisonment and the goddess of the undead is a WomanScorned by an UngratefulBastard), and in the third game, the "good" gods want to destroy the world since they think it's a hopeless mess. The mortals aren't any better. The human Empire is falling apart due to the events of the games, the dwarves are in a similar bind, and the Elves become warmongers that turn on their former allies at the whim of a mad god. And these are the ''good guys''. The bad guys are OmnicidalManiac demons who want to free their wrongfully imprisoned master and the undead hordes are unflinchingly loyal to their goddess and don't care who they hurt while obeying her orders. The demons are also slowly dying because their master's power is fading. The only race that isn't really suffering are the Undead Hordes, because they are already dead. Nobody is wholly good, even evil isn't spared from suffering, and the only gods that think that resetting the world is a bad idea are the "evil" ones. |
| 99 | * The world of ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'' fits this trope to a tee. Civilization as we know it exists only on a handful of small islands in the middle of a mostly unexplored ocean on a world that's implied to have been created entirely by accident and that humanity is rapidly bringing it closer to its destruction. There's one other continent, but it's so inhospitable that every settlement quickly goes mad and/or dies. Virtually everything in this world can and does kill humans, with giant vicious rats that carry a horrible plague and can reduce a human to nothing in seconds, acid-spitting river krusts that infest the shores, giant Lovecraftian horrors that only vaguely resemble real whales and are implied to have magic powers, and wolfhounds with crocodile jaws. In Dunwall, it's just as bad; the city is crumbling, half the population is dead to plague, and it's run by a corrupt and crazy dictatorship with an oppressive police and strict religion. Depending on your actions, you can make it slightly worse, doom it for eternity, or lead it into a golden age. |
| 100 | ** It says something of the crapsack nature of the setting that there are two alternatives for the afterlife. Those who live discordant lives have their spirits wander the [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds The Void]] until they're devoured by...something. Those who live lives not dominated by discordance are "blessed" with [[CessationOfExistence fading]]. |
| 101 | ** Also it's notable that the settings church [[ChurchMilitant The Abbey of the Everyman]] [[DevilButNoGod does not recognize any patron deities]] and exists only to oppose [[HumanoidAbomination The Outsider]] |
| 102 | * Rivellon, particularly in ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII''. Everyone in charge of anything is varying degrees of asshole- from WellIntentionedExtremist to OmnicidalManiac, the setting's gods (except perhaps Amadia, ''maybe'') hold the JerkAssGods banner high and proud, [[{{Hell}} The Void]] nips at the fringes of the world looking for any opening to invade and kill everything, the {{Precursors}} had their *own* special set of assholes that made everything bad for everyone even aeons down the line... All presented in a bright and frankly beautiful world. |
| 103 | * ''VideoGame/{{Dominions}}'' is a horrid place to live. The Late Age is particularly bad: Most factions are using BlackMagic to supplement their armies, while all other kinds of magic are [[TheMagicGoesAway fading away]]. Ulm is a haunted land full of werewolves and vampires that prey on a human populace who live in constant fear for their lives. [[TheEmpire Ermor]] has become a land of undead {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s. R'lyeh is a land of insanity and death presided over by monsters from beyond the Veil. That said, there is some evidence it is becoming a WorldHalfFull, as gods and monstrous creatures that oppress and rule humans are fading in strength along with the magic that sustains their tyranny. |
| 104 | ** The Early Age is hellish for the opposite reason. Magic is in full bloom and the world is wild and completely untamed by human hands, humans being a minority in most places and even their own fledgling kingdoms are bloodthirsty and primitive by the standards of other races. The greatest bastion of human strength is the New Faith of Ermor, where you can see the early warning signs that the place is about to become the Ashen Empire. |
| 105 | * ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'': |
| 106 | ** ''VideoGame/DoomII'': Per the game's narration: "Now you are the only Human left on the face of the planet. Cannibal mutations, carnivorous aliens, and evil spirits are your only neighbors..." |
| 107 | ** ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' subtly implies this; apparently, the energy crisis has gotten so bad on Earth that the UAC is willing to ''mine Hell itself'' for Argent energy. Needless to say, it goes ''poorly'' - and it's implied that the Doomguy's destruction of the Argent energy processing facilities during the game have basically doomed the entire human race. Not that it gets a chance, since ''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' has Hell ''reach'' Earth, and the mess it makes is spectacular. |
| 108 | * ''Franchise/DragonAge'': |
| 109 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' takes place in one. The opening cutscene introduces you to a world where Heaven has been destroyed, the world is threatened by a near-unstoppable army of monsters, and the only people who could possibly stop them are nearly extinct and are forgotten and ignored by the world at large, to the point that it might be too late to save the world. It gets worse. Let's see... there's the {{Knight Templar}}s who go around killing anyone who shows magical ability and didn't submit to be stolen from their family and allow themselves to be turned into a soulless husk or subjected to an oppressive training regimen that possibly ends with their death -- and [[strike: might actually be]] justified in doing so (mages are the ones who blew up heaven and created the Blight, ''and'' their very existence attracts Demons to the world); the fact that elves only exist as virtual or literal slaves to humanity or exiled tribes in the wilderness; the dwarves have been waging a losing war against aforementioned army of monsters for generations and only have two remaining cities; the fact that government and nobility seem to be corrupt and laden with treachery almost by nature... well, from here, let's just mention that the developers specifically mentioned ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' as inspiration and leave it be, shall we? |
| 110 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': As the game goes on the player sees the Chantry completely collapse as the mages get tired of the oppression they suffer under the templars and rise up, [[HeWhoFightsMonsters becoming just as bad as the templars feared]]. [[GreyAndGrayMorality Both sides are filled with fanatics who believe]] [[WellIntentionedExtremist that their way is the only way and anyone who stands in their way deserves no mercy.]] Compromise eventually becomes totally impossible as the actual reasonable people are killed off one by one by accident or to spark the war. What's even worse is that it's implied that the resulting CivilWar is not only horrifying, but completely [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption inevitable]], with nearly a thousand years of history of bloodshed and oppression (from both sides) coming to a head, only being accelerated at the very end. |
| 111 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'': Just as it appears the Divine might be about to put an end to the bloody worldwide war between the Mages and Templars, a magister of old, whose violation of Heaven brought forth the darkspawn in the first place, tears a hole in the sky releasing untold numbers of demons upon the world. The Divine and much of the Chantry is killed in the explosion, the Wardens have disappeared, the Orlesian Empire is mired in a civil war, and the two people who might have been able to lead the Inquisition have vanished. |
| 112 | ** [[FromBadToWorse And to top everything off comes Trespasser.]] The world is now on the verge, or in the middle, of multiple conflicts on multiple fronts, with Tevinter and the Qunari, Fen'Harel's horrific plans, the mysterious conflict happening in Weisshaupt, and whatever odds and ends that weren't resolved in the main game. |
| 113 | ** In ''Trespasser'', one NPC even lampshaded that everything mentioned above happened in slightly over a decade? In-universe, every one hundred years is considered an "age" and named for omens observed as each one comes to an end. Divine Faustine II didn't know the half of it when she declared that [[TitleDrop the Dragon Age]] would be a time of great strife. |
| 114 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'' When you first arrive at the Dread Realm/Dark World not only is everyone in this world weakened to the state where the human inhabitants can barely lift a glass of wine, they are also forbidden by [[BigBad the big bad]] from having any hopeful or pleasurable thoughts at all. This got to the point where many of the villagers would contemplate suicide just to escape this hell. Later in the same realm we see a group of villagers willing to kill elderly men and women for the treasure of a sage, [[spoiler: which turned out to be an empty chest anyway, this was all a plot by the [[BigBad archfiend]] to spread a rumor of said treasure to lure everyone into looking for it, then watch as they all [[DespairEventHorizon kill each other over an empty box.]]]] Then there is the prison where humans who had so much as hope were sent, seemingly just for the pleasure of torturing them, who are given very small rations of sustenance, beaten on a regular basis, and have daily hangings in front of the other prisoners. |
| 115 | * ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' is [[{{Understatement}} not a nice place to live in at all]]. Set in an alternate universe version of medieval Europe after [[TheMagicComesBack The Magic Came Back]] and [[AfterTheEnd the ensuing chaos]] reorganized it as Midgard, the world only manages to maintain some semblance of normalcy with the Seals keeping [[AngelicAbomination the Watchers]] from descending and destroying the world. And even ''with'' the Seals in place, it's still a horrible place to live in; what was once Europe has had its culture diluted into two superstates of the Union and Empire, [[ForeverWar which are at total war with each other and have been for a long time]], with countless innocent people suffering due to TheChainOfHarm, and the world often devolving into a methodical slaughter on both sides. As a demonstration of the world's [[InherentInTheSystem inherent problems]], the first game's "[[NominalHero heroes]]" consist of a a [[AxCrazy murder-happy]] [[TheSociopath psychopathic]] [[HeroicMime mute]], said mute's [[TheCynic cynical]], [[PunyEarthlings disdainful-of-humans]] dragon pact partner, said mute's LittleSisterHeroine BarrierMaiden who's both TheLoad and [[spoiler:[[BrotherSisterIncest with secret incestuous feelings for said mute]]]], said mute's [[TheLancer Lancer]] QuirkyBard who goes [[FaceHeelTurn bad in a big way]] due to his [[LoveMakesYouCrazy unrequited feelings for said sister]], a [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]], [[TheOphelia insane]] [[TheFairFolk elf woman]], a PedophilePriest, an [[OlderThanTheyLook immortal child who's well in over his head]] and [[BreakTheCutie broken]] ''[[BreakTheCutie hard]]'', and a [[NonActionGuy bald old man with no ability to fight]] who despite ''also'' being [[TheLoad borderline-useless]] is your MissionControl. And for the record, the PedophilePriest is openly the most ''heroic'' of the bunch by virtue of being a virtuous pedophile who refuses to indulge his paraphilia, which should tell you the standards of this world's bar for heroism. |
| 116 | ** [[FromBadToWorse And it actually gets so much worse from there, too]]. Every ending past Ending A ([[spoiler:where our "heroes" [[BittersweetEnding actually succeed at saving the world, but at the cost]] of [[HeroicSacrifice Angelus, the player's dragon mount, sacrificing herself]] to serve as the next BarrierMaiden in the now-dead Furiae's stead]]) ends up being [[SerialEscalation a gradually escalating]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt world-ending apocalypse]] that [[DownerEnding usually happens entirely outside]] of [[TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed what the heroes are able to save]], from Ending B ([[spoiler:Furiae [[CameBackWrong coming back HORRIBLY wrong]] and getting cloned in the thousands as [[AngelicAbomination twisted, angelic-like horrors]] whose hellish screams signal the end of the world]]), to Ending C ([[spoiler:dragonkind [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters deciding humanity is too long gone]] and ensuring a GuiltFreeExterminationWar with humanity on the ''receiving end'']]), Ending D ([[spoiler:the Watchers actually resurface as a combination of both all the seals being broken and as DivineRetribution for killing the BigBad who was possessed as their voice, leading them to appearing as [[AngelicAbomination giant, angelic baby statues of marble with teeth]] who then [[ToServeMan would've devoured the rest of humanity]] before being barely stopped [[TimeStandsStill by literally freezing time around the area]]]]), to the [[GainaxEnding now-infamous]] Ending E ([[spoiler:practically the same ending, but not only with the apocalypse continuing unimpeded in the ''Drakengard'' world, but spilling over to ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou our world]]'' and culminating in the apocalypse that caused the events of ''VideoGame/NieR'']]). Put simply, ''Drakengard'' is [[CosmicHorrorStory in a universe that's fundamentally-hostile to civilization and sanity]], and trying to improve things only often makes them so much ''WORSE.'' |
| 117 | ** Being a [[DistantSequel Distant]] {{Prequel}}, ''VideoGame/Drakengard3'' actually reveals that [[EldritchAbomination the Watchers]] have been trying to kill humanity for a ''while'' now. [[spoiler:[[BotanicalAbomination The Flower]] just happened to be their first attempt, which came to feast off the corpse of the deceased Rose, who resurrected her [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong to serve as a host and reproductor]] for [[MotherOfAThousandYoung the Grotesquerie Queen]], the FinalBoss of the first game]]. Upon attempting suicide as a result of learning this, [[spoiler:she was ultimately split into five "sisters" of Rose, who then became the ruling figures in the lands, being worshipped as goddesses within it. It's for that reason Rose [[ThatManIsDead changed her name]] to [[MyHeroZero Zero]], and sets off on a quest to both kill her clone "sisters" and works with her dragon partner Mikhail so she can effectively [[HeroicSuicide commit suicide to seal off the threat of the Flower from the world forever]], which [[SurprisinglyHappyEnding she actually succeeds at doing]] in both the GoldenEnding (Ending D), and [[BittersweetEnding to a far more bittersweet extent]] in [[CuttingOffTheBranches Canon Ending]] (Ending E)]]. [[AllForNothing Unfortunately]], the fact that [[StatusQuoIsGod practically nothing has improved in the timeframe]] between the canon ending and the first ''Drakengard'' should perhaps be a testament to [[TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed the sheer and utter hopelessness of the universe]]. |
| 118 | ** And ''because'' of the aforementioned apocalypse of [[spoiler:the Grotesqueries spilling over into the real world]], it results in ''very bad things happening'' up to the onset of ''VideoGame/NieR''. As a result, seasons and even the daylight cycle have been utterly broken. Wildlife is disappearing, and contact between the few remaining human settlements is being eroded by the ever-increasing hordes of monsters known as Shades literally lurking in every shadow. The few humans that survived are slowly succumbing to a disease known as the [[TheCorruption Black Scrawl]]. Humanity as a whole is slowly facing extinction. The title's [[ChronicHeroSyndrome Chronic Hero]] is doing [[SideQuest whatever he can]] to brighten people's days, but even he can only offer bittersweet closure, not any actual good news. By ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'', Earth has become a global battleground for ''14 robot wars'', [[AwfulTruth all built on a lie]] that [[spoiler:humanity is still alive despite having been dead for millennia now]]. In spite of such, the apocalypse of ''Nier'' is most-definitely not immutably bad unlike ''Drakengard'', and the final ending of ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' actually ''does'' [[SurprisinglyHappyEnding have things improve by the end]]. |
| 119 | * In ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'', "[[SubvertedTrope the world is a lush, idyllic place full of happy people who live peaceful and fulfilling lives]]. [[BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad Disgusting]]. [[InvokedTrope We should do something about that.]]" |
| 120 | * ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''. The motto of the game is "losing is fun". Unfortunately that means the average dwarf will die of any combination of being torn apart by monsters, starvation, terminal depression, being set on fire, or a variety of other methods. Furthermore, the magnitude of enemy attacks increases as your fortress wealth does. Small fortresses have to deal with the occasional kobold thief, whereas a gorgeous obsidian citadel will likely have to close itself off from the world due to hundred-goblin sieges. In other words, ''the better your fortress, the more crapsack the world.'' Of course, this is ignoring any potential player decisions to build a "flood the world with lava" mechanism in the spirit of Boatmurdered. Finally, there's the world's current state of DevilButNoGod (unless you count [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential the player]] as a god, which makes things no better); demons are clearly visible, actively claiming lordship over nations and generally turning the nations the rule into warmongering empires, while the gods respond to prayers with only silence. |
| 121 | ** Demon rulers don't rule any differently than any member of the civilization they're ruling. A demon leading goblins murders no more or less of it's citizens than a goblin ruler does, a demon in charge of humans may be a Pacifist or only kill in defense of their city. A demon in charge of an empire can make a WorldHalfFull, at least bringing peace to large expanses of land and populations. Of course this is something you don't notice when they're busting down the doors of your fortress... |
| 122 | ** Future updates when the Myth and Magic arc comes will include sliders that can actually control how crapsack the world is. Toady explicitly provided one hypothetical example of a world on the bottom end of that slider as "dwarves replaced by worm people living in a world-intestine and routinely being snatched by spirits to be drowned in a lake of bile". |
| 123 | * The ''VideoGame/EarthDefenseForce'' series takes place in a world under threat from alien invasion, but few games touch on how alien invasions can affect the world like ''VideoGame/EarthDefenseForceIronRain''. At the start of the game, the aliens' mothership is destroyed, but the world suffered greatly due to the invasion, and giant insects and alien war machines have remained an issue. Worse still, EDF's forces have been decimated: they are now so few in number that they are reduced to playing favorites with certain parts of the world (ie. the parts with EDF's financial sponsors) while leaving the everyone else to fend for themselves. This has not gone well for the people forsaken by the EDF, who are now rising up in rebellion. |
| 124 | * Most kid-friendly videogames start with a GreenHillZone to establish the beauty of their world and/or the hero's home which needs to be protected from some evil power but not ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim'' whose first and ''least dangerous'' setting is the aptly-named New Junk City, a city-wide landfill full of mountains of scrap so high that blot out the sunlight and pollution that only one deranged hermit and his rabid poodle call home (and this is actually what became of Texas instead of an entirely different planet!). Things only go from bad to Hell (literally as the second level has its action in PlanetHeck), as Jim travels through a lot of planets each of them wackier than the last and all of them under the grip of a megalomaniacal despot who wishes to expand their influence to the rest of the universe. |
| 125 | * ''VideoGame/{{Earth 2150}}''. The never-ending war between the [[TheEmpire Eurasian Dynasty]] and the [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld United Civilized States]] comes to a head when the UCS' [[AIIsACrapshoot military AI]] shoots a nuke into the North Pole, screwing up Earth's orbit and hurtling it into the sun. The conflict escalates because both sides are trying to harvest what's left of the planet's resources. Not even the independent lunar colony is safe so they are pulled into the conflict. The sequels showed they all escaped Earth's destruction but their conflict continues. |
| 126 | ** Not only that as the leaders of the Eurasian Dynasty and the Lunar Corporation suppress [[spoiler:information about the planet Eden]] so they can keep rigorous control of the population. Its implied why Mars hasn't gone Earth-like yet is [[spoiler:due to the dystopic control agreed by the leaders of the ED and Lunar Corporation]]. The only 'good' leader in this situation is the Phoenix's AI who [[spoiler:went [[MagnificentBastard with a plan to wait until both sides brutalize each other then use its numerous bases across the solar system to overwhelm the other factions with AI driven vehicles]]]]. |
| 127 | ** Not only that but the three factions secretly agreed that those who left behind (of Lost Souls fame) so the [[StatusQuoIsGod Status Quo]] would not be disrupted. |
| 128 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': |
| 129 | ** Just like the real-world, Tamriel has had it's ups and downs throughout history. To note some of the more notable "downs": |
| 130 | *** The 2nd Era Interregnum following the fall of the [[{{Wutai}} Akaviri]] [[RegentForLife Potentates]] and the rise of [[TheConqueror Tiber]] [[GodEmperor Septim]] is basically Tamriel's equivalent of the Dark Ages. Numerous factions vied for control of the vacant Ruby Throne of Cyrodiil while attempted Daedric takeovers and yet another Akaviri invasion ravaged the continent. ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsOnline'', a prequel to the main series, takes place during this time. |
| 131 | *** The Imperial Simulacrum, tied to the events of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'', is another. [[TheGoodKing Emperor Uriel Septim VII]] is imprisoned in Oblivion by his [[CourtMage Imperial Battlemage]][=/=]EvilChancellor Jagar Tharn, who serves as the game's BigBad. During Tharn's 10 year reign (using magic to impersonate Septim), the Empire is irrevocably fractured. Unrest in the provinces is high and, after being rescued, only the [[TheChessmaster machinations]] of Septim are able to hold it together. |
| 132 | *** Following the [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion Crisis]], the Empire is left without a Septim heir for the first time in nearly 500 years. [[TheGoodChancellor High Chancellor Ocato]] is named [[RegentForLife Potentate]] and managed to hold the Empire together for 10 years, but he is assassinated by the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Thalmor]] in a (successful) attempt to destabilize the Empire. The Thalmor seize control of the Altmeri government and secede, annexing neighboring Valenwood to reform the [[AntiHumanAlliance Aldmeri Dominion]] of old. The "Red Year" rocks Morrowind, a part of a long TraumaCongaLine for the Dunmer, rendering much of it uninhabitable and later, the southern parts are captured by the invading [[LizardFolk Argonians]], [[TheDogBitesBack seeking revenge]] for thousands of years of enslavement at the hands of the Dunmer. Elsweyr secedes and joins the Dominion as a vassal nation. Petty kings fight over the vacant Imperial throne, with the Colovian warlord Titus Mede finally claiming it. The Dominion begins the Great War with the [[VestigialEmpire vestigial Septim Empire]] now led by Mede's grandson, Titus II. Though The Empire is able to push the Dominion out of Cyrodiil, it is too exhausted to fight further, allowing the Dominion to force [[WonTheWarLostThePeace the imposing White-Gold Concordat]] onto the Empire which, among other things, bans the worship of [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Talos]]. |
| 133 | *** By the time of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', two centuries later, the Empire is crumbling and half the size of what it used to be. Summerset Isle is run by Altmer Nazis who want to destroy the Empire and mankind, Elsweyr and Valenwood have been conquered, Hammerfell and Black Marsh have seceded into independent nations, and only High Rock and Skyrim remain as stable parts of the Empire - and High Rock is only tangentially aligned to the Empire these days, and Skyrim is rocked by a CivilWar which, if the secessionists win, could see the Empire fatally fractured for good. If the state of Tamriel wasn't enough, most of Skyrim is not much better off: half of the cities are {{Wretched Hive}}s run by incompetent and/or corrupt Jarls, dens of crime and FantasticRacism and in some cases government conspiracies. The western part of the province is overrun by murderous savages, and every small village is under threat from the dragons and left to fend for themselves (as the troops are needed in the big towns because of the damn war). |
| 134 | ** In a more "meta" sense, throughout the series, you can't travel more than a hundred feet without being accosted by the local wildlife, bandits, or something even worse. Even sticking to the roads won't necessarily help. And don't bother trying to take refuge in a cave or ruin. With only a very few exceptions throughout the series, they will almost certainly contain something or someone else who try to kill you as soon as you step foot inside. |
| 135 | * The world of ''VideoGame/EldritchLandsTheWitchQueensEternalWar'', by the time the game starts. [[GodIsDead Most of the Gods are dead]], an undead horde threatens what little remains of humanity, and the one race that does still have a surviving God, the elves, [[HonorBeforeReason clings desperately to tradition even in the face of an apocalyptic scenario.]] |
| 136 | * In ''VideoGame/EmeraldCityConfidential'', Oz is run-down and riddled with crime and corruption, magic has been outlawed, and Oz is at threat from attack by the Phanfasms, since Oz's magical protection is out-of-balance due to the death of the four witches. |
| 137 | * ''VideoGame/EmperorBattleForDune'' and the rest of Creator/WestwoodStudios' ''VideoGame/{{Dune|II}}'' games have a few examples of this. Most notably the homeworlds of the great houses: |
| 138 | ** Atreides' homeworld Caladan is a questionable example of this. They throw babies into the ocean, and only those who can swim are considered worthy (those who don't obviously die). Also, the whole planet is governed by a monarchy, with all the issues that come from that. But, Atreides, considered as good guys, definitely have the best of the homeworlds to live in. |
| 139 | ** Geidi Prime of house Harkonnen is a crapsack world by all means. Volcanic SingleBiomePlanet with polluting industry and few nobles with almost unlimited power, fighting between themselves for even ''more'' power. KlingonPromotion is very common. |
| 140 | ** Sigma Draconis of house Ordos is basically the same as Geidi Prime, but an ice planet. Instead of power-hungry nobles, Sigma Draconis is a corporate driven world. But the deception and Klingon Promotion is basically all the same as Geidi Prime. However, Ordos can see the value of someone, so, as long you are useful, you probably won't be killed just for fun. You will be killed by you competitors instead. |
| 141 | ** And, well, the actual Dune is pretty much this too: |
| 142 | *** It's a sand planet, where the water is very scarce. People have to wear suits which prevent losing body moisture and recycle their...waste. |
| 143 | *** As the spice, a highly addictive drug, comes from this planet, it's in the very air and soil. So if you live on Dune long enough, you've become addicted no matter if you want to or not. |
| 144 | *** Ah yes, the spice is produced by {{sand worm}}s. Those ''gigantic'' sand worms the trope is named for. |
| 145 | *** Spice is exclusive to this planet. And it's the most valuable substance in the universe. That means the planet is plagued by constant warfare of houses fighting for Spice. In the last installment, the three houses agree on a legal all-out war for Arrakis to finally decide who will rule the planet, and thus the Spice and the universe. It ended up as the biggest war for the planet yet, and the traitorous house Tleilaxu unleashed the self-replicating zombies on population. You don't want to live on Arrakis. |
| 146 | * ''VideoGame/TheEndIsNigh'', oh boy, ''The End Is Nigh''. Before the game, the Earth was destroyed in a nuclear war, killing almost everything and leaving the few remaining creatures permanently charred and horribly mutated, with most of them not even sentient. However, a small number of things that humans made, most notably the Machine and [[CoolAirship the SS Exodus]] still are intact. Until [[spoiler: Hell opens up about halfway through the game, destroying almost everything else and releasing thousands of tortured souls. And if you think things get better at the end? Ash's friend sets off another nuke.]] |
| 147 | * ''VideoGame/EndOfNations'' civilization has fallen the economy has crashed and every remaining resources are controlled by the [[TheEmpire Order of Nations]] who will impose their will on the world with massive Land Battleships. |
| 148 | * Heavily implied in Tom Clancy's ''VideoGame/EndWar''. A nuclear terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia has killed six million people and crippled the supply of oil from the Middle East, causing a massive worldwide financial crisis. Only the most powerful and wealthy countries survive; the United States (which has the funds and reserves to keep going), Russia (which has become the world's number one supplier of oil and gas now the Middle East has been crippled), and Europe (who have the technology to mass-produce hydrogen engines), and some independent countries like Britain, Switzerland and Israel have managed to keep going but most others couldn't sustain themselves and collapsed. The United Nations has been disbanded due to massive diplomatic disputes, China's gone to pot and is plagued by environmental disasters, Africa and India are experiencing droughts which are killing tens of thousands, and the Balkans have descended into complete anarchy. [[FromBadToWorse And then]] WorldWarIII kicks off. |
| 149 | ** ''Endwar Online'' reveals that after ten years of brutal fighting, NONE of the factions won. The entire world appears to have been blasted back to the stone age, and all three of the major players have undergone BalkanizeMe. And the goal of this game is to reform your chosen faction and then finally [[PyrrhicVictory "win"]] [[HereWeGoAgain the Endwar by conquering the other two]]. |
| 150 | ** Hell, TheVerse involving the late Creator/TomClancy's licensed shared universe between ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'', ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'', ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'' and ''H.A.W.X.'' are this in general. Every other game, there's either a new fictional war going on somewhere, terrorist attacks on major nations, or conspiracies and destruction aimed at America from the inside-out with some cases succeeding. At least a couple of antagonists have intended TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, with [=EndWar=] essentially being the final culmination of all the world's tensions finally breaking down. Since then the 'verse has had a soft reboot starting with ''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction'', but then ''that'' game tries to have a military coup and attempted overthrow of the President, and then [[VideoGame/TheDivision a severe virus outbreak in New York City]] happened while a mysterious conspiracy is gradually exerting full control over the world. Even the Ghosts are massively occupied with a [[VideoGame/GhostReconWildlands dangerous cartel]] getting way out of hand and requiring intervention. With ''VideoGame/TheDivision2'' on the way and inevitably more conflicts to come, things never seem to change. |
| 151 | * In ''VideoGame/EpicMickey'' the Wasteland that the story takes place has a very depressing appearance when we first see it. It use to be beautiful until Mickey Mouse created the Shadow Blot and spilled thinner onto the world, causing the beautiful features to be swept away. There are pools of thinner (acid-like chemical) surrounding certain areas and many areas are teaming with blot minions. Depending on the decisions the player makes, the Wasteland's depressing features can be minimal or dramatic. While it is true that for many structures, the player can use paint to make them look less gloomy, the sad features still exist beneath the paint. |
| 152 | * ''VideoGame/EvilIslands'': Let's see. First, an AfterTheEnd environment (Gipath) with ruins everywhere and people living in Stone Age. Second, an empire (Ingos) governed by TheCaligula, and where just leaving the city means you'll get ruthlessly shot either by rioting villagers, the incredibly powerful gang of local thieves or the PrivateArmy under orders from the local merchant. Finally, an empire (Suslanger) with basically no freedom, soldiers everywhere, and with legal slavery. [[SarcasmMode What a happy world, don't you think?]] |
| 153 | * ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'' is a crapsack world for anyone who isn't a capsuleer or safely tucked away in a station, as most of the game consists of going out and blowing up everyone else. |
| 154 | ** And even if you ARE a capsuleer, nullsec is a never ending hell of being podkilled unless you're in a powerful corp. |
| 155 | ** Even if you are in a powerful nullsec alliance, some [[MagnificentBastard crafty person]] can steal everything from you and hundreds of alliancemates, and this is the intention of the game. Lowsec is plagued with the more ethical pirates who simply want to ransom you, to the less ethical ones who will take your ransom and kill you anyway, then post your pleas for mercy to the official forums. Highsec, theoretically the carebear section of the game, has dozens of people waiting for you to take out that 5-billion isk faction battleship and blow it up simply for the bragging rights. The backstory for the game is worse. |
| 156 | *** And now it's being invaded by cybernetic zombies, intent on turning everyone in the galaxy into a WetwareCPU. |
| 157 | *** Nullsec, even for veterans, is a cycle of never-ending conflicts and skirmishes. You fight to defend what you have from others who want to take it, and you fight to take from others what the alliance leadership wants. It's a constant fight, fought with ships, spies, and public relations. |
| 158 | * ''[[VideoGame/EscapeVelocity EV Nova]]'' to some extent, though it never quite loses a hopeful tone. TheFederation is a police state thanks to the elected government having been suborned by one of its [[StateSec intelligence agencies]], and has the Vell-os ([[TelepathicSpacemen a psychic offshoot of humanity]]) enslaved to it. The Auroran Empire is a [[TheAlliance loose confederation]] of [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy warrior houses]] that [[EnemyCivilWar fight among themselves]] as often as they fight the Federation. The Polaris are xenophobic isolationists with a [[HigherTechSpecies higher tech base]] that lets them blow away anyone to looks at them cross-eyed. Then there's all the SpacePirates floating around. On the other hand, there are a great many people trying to make things better. [[LaResistance The Rebellion]] against the Federation, for instance, which seeks to destroy the Bureau and restore democracy to the Federation's government. |
| 159 | * The ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' series takes place in the 23rd century, where the entire world is reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, [[AfterTheEnd 200 years after nuclear holocaust]], what is left of civilization is still fighting for survival. Attractions include, but are not limited to: radiation, raiders, mutated animals (and plants), mutated humans, killer robots, crazy religious cults, crazy patriotic fascists, crazy patriotic ''Romans'', malfunctioning technology that looks like it came from the later-er 1950's, ''aliens'', and thousands of deadly diseases. Technological progress has slowed to a crawl, and most tinned foods are the leftovers from the apocalypse, while organic meat has been mutated beyond any safety standards. At any point in time, any non-essential NPC can be murdered by a random wasteland event (or the player character, if they're an ax-crazy sociopath). Also, 'family-traditional' cannibalism is also a thing as well. |
| 160 | ** The Pre-war world may have been cleaner, but in some ways was actually ''worse'', due to worldwide resource shortages. The events leading up to the nuclear holocaust included a Euro-Middle Eastern War over oil, only ending when the wells in the Middle East dried up completely, resource wars effectively destroying Europe, Alaska being invaded by China for its oil, the U.S. [[OppressiveStatesOfAmerica becoming fascist in all but name]] and [[ExpandedStatesOfAmerica annexing Canada]], with protesters being shot on sight, America being ravaged by an incurable plague, particularly in Colorado, unconstrained nuclear power and weaponry development without ethical oversight, extremely jingoistic and asinine propaganda becoming commonplace, [[JobStealingRobot robots replacing human workers, increasing unemployment]], riots and death becoming increasingly common, and, with the fear of nuclear winter on everyone's mind, the U.S. government has had over a hundred high tech nuclear shelters known as "Vaults" to protect the people who can afford them. [[spoiler:The vaults were just an experiment for the government to see how long humanity could deal with being pushed to the brink. A handful of "control" Vaults were built and ran exactly as the public thought they would, but the rest of the vaults had special conditions. One was overcrowded, one had a door that wouldn't fully close and let the radiation in, one used sound waves to brainwash people, which failed when everyone went insane and killed each other, one had hallucinogens pumped through the vents, one was permanently sealed shut, and one had the residents trapped in a virtual world completely controlled by a scientist who would torture them for his own amusement.]] A nuclear war may have just been the ResetButton the world needed. [[spoiler: In New Vegas' ''Old World Blues'' DLC, [[ItMakesSenseInContext your brain]] even agrees with this interpretation, specifically calling the wastes "a landscape so bleak, it was actually improved by the end of the world". Considering the fact it has access to an extensive library during that conversation, it may have a point with that]]. |
| 161 | ** As stated earlier, the ''Fallout'' games are much closer to AWorldHalfFull. While the world is still crappy, with innumerable things that will either kill you or make you wish you were dead, but the stories of the games always end happily. ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Canonically, at least.]]) ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' was probably the closest that the series came to this, and even then the main storyline ends with the Capital Wasteland on the path to recovery. The world sucks, but the player can do everything they can to fix it up, and yes, make a long term difference in the Wastelands. Also, the Oasis in ''Fallout 3'' shows that someday, the world CAN get better. |
| 162 | ** This trope comes in full circle by ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', as now the player has the option to found and improve settlements, actually working towards rebuilding society. |
| 163 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' expands on the themes of rebuilding civilization presented in ''Fallout 4'' and has the biggest example of AWorldHalfFull in the series to this point. For starters, the eponymous Vault 76 is one of the "control vaults" built outside of Vault-Tec's social experiments: it functions as advertised, as a subterranean shelter. No faulty water chips or forced isolation or cryogenics; just a fully-stocked shelter to protect inhabitants from the outside world. In addition, the mountains of West Virginia are virtually unscathed: the towns are abandoned and there are still mutant creatures and raiders around, but the infrastructure has remained intact after 25 years. Furthermore, players can [[CoOpMultiplayer work together]] to build their own settlements and shelters. |
| 164 | * ''Franchise/FarCry'': |
| 165 | ** The world of ''Far Cry'' is not a nice place to live, to say the least. Many nations are being torn apart by brutal conflicts, subject to the whims of brutal dictators, drug lords, pirates, slavers, and cult leaders, while the rebels that fight them [[ALighterShadeOfBlack often aren't much better.]] At best, [[BittersweetEnding the conflicts end in a bittersweet way]]. At their worst, [[ForeverWar they don't end at all]], or end [[DownerEnding in disaster for both sides.]] |
| 166 | ** Perhaps made most abundant by ''VideoGame/FarCry5'', where the game's [[CuttingOffTheBranches canonical ending]] is [[spoiler: a civilization-destroying nuclear war breaks out, vindicating the words of cult leader Joseph Seed, who now has the [[AloneWithThePsycho Junior Deputy]] trapped in a bunker with them and plans to indoctrinate them to his cause as they wait through the fallout. And what caused humanity to destroy itself? Global tensions rising… due to something as inconsequential as terror attacks.]] |
| 167 | * ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': |
| 168 | ** The first Lostbelt, the [[Recap/FateGrandOrderS3E1Anastasia Russian Lostbelt]], is a terrible place to live. The EndlessWinter with incredibly strong winds and temperatures as cold as 100 below zero makes farming plants and breeding animals impossible and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou demonic beasts trying to kill you]] are the only food source, along with the fact that the [[BeastMan Yaga]] are so obsessed with survival that they turn against their fellow kind just to see another day in this miserable world that shows no signs of getting better, and the fact that [[LivingIsMoreThanSurviving "to survive" and "to live" are two completely different things]], with the World deciding that this timeline has reached its end, thus pruning it. It was ''even worse'' near the beginning, as the Yaga hadn't fully figured out how to properly hunt Demonic Beasts, so they were forced to resort to [[IAmAHumanitarian cannibalism]] to survive. |
| 169 | ** [[Recap/FateGrandOrderS3MI3Heiankyo Lostbelt 5.5: Heian-Kyo]] is a Singularity/Lostbelt hybrid world created by Ashiya Douman in the form of a warped version of Heian period Japan plagued with evil spirits, in which the Emperor's Minster of the Left is hosting a twisted copy of the Holy Grail War in which warriors [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame hunt the heads of Heroic Spirits]]. |
| 170 | ** [[Recap/FateGrandOrderS3E6AvalonLeFae Lostbelt 6: Avalon le Fae]] tops all of these -- the world itself ''seems'' nice, but its main inhabitants are [[TheFairFolk fairies]] who have truly absurd BlueAndOrangeMorality that leads to them doing truly abhorrent things with smiles on their faces. They go from being friends with the protagonist to wanting to eat them at the drop of a hat, and that's just an early part of the Lostbelt. Even the reason the Lostbelt was supposed to be pruned is more vile than the ones for the last few Lostbelts - [[spoiler:the PointOfDivergence for this timeline was that the six fairies who were supposed to forge Excalibur took a nap that lasted long enough for the White Titan Sefar to scour the surface of Earth of ''everything''. When Cernunnos the Horned God found out about this, he was going to punish them, but instead took pity on them. [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished They promptly poisoned him, used his corpse to make more land, and cut his priestess into six parts so that they could use her to clone more humans to eat]]. It is made very clear that InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves heavily applies to fairies, to the point that Lostbelt Morgan le Fey had to impose tyranny upon them to get them to make a semi-functional civilization. Even worse, ''the world itself is trying to kill them'' as punishment for all the crap the original fairies got away with. Rather tellingly, the bizarre circumstances of this Lostbelt's origin means that, while it must be destroyed to restore Proper Human History, those who live in it can be spared by taking them outside the Lostbelt, which is normally impossible. By the time Chaldea is forced to leave, ''there is no one left to save from this Lostbelt'', because they all wiped each other out]]. |
| 171 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 172 | ** The World of Ruin in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. The ground is barren and crops won't grow. Monsters inhabiting the wild have grown stronger than ever. The entire human population has taken a severe drop. There are few bastions of hope for humanity. Also, it is ruled by OmnicidalManiac PhysicalGod who sits on top of a giant tower and destroy towns if they don't worship him, and also occasionally does it if he gets bored, because he LovesTheSoundOfScreaming. |
| 173 | ** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' the Planet itself could have a very long list of reasons why it would qualify for this trope. But really it could be summed up simply by the fact that when people are exposed a large level of [[TheLifestream the life-giving force]] on the planet it either kills you or makes you mentally unstable. "Luckily" an international company that enforces its will and ways with a private army has industrialized sucking said life-force out of the planet, slowly turning the world into a barren wasteland in the process. On top of this, after Meteor is summoned to destroy the planet, what does the planet do in response? Release several ancient monsters upon the world in order to wipe out ''all of humanity'' since it deems that humans are too dangerous for the planet's survival, even though only one person summoned Meteor and several others want the planet to survive. [[{{Kaiju}} The monsters]] that are summoned have enough power to destroy cities and level mountains. There is also Jenova, an EldritchAbomination who can create illusions to mind rape all sentient life, mutate them into carriers of her cells, and ultimately suck the very lifeforce of the planet. AND there's her "son" who is a HumanoidAbomination instead and is basically doing the same thing except with even MORE mind rape. |
| 174 | ** Spira of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' certainly counts, which sees large chunks of its populace slaughtered by an EldritchAbomination on an almost daily basis and [[spoiler:is ruled by a CorruptChurch ''specifically designed'' to ensure that the suffering ''never ends'']]. And that doesn't even include the NietzscheWannabe whose idea of ending the people's suffering is to simply kill them all. |
| 175 | ** The Cocoon in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII''. People living in fear? Check. Run by a corrupt Beaurocrat? Check. Willing to murder an entire city to kill two [[TouchedByVorlons l'Cie]]? Check. [[spoiler:The entire population set up as a mass HumanSacrifice?]] Check. |
| 176 | ** ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'''s Nova Chrysalia. Chaos has swept over the entire world after the death of [[spoiler: Etro]] in the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2 midquel]] 500 years ago. The world has been slowly swallowed up by chaos in that time span, so only four locations are still safe. Nobody ages and no new life is born, but people are still capable of ''dying'' if they contract a disease that can't be cured, are fatally inured or get killed by human or monster hand. Said monsters are also frequently walking around the locations and they grow stronger the stronger the Chaos becomes. Also, [[ApocalypseHow the Chaos is going to swallow the remains of the world in 13 Days.]] |
| 177 | ** Orience, the setting of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyType0'', is in the midst of a Crapsack World War kicked off by the Militesi Empire invading the Dominion of Ruburm. War encompasses the entire region, people are dying on the streets (often violently), and people who die are wiped from the memories of those still living. [[spoiler:Worse still, it has been like this since times immemorial, as the world is stuck in an endless loop.]] |
| 178 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': |
| 179 | *** The world may not have things seem so bleak at first until you start looking deeper. After the Calamity occurred, many locations and cities were destroyed and people are still rebuilding their homes and their lives. An ancient group of people known as the Ascians had taught the beastmen tribes how to summon deities called Primals; every time a primal is summoned, they absorb a large amount of aether, which is the planet's lifeblood. Some primals, like Garuda, exist to kill everything and gorge on as much aether as possible while other primals are more content with [[BrainwashedAndCrazy tempering people to their side]] so that the victims will mindlessly support and pray for that primal, giving them even more power. The worst part? Primals can never be truly killed, only temporarily stopped until the beastmen summon them again. When the primals aren't threatening the balance of the world, TheEmpire looms over the distance, trying to conquer the rest of Eoreza. |
| 180 | *** The city states themselves, on a smaller scale, aren't exactly pleasant places to live. Gridania, located in the middle of a forest, has its people extremely weary of outsiders. The people of Gridania are also compelled to please the elementals of the woods to keep the peace, even if it means doing ''very'' questionable things like letting a sick child sccumb to their illness. Ul'dah is supposed to be run by a democracy, but a handful of people within the group are content to keeping things as they are and not giving the other side any leeway; the merchants harass and bully people in the streets, criminal groups and corruption run rampant, and anyone who can't make a living deserves to fend for themselves because the city supposedly has no funds to spare to aid the needy. Limsa Lominsa is a city run by pirates, many who are very immoral for the sake of having freedom, that are at constant war with the Sahagin beastmen tribe who are aggressively expanding into the Lominsa territory. |
| 181 | *** When the ''Heavensward'' expansion came, the nation of Isghard finally opened their doors and their city is no better; there's class warfare between high born (the rich and elite members of society) and the low born (commoners and the poor), the city itself is ''very'' traditionalist to the point that during the Machinist and Leatherworker quests, it's noted that Ishgardians would rather stick to traditional means (using heavy armor for protection and using swords, shields, and lances for weapons against the dragon horde) and refuse to try something that would be more practical (using guns for long distance fighting and using leather based armor for more flexibility and warmth against the cold). The whole city doesn't take kindly to outsiders either and you'll be branded an unbeliever if you don't worship the bishop or an heretic if you even show any form of sympathy to the dragons. Heck, most of the 3.X series is about changing the nation from the inside out and while it is noted that such a change will take generations to accomplish, the city overall is at least much better now than it was back then. |
| 182 | *** ''Stormblood'' introduces the game world's FarEast region, which is trapped under the Empire's reign. The Ruby Sea is populated by pirates, but unlike the ones from Limsa Lominsa, who are bound to the Admiral's authority, these pirates are completely lawless and have no qualms with forcing passing ships to pay a tithe, or else sink them. Kugane is a neutral island nation that appears idyllic, but is a veritable nexus of political and economic intrigue as everyone tries to screw everyone else over. And then there's the Othard mainland, where the Empire enforces its will and a previous failed rebellion has practically pushed the entire population of the country past the DespairEventHorizon. The entire region is ruled over by a cruel viceroy, a BoomerangBigot who harbors seething hatred of her former countrymen and who takes great joy in torturing, if not outright killing, them. Her boss is an EvilPrince who is revealed to be less interested in ruling than he is in [[BloodKnight satisfying his bloodlust]], and will gladly mistreat conquered peoples if it means finding a WorthyOpponent. |
| 183 | *** ''Shadowbringers'' dials the crapsack up to eleven with the First, an alternate dimension in TheMultiverse where you learn the hard way that LightIsNotGood: with the exception of a single continent, the entire world has been laid to waste by the overwhelming power of Light. The region is trapped in EndlessDaytime, which also gives birth to an unending hoard of [[AngelicAbomination sin eaters]]. Only two major powers remain in the First: the Crystarium and Eulmore. The Crystarium is like an oasis in the hellish world, where you can live in relative safety, so long as you contribute to restoring the world in whatever way you are able. The same cannot be said for Eulmore, where residents live in decadence and ignorance, whiling away the time while TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt looms large. Most of the people living here have crossed the DespairEventHorizon, themselves, and await the end, while the ruler of Eulmore, Vauthry, is dead-set on ''ensuring'' the world ends. |
| 184 | ** The world of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' is set in a LowCultureHighTech world that is fighting over land and resources, while aggravated monsters roam the countryside, which runs the gamut from the humorous (such as people complaining about thieving goblins) to the deadly serious (Adamantoise causing earthquakes). Everything gets worse at night, as daemons thrive in the darkness and can only be held off by plasma-strength light or camping runes. Nights are ''literally'' getting longer as the Big Bad summons the apocalypse, and only a few towns can maintain the lights on 24/7. [[spoiler:Also, Bahamut thinks humans are PunyEarthlings and ''orchestrated the apocalypse'' by driving the BigBad insane, all so he could 'fix' the world by killing a lot of people.]] |
| 185 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles'' had the world at peace until a meteor crashed into the world, causing its giant crystal to shatter into several shards and the meteor releasing a toxic gas known as miasma. Those who are caught in the miasma either die or turn into monsters. Fortunately, survivors of the calamity settled down in settlements whose large crystals protect them from the miasma and life has mostly bounced back. Unfortunately, a crystal's power is not infinite and requires to be refilled with myrrh (water of life) every year. Each town and settlement send their best warriors out (known as the Caravaners) to retrieve myrrh from dungeons and other locations infested with monsters. You don't even have to imagine what would happen if a town's Caravaners fail their mission; one of the dungeons you visit is a former town whose Caravaners never returned, thus their crystal died and the town was overrun by monsters and miasma. [[spoiler: Naturally, you do find a way to end the miasma for good.]] |
| 186 | * ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' has its fair share of worlds razed by war, but due to the series being mostly on the neutral end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism, most of them either make due during the war or recover fine when the war is over. But there's at least two exceptions as a wholesale: |
| 187 | ** Jugdral, as seen in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Thracia 776]]''. Most of the ruling countries and houses in Jugdral are run by the descendants of twelve heroes. When the game starts, at least three of them are turning on the others, and by the second half of the game, all of the ruling houses are fighting among one another (which itself is [[LampshadedTrope lampshaded]] in the introduction to Chapter 8). TheHero [[spoiler:is ultimately duped by a man he thought was his ally, his father is blamed for the death of another lord (who turns out to be the father of his love interest), and he, along with most of his allies, are [[TheHeroDies burned alive for treason]]. This all began because Sigurd merely wanted to a.) find some answers about why the Kingdom of Issach was invading Grannvale, and b.) he wanted to save Edain, a childhood friend, out of the goodness of his heart.]] By the second half of the game, while [[TheDragon Arvis]] was able to keep a ten year peaceful rule, it all comes undone when both a number of nobles begin to fight again and when the [[ReligionOfEvil Loptr Cult]] starts acting out on its plans to revive the dark dragon god Loptous, which is now possible because Arvis' son Julius has the blood needed to become his vessel. Needless to say, Arvis becomes regretful when Child Hunts and sacrifices become commonplace, and he even finds out that [[spoiler:having Julius was a part of the cult's plan the entire time - they even brainwashed [[BrotherSisterIncest his half-sister]] so that she could marry him and have his children, as they both possess Loptous' blood.]] Jugdral is also far more of a NoWomansLand compared to any other entry; in the second half of the game, it's implied that Leen/Laylea was [[RapeAsDrama raped]] by the nobleman she was serving because she refused to become his personal dancer. However, per the tradition of ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', this is where the son of TheHero, Seliph, enter the fray and fight his way out to get rid of these problem and rebuild Jugdral to a better place, he usually succeeds to make it AWorldHalfFull. But it doesn't take away the fact that Jugdral is one of the darkest settings the franchise has ever offered. |
| 188 | ** The BadFuture of Ylisse, as seen in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''. Set in a timeline where [[ReligionOfEvil the Grimleal]] [[TheBadGuyWins gets everything they need to have]] [[spoiler:[[PlayerCharacter Robin]] serve [[GrandTheftMe as a vessel of the]] [[DraconicAbomination Fell Dragon Grima]], Grima unleashed destruction upon the world with a horde of Risen warriors [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and caused the complete collapse of civilization in that timeline]]. [[AfterTheEnd From the ashes]], Grima and his Risen continue to terrorize the remnants of humanity, and things gotten bad enough that the Shepherd's children, led by [[TheHero Chrom]]'s daughter Lucina, was sent back to the past in order to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong... only due to how time travel works, [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent it's revealed that]] Lucina only changed ''another timeline's'' future, [[AllForNothing meaning that her own timeline is still veering on destruction]]. Somehow, [[SerialEscalation it's even]] ''[[SerialEscalation worse]]'' in the DownloadableContent of ''The Future Past'', which shows an even ''more'' crapsack timeline than the one we see ourselves, with the entire world's survival hanging on the LastStand of the twelve surviving children of the Shepherds. Oh, and we say ''twelve'' because ''both'' genders of Morgan has been [[CorruptTheCutie corrupted by Grima]] [[FaceHeelTurn and are slaughtering the remnants of humanity]] with their father[=/=]mother - [[SadisticChoice and you can save only one of them from certain death]]. To give a frame of reference how apocalyptic things have gotten by this point, [[GodOfGood Naga]] outright says this timeline [[BigDamnHeroes requires intervention from the heroes]] [[DeusExMachina of the main timeline]] just to have even a ''chance'' of setting things right. It's ''that bad.'']] |
| 189 | * ''[[VideoGame/FragileDreams Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon]]'' slightly hints humanity was at war with each other [[spoiler:before the Class Cage was activated]]. It was the reason why people said "yes" to the whole thing, in the first place. Unfortunately, they didn't expect it would also bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. |
| 190 | * ''VideoGame/FreedomWars'': Welcome to [[TheFuture the year 102014 PE]]. Earth's a barren wasteland, resources are far and precious few between, and the nations of the world have consolidated into Panopticons, city-states that [[BigBrotherIsWatching surveil their populations 24/7]] and punishes any misdeed with [[LongerThanLifeSentence a million years of penal servitude]]. These "Sinners" must [[WinYourFreedom work off their sentence by volunteering for combat missions to pilfer precious resources from rival Panopticons]]. Meanwhile, those with technical knowledge (such as engineering or medicine) can become a free-ish citizen - but citizens are treated like objects by the leaders (who refer to them as "human resources") and are constantly being targeted by other Panopticons, who regularly send [[HumongousMecha Abductors]] to attack rival Panopticons and kidnap their citizens. Even the game itself teaches you to objectify citizens, by literally making them part of your inventory (as "items" that can be used to improve your factories' production). |
| 191 | * ''VideoGame/GarageBadDreamAdventure'' is a pretty bad place to live. Being forced into a robotic vessel and an entire aspect of your soul gets separated from you (which will likely get destroyed for entertainment) isn't even the worst that will likely happen to you. |
| 192 | * Sera in ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'' has been rendered a truly awful place by decades of nonstop war. The Locust Horde has been waging a campaign of genocide against the human race since their sudden assault on Emergence Day. The human government (COG) had to resort to using the Hammer of Dawn WMD system simply to stall the Locust and prevent them from using COG's own resources against them, which had the side effect of killing millions more humans and rendering most of Sera a desolate wasteland. By the start of the series, only a minority of the human race survives in the handful of remaining cities or living as Stranded, many of whom are hostile to the COG. Finally, the COG itself has a fascist/communist feel to it. |
| 193 | ** Made worse in ''Gears of War 3'', where Sera is so screwed and uninhabitable that the remaining humans ''have to go live on giant boats'', with no government over humans and with not only one, but TWO races trying to kill everything. |
| 194 | ** Even the hailstorms on Sera are doing their best to kill you by dumping razor sharp shards of ice on your head. Any creature that steps out of cover during a razorhail storm is reduced to ground meat in seconds. |
| 195 | * ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}}''. Ah, Geneforge. Very much a [[GreyAndGrayMorality grey and gray]] world, but that doesn't stop everyone from trying to kill one another. The Awakened are easily the nicest faction in the first two games: they can be ruthless killers when they need to be, but are at least fighting for a world in which creations and humans can get along as equals. Guess what happens to them? By the third game, the two main sides are the Shapers and rebels. The former have an extreme case of FantasticRacism regarding their creations, keeping all Serviles permanently enslaved and attempting to exterminate several entire sentient species. The latter are full of violent maniacs drunk on power who tend to [[AGodAmI declare themselves gods]], and vary in degrees of racism. The nicest characters with any real pull on either side tend to be {{AntiHero}}es and {{WellIntentionedExtremist}}s. |
| 196 | * If you're a human in the ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' series, you have two choices; [[GodIsEvil gods]] who view you as little more than a plaything or possession, and are only good in that they represent stability (at the cost of ''torturing'' the unstable), or a evil demigod who's a NominalHero at best and might kill you for no other reason than he's having a bad day, which is often. |
| 197 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'': In every game, organized crime and corruption is rampant. Also, the police [[DrivesLikeCrazy do not have to take driving lessons]]. [[PoliceBrutality or police lessons]]. The games are based on real-life corrupt cities, then satired to a violent extreme. |
| 198 | ** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' features Liberty City, whose representation of the organized crime in New York City is largely based on ''Series/TheSopranos''. Furthermore, backstabbing and betrayal are very common themes in the game, and the characters include a corrupt mayor, and a CorruptCorporateExecutive whose master plan [[spoiler:is setting off a gang war between the Yakuza and the Colombian Cartel to cut down real estate prices for the city]]. The playable character is shot and left to die in the opening scene, to set the tone of this game. |
| 199 | ** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' is [[CrapsaccharineWorld superficially brighter and sunnier]], but make no mistake. Its story takes the basic plot of ''Film/Scarface1983'' and uses it for a satire of '80s neoliberalism, Tommy Vercetti's pursuit of wealth through drug trafficking [[NotSoDifferentRemark not any worse]] than those yuppie businessmen making their money through more "legitimate" means. |
| 200 | ** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' features Los Santos, whose representation of gang wars is largely based on ''Film/BoyzNTheHood''. On the other hand, San Fierro is not even better, since it's a city where [[GangBangers street gangs]], drug manufacturing and Asian organized crime are prominent. The only quietest and safest areas in the state of San Andreas are the towns of the rural areas. Downplayed with Las Venturas. While the city has practically zero street gangs, there are several legal businesses of TheMafia, one of them is a casino. |
| 201 | ** The main plot of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' concerns a pair of immigrant brothers, Niko and Roman Bellic, who get chewed up and spit out in their pursuit of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream, portrayed here as a hollow lie told to people in order to get them to accept their lot in life through false hope of improving their station through hard work. All of it happens against the backdrop of a Liberty City that's been redesigned into an exaggerated parody of [[Post911TerrorismMovie post-9/11]] [[BigApplesauce New York]] of [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 2000s]], riven by gentrification and fear of terrorism. |
| 202 | ** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' is [[CrapsaccharineWorld superficially brighter and sunnier]], but make no mistake. The game is set in a pastiche of San Andreas plagued by extreme wealth disparity, demagogic politicians who offer no real solutions, and a vapid and brainless culture that obsesses over the rich and famous to the detriment of everything else. The kicker, though, comes in the online mode, where, upon dying for the first time, you are greeted by [[spoiler:Cris Formage, leader of the Epsilon Program, a thinly-veiled parody of the [[ChurchOfHappyology Church of Scientology]]. As it turns out, he really ''does'' have magical powers, which he shares with you (the [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration in-game explanation]] for "passive mode"), and has the last laugh over everybody who called him a charlatan and a cult leader.]] That's right. In the ''GTA'' universe, [[spoiler:Scientology]] is the one true faith - and the chosen get to treat the world like a violent video game. Furthermore, under the facade of such nice scenery is a conglomeration of all the worst traits in [[{{Eagleland}} American culture]]: fame and celebrity obsession, materialism, hypocrisy ("Civilization's greatest virtue!"), xenophobia, narcissism, and more, with virtually every character -- including many minorities -- exhibiting at least one of these. Naturally, the negative portrayal of the minority characters landed the game into quite a bit of controversy, some of it from PoesLaw, some of it because negative portrayals of minorities are (to some) [[DudeNotFunny unacceptable in ANY circumstance,]] setting and context be damned. That said, Los Santos itself isn't that awful a place when taken on face value, with a number of beautiful neighbourhoods, vibrant nightlife, and close proximity to natural areas, taking the CrapsaccharineWorld trope to another level. |
| 203 | * In ''VideoGame/GrimDawn'', the world of Cairn is a very good place to avoid at all cost. Between invading eldritch abominations, [[ApocalypseCult apocalyptic cults]], [[RapePillageAndBurn raiders]], undead monstrosities, cannibals, [[BigCreepyCrawlies giants vermins]], mutated wild beasts and [[JerkassGods angry uncaring gods]], there are very little places where you can be safe [[EverythingTryingToKillYou from harm]]. And what of the defenders of this world? They are [[GoodIsNotNice fanatical armies]], [[FantasticRacism zealot orders]], amoral necromancers and coven of witches. Real nice. |
| 204 | * ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'': |
| 205 | ** The Combine-controlled Earth. The environment and infrastructure are in such an extreme state of disrepair after just a decade or two of Combine rule that it threatens the human race's very existence. |
| 206 | ** It's implied in the games (and outright stated by WordOfGod) that the Combine has zero interest in Earth's infrastructure; their interest begins and ends with raping the planet of any usable resources (and stealing our teleportation technology, which is by some aspects superior to theirs). ''Half-Life 2'' was supposed to feature a plant designed to remove the oxygen from the planet's atmosphere, though it was scrapped early in development. The low water levels imply that the Combine is draining Earth's oceans to transport water to other planets. Various types of aliens have also contaminated Earth's biosphere, such as the antlions (insectoid aliens which are extremely aggressive towards any other lifeform), headcrabs (which the Combine weaponizes as air-dropped shock stabbers), and ocean-faring leeches which make even [[BorderPatrol wading out a short distance into the ocean a suicidal endeavor]]. |
| 207 | ** Citizens live in constant fear of [[PoliceBrutality Civil Protection raids]], can only eat the terrible-tasting packaged food distributed by the Combine, and are regularly transferred between cities to prevent them from organizing. The Combine have also set up a Suppression Field to [[ChildlessDystopia prevent humans from reproducing]]. They did this after wiping out a large portion of the human population, so twenty years later, humanity is on a downward spiral towards extinction. [[note]]Although thankfully, with the destruction of the Citadel, the field is gone as well.[[/note]] |
| 208 | *** And if the ending of ''VideoGame/Portal2'' is anything to go by, the Earth seems to be in a rather good state after all that's happened, albeit it's unknown if any of the humanity survived besides Chell. |
| 209 | * The ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' universe is pretty damn bleak. Devastating conflicts erupt cyclically among (and ''within'') the various species that inhabit the galaxy, as apparently none of them are very good at the "peace" thing. Their precursors occasionally pop up and screw things up even worse. A sentient, omnicidal parasite with unknown origins regularly threatens the galaxy (and is, in fact, the only entity that occasionally manages to cause the others to go "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and initiate shaky truces). And to top it all off, there doesn't really seem to be ''any'' way of permanently destroying the parasite, with the closest anyone's come to sterilization being a system that kills '''''all''''' sentient creatures in the galaxy. This system ''has been used before'', resulting in inconceivable life loss, but being that the parasite is so virulent that a single remnant creature is enough to generate another galaxywide infestation even such extreme measures only give the galaxy temporary respite. The games begin as the parasite is wreaking havoc yet again, and with one of the two major groups in the galaxy waging brutal war against the other ''because their leaders couldn't stomach giving up their political power to TheChosenOne, decided to kill him, and tried to kill off his entire race to sell the deception''. Even after the parasite is stopped and the war ends, the galaxy is not really in much better shape; there may be no big official war, but there are lots of smaller ones, with some nasty characters taking advantage of the chaos for their own ends. To wit, first the AbusivePrecursors turn out to be alive and willing to attack, and when they're stopped [[AIIsACrapshoot the artificial intelligences start a rebellion]] and take said precursors' weaponry to ensure it works. By ''Videogame/HaloInfinite'', humanity is nearly finished off. |
| 210 | * The protagonist monologue in the trailer for ''VideoGame/{{Hatred}}'' seems to set this tone for the game. Then again, seeing that the protagonist is a StrawNihilist DeathSeeker about to go on a mass murdering rampage, this may just be his worldview. |
| 211 | * ''VideoGame/{{Homefront}}''. The central story of the game takes place in 2027, after the American economy has fully collapsed, the Middle East is on fire, which causes gas prices to nearly hit twenty dollars a gallon, and North and South Korea have joined forces and annexed Japan and a host of other nations. Also, a massive thermonuclear weapon has been detonated, shutting down America's electronic infrastructure. The Korean People's Army has seized the entire US west of the Mississippi River. Which is irrevocably toxic thanks to the Koreans dumping tons of nuclear material into it. And a variant of the bird flu is killing off citizens left and right. |
| 212 | * Its ContinuityReboot ''VideoGame/HomefrontTheRevolution'' isn't any better. The 2003 invasion of Iraq exacerbated with almost the entire Middle East against the United States. Riyadh was nuked by a smuggled Iranian nuclear bomb, which lead to absolute unrest in the U.S. combined with the subprime mortgage crisis, and forcing the nation to enacting a state of emergency and suspending the 2016 Presidential Elections. North Korea is under the rule of a MegaCorp that produces the world's highest demanding technology, [[BigBrotherIsWatching which are chipped and secretly monitored from North Korea]], and successfully conquered America by simply turning off the U.S. military's APEX hardware. The United Nations remains helpless as the world is controlled by APEX technology, Russian-owned oil, and Chinese manufacturing. |
| 213 | * ''VideoGame/{{Helldivers}}'': |
| 214 | ** The Helldivers are less the [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Adeptus Astartes]] or the [[Franchise/{{HALO}} ODST]] and more just a bunch of jingoistic recruits given ''five minutes'' of training before being shipped off into hellish ForeverWar against all manner of alien races who threaten humanity. They are given unlimited access to heavy ordnance they have no idea how to use and often kill each other in friendly fire incidents as much as their enemies. And [[WeHaveReserves when they do die, there's always somebody else eager to die for democracy]]. The meatgrinder never ends. |
| 215 | ** Super Earth is all but outright stated to be a PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny where elections are tightly regulated and largely a sham, despite all their bombastic republican rhetoric. Things that we would consider minor luxuries or everyday items are extremely expensive and unavailable to most Super Earth citizens -- one woman remarks that she hopes to earn enough points before retirement to earn a goldfish or "even a hamster", for her kids, then adding that is assuming she even gets permission to be allowed to have children. |
| 216 | ** It's apparently completely normal for fully-equipped soldiers to patrol around in peaceful, suburban neighbourhoods. [[ThePoliticalOfficer Democracy Officers]] enforce strict compliance, arrest anybody deemed insufficiently patriotic, and offer candy to children to get them to spy on and report in their own parents. |
| 217 | * The world of ''VideoGame/{{Infamous}}'' starts out as a pretty crappy place to live in. After having a good chunk of itself destroyed in a catastrophic explosion, Empire City is hit with a contagious plague, forcing the US Government to completely quarantine the city. Gangs and superpowered thugs rule the city, while the police are either dead or in hiding. Other than the occasional PR-stunt supply drop, the government doesn't even do anything to help the populace of Empire City. Oh, and if you try to leave, the soldiers guarding the borders have orders to shoot to kill. The only thing keeping the government from just bombing the entire city into dust is because they want to recover the MacGuffin. It's up to the player to decide whether to try and clean up the city or ''[[FromBadToWorse make it even worse]]''. |
| 218 | * ''Franchise/{{Injustice}}'': In an alternate universe, after ComicBook/TheJoker tricks him into killing his wife ComicBook/LoisLane and nuking Metropolis, Franchise/{{Superman}} and most of the Justice League establish a dictatorship on Earth. Franchise/{{Batman}} is the only one who leads the opposition against Superman's regime. The end result is years of endless misery and countless deaths of those who called out Superman. If the Joker were alive, he'd be cackling in glee on how he unleashed the chaos in the ''Injustice''-verse. It only gets FromBadToWorse in the [[VideoGame/Injustice2 sequel]], as the various evil factions who hid from Superman [[EvilPowerVacuum are now bidding for power]] after his downfall, while a portion of Earth still clamors for the Tyrant of Steel's return. Worse still, the Lords of Order back the alien conqueror ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}'s invasion of Earth as they felt humanity only serves to create chaos everywhere. [[spoiler:The Lords even decreed that if this infighting within the Justice League kept on going, then it will lead to an even bigger crisis on the horizon]]. The bad ending of ''Injustice 2'' reveals that [[spoiler:Superman not only kills Brainiac and restores the Regime, he even plans to expand his tyrannical order to ''the DC Multiverse''. He even uses Brainiac's tech to forcibly brainwash anyone he saw a threat to his Regime]]. |
| 219 | * ''VideoGame/IronStorm'' is set in a world where [[AlternateHistory the first world war never ended]]. This ForeverWar is being waged by [[TheEmpire the Russo-Mongolian Empire]], created by Baron Ugenberg after he unified UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia and the Siberian tribes, then annexed all of Eastern Europe, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything including half of Germany]]. On the other side is the United States of Western Europe, [[TheFederation a union of the remaining democracies on the continent]] who've managed to stalemate the war since the 1920's. On the 50th anniversary of the war, after hearing that the empire is constructing some sort of DoomsdayDevice, [[ShellShockedVeteran lieutenant James Anderson]] is sent on a suicide mission behind enemy lines to neutralize it. While he's there, he learns that the conflict is nowhere ''near'' as [[BlackAndWhiteMorality black and white as it seems]]. [[spoiler:Ugenberg is nothing more than a senile old figurehead for the [[GeneralRipper General Rippers]] and [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corrupt Corporate Executives]] that control the Empire and the United States. The Consortium, an American MegaCorp supplying the USWE with weapons, [[GovernmentConspiracy also supply the Russo-Mongolian Empire and are perpetuating the war]] [[WarForFunAndProfit because it's become so ingrained in society that the global economy is dependent on it]], with the heavy implication that [[HumansAreBastards humanity itself]] is so used to war that they're becoming a species of [[CrazySurvivalist crazy survivialists]]. When Ugenberg tries to make himself look like a hero by simply ending the war, he is assassinated by his Consortium contact, who issues a quick replacement. And Anderson is either gunned down by his superiors [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness after completing his mission]] or he pursues Consortium CEO Colonel Mitchell after he assassinates Ugenberg, implied to also end in failure. A TV report ensures that the war will continue in Ugenberg's name, with military advertisements for the newest machines of war.]] |
| 220 | * [[VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy I WANNA BE THE GUY]]! No, you don't. This world has OneHitPointWonder characters, lethal traps, and [[SelectiveGravity the apples fall up!]] [[MemeticMutation They're more like giant cherries.]] [[WordOfGod Delicious Fruit.]] That you have to boil ''three times'' before it's safe to eat. |
| 221 | * ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxterThePrecursorLegacy'': |
| 222 | ** While the world was pretty pleasant if you listened to Samos the Green Sage and didn't wander off on island shrouded by mist (or somewhere else in wilderness for that matter), the future world in the sequels is different story: |
| 223 | ** In ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade'' you have choice to live in Haven City under tyrranical rule of Baron Praxis ensured by omnipresent Krimzon Guards, or get out in the wilderness and get shredded by Metal Heads. The local mafia has no problem to [[spoiler:sell the city to Metal Heads and their leader, who is in fact disguised as your ally, either. Also, Praxis bribes Metal Heads with Dark Eco to attack the city just enough to justify his iron fisted rule]]. |
| 224 | ** In ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'' The Haven City is even ''worse'', as it has three-way war going on in it between Freedom League (ie. good guys), Metal Heads and Krimzon Guard Robots spawned by floating factory hovering over the city. Good part of city is destroyed by war, [[spoiler:destruction of Palace]] and by Metal Head infestation. The Spargus city keeps only people that are useful and throws everybody else out in the Wasteland, a giant unforgiving desert full of marauders and with nests of Metal Heads. [[spoiler:And this is before Daystar gets close enough and Dark Makers start showing up]]. Thankfully by ''VideoGame/JakXCombatRacing'' the world improves a lot. |
| 225 | * ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' has the Republic basically shattered, with the protagonist being one of the last surviving Jedi in the galaxy, even though canonically the first game has the player saving the entire galaxy. Pretty much every planet visited by the PC is either a desolate wasteland or it has a corrupted government, where there's basically no authority to keep things in order. The only exception of this might be Telos, but then again [[spoiler:the Exile blows up its only fuel source. Guess what happens when a giant space station that acts as a city doesn't get its fuel. You can fix it later on though.]] If that wasn't enough, everywhere the player goes there's someone trying to kill them. There's actually very few places that get to be saved from impending doom. |
| 226 | ** ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': The galaxy is stuck in a Cold War between Sith and Jedi, with border skirmishes and world-trading. The only reason the Sith haven't taken over is because the Emperor made some borderline-insane political choices. [[spoiler:Then it turns out he made those choices on purpose so he could murder his own side along with the Jedi, devouring the life force of nearly the entire galaxy, and only sparing the inhabitants of Zakuul to serve him as a god-emperor for eternity]]. |
| 227 | * ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'': |
| 228 | ** It seems to make the world absolutely ruthless for anyone who is a survivor in the zombie apocalypse. Most of humanity is either dead, a cannon fodder zombie, or a special zombie with hideous deformities. Any survivors you do happen to meet will be paranoid of your immunities and will call a horde of zombies on you just to prove whether or not you are immune. |
| 229 | ** ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' makes it a whole lot worse where every rescue attempt ends in failure, forcing you to trek your way to your next rescue attempt and the military in the final campaign is bombing New Orleans to wipe out the zombies and they ask the survivors if they are carriers. It's shown on the graffiti on the walls that some people think carriers are dangerous to non-infected people and the military decided to kill anyone they thought were carriers. Nick comments about this a few times and is greatly worried about their own fate. |
| 230 | ** The Sacrifice comic reveals that carriers are people who are immune to changing into a zombie, but can still spread the virus to others unwittingly, which is what the survivors in both games have been doing! On top of this, when the military "saved" the survivors in ''Left 4 Dead'', they only saved them to see if they can develop a cure for the virus and planned to kill them if they couldn't get a cure. The survivors barely manage to escape (with the help of a few soldiers who were wise enough to listen to them) and get on a train heading south as Bill explains his plan to get them to the Florida Keys, where they can live in peace without zombies (they can't swim) or the military trying to kill them. So in a nutshell, if you aren't a carrier, you will become an infected and if you are a carrier, the military will try to kill you. The world be fucked. |
| 231 | * ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'': |
| 232 | ** A series of fantasy games where time traveling Vampire lord Kain clashes with his soul-eating undead son Raziel across the ages. The world of Nosgoth the series takes place in is host to massive web of [[AncientConspiracy ancient conspiracies]], and over the course of the series experiences poverty, political warfare, extra-dimensional invaders, vampire empires, and due to the way the forces of nature are governed during it all the very ecosystem is slowly getting worse. It gets so bad that in ''Soul Reaver'', which takes place the furthest down the timeline, the humans of the world are confined to one city up in the mountains, the vampires are scattered and going hungry, and the world has become a desert wasteland. |
| 233 | ** The game ''VideoGame/{{Nosgoth}}'' shows a world in between Raziel's execution and his resurrection. Humans and vampires are fighting a war in battlefields full of lush foliage, beautiful (and often destroyed or defaced) architecture, several trails and even fountains of blood, all just to enter the wasteland that we see in Soul Reaver where nobody wins in the end anyway. |
| 234 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 235 | ** In the original ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' there are no cities or villages. The entirety of Hyrule is a wilderness overrun with monsters, and the few scattered Hylians are hiding out in caves and ruins. The Hyrule in this game is not a nice place at all. Justified: This is explained in the sequel, where the play area of this game is revealed to be a very tiny, remote part of Hyrule, located at the southern end of Death Mountain. |
| 236 | ** Termina, from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''. Most of the characters are in despair all thanks to the eponymous mask, as well as the moon slowly falling. Majora does so many malicious things to almost everyone in Termina. And for what? ForTheEvulz. Thankfully, [[VideoGameCaringPotential you as Link have the opportunity to save it from this trope.]] But, as fitting for a game that resonates doom and despair in every way, it's not possible to save everybody in a single 3 day cycle. |
| 237 | ** While not quite as miserable as Termina, Hyrule isn't exactly a picnic, either, considering the land is fairly dangerous even during peace times. Factor in the civil wars, racial tensions, power struggles over the Triforce, and a BigBad who wreaks utter devastation every few centuries, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that many of the games end on a bittersweet note--and that's not even getting into the truly sad state of the land when Ganondorf actually takes over it in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'' justifies the crapsack: [[spoiler:the GodOfEvil Demise cursed Link and Zelda (the mortal incarnation of Hyrule's goddess Hylia) to face an incarnation of his hatred every time they reincarnate.]] |
| 238 | ** Even after the cycle is broken in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]'' by [[spoiler:leaving Hyrule and Ganondorf trapped at the bottom of the ocean to slowly crumble away]], the new lands that people settle have their own various monsters and demons causing trouble for everyone else. |
| 239 | ** Lorule of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds A Link Between Worlds]]''. It's dark, gloomy, the land is literally falling apart, and everyone is grouchy and miserable. [[spoiler:Like Termina, it is also doomed to destruction, thanks to the elimination of its Triforce. Fortunately, this is fixed in the ending.]] |
| 240 | ** ''A Link Between Worlds'' adds a new element of crapsack to Hyrule: [[spoiler:The Triforce is a CosmicKeystone, so it cannot be removed from play without causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.]] This, combined with [[spoiler:Demise's curse]], means Hyrule is destined to suffer eternal war over the Triforce. |
| 241 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' features the most vibrant incarnation of Hyrule yet. However, that's only because the Calamity Ganon, the latest form of the Demon King, destroyed the kingdom a century earlier. The people of Hyrule now live in isolated towns and villages, all while Ganon's power grows in the ruins of Hyrule Castle. |
| 242 | * In ''VideoGame/{{LISA}}'', the world gets progressively worse with each installment in the series. |
| 243 | ** ''The First'': Although the outside-world remains largely unseen in-game, characters such as Marty are shown to be able to get away with their abuse, [[KarmaHoudini seemingly facing no legal repurcussions]], as implied by ''The Painful''. |
| 244 | ** ''The Painful'': The world has been reduced to a post-apocalyptic state, after society has almost completely collapsed following the White Flash. Although there are still several safe-havens littered around Olathe, there are warlord-led gangs who are constantly fighting with each-other for power, many characters are savages who murder each-other for their own reasons, and there is a worryingly-commonplace drug which transforms those who repeatedly use it into horrifying beasts. |
| 245 | ** ''The Joyful'': The number of Joy Mutants in Olathe is rapidly increasing [[spoiler: as Dr. Yado's plan finally begins to unfold]], and while there are several characters attempting to fight them, there is also a mutant-worshipping cult who tracks down, locates, and murders anyone who tries to harm the mutants. [[spoiler: The few peaceful characters who remain in Olathe, such as Rando and Mr. Beautiful, also end up dying]], leaving Olathe in the hands of AxCrazy conquerers [[spoiler: such as Buddy.]] |
| 246 | * ''VideoGame/LikeADragon[=/=]Yakuza'' is based primarily in Kamurocho, a highly popular red-light district in Tokyo, and the city's capital for organized crime. Rival yakuza families jockey among one another for control over the district, often violently, and woe befall the poor civilians caught in the middle (which is to say nothing of the other punks that will try to shake you down). |
| 247 | * Welcome to the SharedUniverse of Creator/ProjectMoon's games (''VideoGame/LobotomyCorporation'', ''VideoGame/LibraryOfRuina'', and ''VideoGame/LimbusCompany''), a {{Dystopia}} which is very frequently many people's vision of "[[HellOnEarth Hell]], Plus [[CityOfAdventure Urban Planning]]". Set in the far future [[AfterTheEnd where all energy sources on the planet have been exhausted]], humanity has retreated to an Australia-sized megapolis simply known as "The City," where twenty-six NGOSuperpower [[MegaCorp mega-corporations]] known as [[OneWorldOrder The Wings of the World]] end up [[OneNationUnderCopyright ruling the entire city with an iron fist]]. The ''best'' you can get to having a normal life is being born within the few sanctioned Nests, corporate sectors that host the upper and middle class, where you're expected to get a job to be able to pay for rent and live with the rest of the Nest, where your only options are working for one of the Wings, or applying as a [[HiredGuns Fixer]]. If you choose the former, [[SarcasmMode congratulations]]! You likely have signed up for a company that has a ridiculous DarkSecret that may very well shorten your lifespan by a factor of ten, like the titular Lobotomy Corporation (or L-Corp, for short) hosting a variety of [[GoMadFromTheRevelation madness-inducing]] EldritchAbomination [[OurMonstersAreWeird monstrosities]] to power the City and serve as a stop-gap for the energy crisis. To add insult to injury, every single one of the Wings aren't just [[EvilInc evil]], they're downright ''[[BlueAndOrangeMorality alien]]'' too with [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} decisions that would get any sensible economist to ragequit at how nonsensical and deadly they are]]. Your only other choice is to become a Fixer, where you'll likely die a very humiliating death fighting [[EverythingTryingToKillYou gangsters, other Fixers or whatever eldritch horror was unearthed recently]] unless you [[TookALevelInBadass take enough levels in badass to rank up]] -- and most don't make it that far, with even the top Fixers, [[WorldsBestWarrior Color Fixers]], all having the prospect of death be a when, not an if. And if you even ''think'' about protesting the way of life here, at ''best'' you'll be kicked to the [[WretchedHive Backstreets]] to likely die in a ditch somewhere, and at ''worst'' the the Head [[IntimidatingRevenueService will send one of its Arbiters to come knocking]], who are in such power of strength they make Color Fixers [[TheWorfEffect piss themselves]] and you will likely not be left alive to see it. Yes, even the ''best'' life to have in this world is "follow your lot in life, or else". |
| 248 | ** What's that? You got kicked out of a Nest? Congratulations, you now live in the Backstreets, which is enough of a WretchedHive as to make [[UsefulNotes/{{Somalia}} Mogadishu]] look like paradise by comparison! Enjoy living in a wretched hive with a crime rate ten times higher than Detroit, where you are ''very'' likely to be mugged, killed, kidnapped, enslaved or ''worse'' by the resident criminals, and every night, all crimes becomes legal no matter how depraved as a means of population control, with resident murderous Sweeper gangs appearing in this time to slaughter any poor people left out at night in death tolls that reach the thousands every night. You want to be safe? Unless you are a damn good Fixer yourself, your best bet is to hire a Rank 3 Fixer or higher in order to stay alive, but everyone in this City is out for themselves, and there's no telling what other kinds of horrors await you in these slums. Basically, the Backstreets are where hope goes to die, and if you're a kind, curious person, you'll die ''sooner'' than the rest of them. Also, most of the Backstreets are ruled by giant Syndicates collectively called the Fingers, who not only impose their rules on the Backstreet population and face no consequences from the Head, but they are constantly at war with one another, ensuring the Backstreets are essentially at constant siege. |
| 249 | ** The closest thing to a police force the City has, excluding the private security of the Wings, are the Zwei Association, which are essentially cops-for-hire working for the highest bidder, and whose primary way of dealing with criminals in the zone they're tasked to protect is to behead them with a zweihander and taking no prisoners. That they're among the most sane and morally upstanding characters in the setting, and the only reason the Backstreets are liveable at all, is telling. |
| 250 | ** Oh and by the way, even if you do manage to somehow survive the City, avoid getting murdered and manage to reach a 'stable' life: congratulations, you're now working forever at soul-sucking corporate jobs with no real hope of advancing your career until the day you die. It should be noted that they're [[WriteWhatYouKnow South Korean games]]. |
| 251 | ** What's that? You want to get the fuck out of the City? Congratulations, you are now in the Outskirts, a bombed-out wasteland where the Wings wage a ForeverWar against each other that is walled off by the City, where starving orphans and those who didn't get into the City before the doors closed forever are stuck here and killed off daily by roving cannibal bands, abnormalities, or just some sadistic corporate soldiers looking for people to kill [[ForTheEvulz for fun or just because they're bored]]. And if you somehow think the Outskirts are bad, congratulations again! The Ruins make up 99% of the planet and are a lifeless hellscape full with more horrible eldritch monstrosities than you can shake a stick at, where anyone sent on an expedition and survives comes back with [=PTSD=] at the horrors they've seen! |
| 252 | ** And the rest of the few settlements in the wastelands that aren't the City are hardly any better at all -- in some cases, they're even ''worse'' than the City. The [[TheLostWoods Black Forest]] has fallen into perpetual darkness thanks to the curse that summoned the Apocalypse Bird, leaving it barren of most life and haunted by three murderous Birds. Villagers near the area regard the Forest and it's story with fear, warning their children of the Big Bird and Judgement Bird, the former who'll sever your head if you trespass into the Forest and the latter who will hunt you down and punish you for your sins. Meanwhile, [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz Emerald City]] has been twisted by the collective human unconscious into a metaphor for the real City, corrupt and heavily influenced by its upper class society. As seen in the Scarecrow Searching for Wisdom's story; the poor and lower class people who enter the city hospitals face the risk of being secretly killed and having their organs harvested to save higher classes citizens instead. |
| 253 | ** In this kind of world, being a genuinely good-hearted and kind person [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids is just going to get you killed or worse sooner than later]], and the ones who ''are'' idealistic yet badass enough to survive are often insane in their own rights (like Don Quixote in ''Limbus Company'', who's a perpetual idealist and also ''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} completely nuts]])''. What truly sells how bad this world is that even discounting the supernatural horror and sci-fi technology for a second, this whole world is merely the offset of a dystopia as a result of the energy crisis destroying the world and giant corporations seizing the ruins to institute their own rules. If it wasn't for the obviously supernatural setting, the sheer level of horror in the setting would rival the likes of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' in how hopeless it all is. |
| 254 | ** And when you do factor in the supernatural elements, it gets even worse: most people ''likely'' won't encounter any supernatural elements during their lives, excluding MagicFromTechnology Singularities like PowerTattoos, as [[VideoGame/LobotomyCorporation Abnormalities]] are typically kept away from the population at large...that was untill the "White Nights and Dark Days" incident, after which some people started to mutate into horrible abominations called Distortions, which arise when someone at their lowest emotional point (of which there are many) is contacted by an entity called 'The Voice'. Comparatively to the population at large, Distortions are fairly rare...but when they do happen, they can cause mass mayhem and chaos. [[FromNobodyToNightmare The Pianist]], who was originally just a failed musician, wiped out an entire District and killed hundreds of thousands before finally being put down. Not even being in a Nest can save you, as the when and where someone can Distort are totally random. |
| 255 | ** The kicker? The Head, the de-facto shadow government of the City, isn't even that authoritarian compared to other Dystopias - beyond some general big taboos like "No human-like [=AIs=]" and "Pay your taxes on time (or else)", the most they actually do is upkeep the system of the Wings and assigns them their Districts. They're very hands-off otherwise, the cycle of suffering is totally self-perpetuating. |
| 256 | * ''VideoGame/MaceTheDarkAge'': Europe is beset by war and famine, Arabia is at the complete mercy of the assassins and Asia is next on the List. |
| 257 | * ''VideoGame/{{Madworld}}'' takes place in a world where war is replaced with a BloodSport, the one the game takes place in having been made possible via destroying the bridges to an island city, cutting off communications, infecting most of the populace with a deadly virus, and sicking psychos on the rest while promising a cure for the game's winner. The SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/AnarchyReigns'' also takes place in a Crapsack World, in this case [[AfterTheEnd after a nuclear war rendered the world a nigh-inhospitable hellscape]]. |
| 258 | * ''Mostly'' averted in ''Franchise/MassEffect'', whose future is actually pretty similar to our present, so in most cases the world is a pretty okay place to live in. That said, there are some pretty awful places to live: Omega and Tuchanka being the obvious ones, and territory controlled by the Batarian Hegemony is presumably not especially nice. |
| 259 | ** Things only get worse in the [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 third game]] when the Reapers come knocking, especially on Earth. [[spoiler: In the best possible endings, the galaxy at large overcomes this and moves on. In the ''worst'' possible endings, several species are wiped out and Earth in particular is a smoking cinder.]] |
| 260 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' shows that even when the Reapers are not a factor, there is still plenty of room for misery: most of the planets that have been chosen for habitats are less than hospitable, the Scourge makes navigating the galaxy a daunting task, and there is another alien menace to contend with. |
| 261 | * ''VideoGame/MasterOfMagic'': Myrror is a great source of magical power for any wizard who exploits it, but it's also a hellish place to live. The five races of Myrror are [[FantasticRacism utterly inimical to one another]], most of them are rather nasty and vicious in nature, raiders and wandering monsters are far more dangerous than on Arcanus, and the various places of power tend to be inhabited by some really nasty customers. Even the colors are different: Arcanus looks like your generic brightly-colored fantasy world, Myrror's terrain is mostly shades of blue and violet. |
| 262 | * The ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' series takes place in a Crapsack New York, through and through. This is as the game is intended to mirror a noir atmosphere, thus making the presence of a Crapsack World a must. |
| 263 | * ''Franchise/MegaMan'': |
| 264 | ** The series as a whole. The series chronologizes about five hundred years of human suffering due to constant robot uprisings, almost all of which can be traced to ''two men''- Wily and Weil. Fast forward to VideoGame/MegaManLegends, and humanity has gone extinct, and most of the few remaining sapient robots are trying to kill the replacement species humanity left behind. |
| 265 | ** If the LuckBasedMission that is the majority of the game's '''storyline''', stopping a ColonyDrop in ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' fails, this leaves a Crapsack World. |
| 266 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' elaborates on this, there being only one last bastion of civilisation in the planet, a racist dystopia [[spoiler:that gets destroyed before the end of ''Zero 4''.]] To drive the point home, [[spoiler:the ColonyDrop mentioned above is now possibly the last hope of restoring it. Which is exactly what it did, at the end of the series.]] And then the [[WorldSundering Elf Wars]] occurs sometime after the ColonyDrop. ''Two'' apocalyptic disasters, one after the other? It has to be a record or something... |
| 267 | ** The band Music/TheProtomen have based 2 albums on a What If idea that turns the Mega Man Universe into one of the most crappy Crapsack Worlds there is. |
| 268 | ** The only time life was ''not'' pain was the years between 20XX and 21XX, after Wily's death and before Cain tried copying X. Even the golden age between 22XX and 24XX was marred by occasional maverick uprisings and no less than three {{Evil Plan}}s running just below the surface. |
| 269 | ** When a [[VideoGame/MegaManZX post-post-apocalyptic world]] is considered LighterAndSofter, that should clue you in on how bad it had gotten... |
| 270 | ** Oh, and as a reminder, the [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Cla]][[VideoGame/MegaManX ssic]] [[Videogame/MegaManZero Time]][[VideoGame/MegaManZX line]] [[VideoGame/MegaManLegends canonically ends]] with the Earth almost entirely flooded, rendered so hostile to life that both humans and reploids went extinct and had to be replaced by Carbons, a race of artificial humans specifically designed to survive the deathworld that Earth became, and society entirely reliant on salvaging a finite supply of energy crystals to power everything. And unlike any of the previous examples, TheHero can't sort things out on account of the series ending with him trapped in space and awaiting a rescue that, with ''Legends 3''[='=]s cancellation, [[DownerEnding will never come.]] |
| 271 | * ''VideoGame/{{Messiah}}'': Future Earth is ruled by dictators who freely snatch civilians off the streets to use them for genetic experiments or to feed their blood to the SealedEvilInACan. Police brutality is rampant and pretty much everyone carries a gun, to the point where shootouts on the streets between the cops and various armed factions are commonplace. Everything is drab and gray and polluted, and contact with nature is something that only the few lucky can afford. The only people who cared to rebel against the government have long since became savage cannibals who sometimes kidnap random people to eat them. Also, God doesn't care about humanity anymore. |
| 272 | * As far as post-nuclear wastelands go, the world of ''VideoGame/Metro2033'' and ''[[VideoGame/MetroLastLight Last Light]]'' often makes ''Fallout'' look downright cozy. Just 20 years after the requisite nuclear war, humanity has literally been driven underground, with the surviving citizens of what used to be Moscow living their entire lives in the metro tunnels beneath the city. The very air of the surface is poisonous and radioactive, and every inch of the ruined city is infested with vicious, bloodthirsty, man-eating mutants that attack from land, sea, and air (and sometimes all at once). People are crowded into cramped, filthy train stations ruled by [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]], DirtyCommunists, or corrupt merchants' guilds, and life is generally a short, unpleasant slog in which death by mutants, bandits, radiation, or war seems almost inevitable. Oh, and there's no afterlife anymore; it, too, was destroyed when the bombs fell. Those who die end up as tortured souls trapped on Earth, unable to pass on and constantly reliving their final moments for eternity. Interestingly, it's telling that they're actually ''less crapsack-y than the books''. |
| 273 | * ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. Just about every humanoid thing is out to kill you along with every humanoid thing that isn't you that doesn't want to kill you. The only peaceful people live in constant fear of a zombie attack and the player themselves can never outright exterminate the plague of undead. This [[http://www.deviantart.com/art/Minecraft-262995153 picture]] particularly shows it. |
| 274 | * ''VideoGame/MondayNightCombat'' takes place in one of these, though you couldn't tell by looking at it. Underneath the cartoony art style hide Presidents for Life, food dispensed from tubes, a life expectancy of 28, and ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking churros]]''. |
| 275 | * ''Franchise/MortalKombat'': |
| 276 | ** The Outworld: barren desert wastelands, pools of acid, and [[ManEatingPlant trees that feed on people]] are but some of the characteristics of Shao Kahn's realm. Subverted in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'': with the new ruler Kotal Kahn focusing on protecting Outworld as opposed to his predecessor's preoccupation with conquering other realms, the realm has become much more habitable. |
| 277 | ** Earthrealm becomes one in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3'' with Shao Kahn's invasion and the souls of every human, save a precious few protected by Raiden, snatched away as the realm is merged with Outworld. Also the case in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' during the events of [=MK3=], where military forces doing battle with demons and monsters is commonplace among the gradually crumbling cities. |
| 278 | ** Some of the other realms certainly qualify. There's a LawfulStupid realm where AllCrimesAreEqual and punished with DisproportionateRetribution, there's a ChaoticStupid realm where everyone in it does whatever the hell they feel like (which is usually "murder each other for fun"), and then there's the Netherrealm which is basically {{Hell}}. Not to mention, most of the gods are assholes and the ones that aren't so bad are also unfortunately too lazy to do anything. |
| 279 | * Besides undead fallen lords and their hordes of minions, demons from another world, scheming villainous feudals, bloodthirsty wild animals and monsters, uncaring murderous giant Trows, and no less uncaring mages, the world of ''VideoGame/{{Myth}}'' is a perfectly fine place to live. |
| 280 | * An example in a racing game of all places, ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed III: Hot Pursuit'' and its sequel ''Need for Speed: High Stakes'' have Empire City, a winding course through a decaying industrial sector and red light district. Described by the course narrator as a "Metropolis gone bad," it features rundown buildings, Gothic-esque architecture with glowing red windows, a seemingly ruined cityscape against a lighting-wracked, smog-reddened sky and a [[http://images.wikia.com/nfs/en/images/c/c2/Death_star_in_nfs_3.png spherical space station staring at you]]. |
| 281 | * ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysofEurope'' deftly qualifies. '''[[BadFuture And how]]'''. |
| 282 | ** It's a GameMod for ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIronIV'' where Nazi Germany [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory handily won World War II]]... and lost the peace. Germany itself is victorious but internationally isolated from its former fascist Italian and Spanish allies (after [[HostileTerraforming the failure of the Atlantropa project]]) and facing economic ruin. England is occupied, Free France is still clinging to West Africa, the Soviet Union is a distant memory and Russia is now split between various feuding mercenary warlords pushing every ideology under the sun, and if that wasn't enough, not only is a nuclear holocaust quite ''likely'' but Heinrich Himmler (who now controls Ordenstaat Burgundy and has gone so far off the deep-end that he considers ''Nazi Germany'' [[EvilerThanThou to be too liberal]]) [[spoiler:''actively plans for this to happen'' (in the name of exterminating the entire planet of undesirables and allowing the Aryans to repopulate)]]. |
| 283 | ** Speaking of Himmler's Burgundy, the Burgundian System, designed by him, is a government system that makes sure the country enters a crapsack state and ''remains'' that way. Strictily racially segregated, yet even the first-class citizens are treated practically like slaves, with strictly enforced Spartanism and militarism so that every member of the master race lives more or less like a drafted conscript in the middle of a losing war. Everyone else is somewhere between slave and ''currency'', what with being deliberately worked to death so they don't have to be fed. And literally anything that is out of what is demanded from you, even tiny mistakes like answering a question wrong in the SS recruitment questionary or dropping your tools during work, is enough reason to take you away and kill you. It's almost hard to imagine there's people in game that think this is a fine way to rule a nation. |
| 284 | ** Of all the countries on the losing end of WWII, the Russians have it worse than anyone else. The Nazis took control of Moscow, Leningrad, and the Caucasus, leavign the rest of the country in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic wasteland]]. The Luftwaffe regularly bombs Russia to keep the people from rising up. Oh, and the people? Most of them are ruled over by [[WastelandWarlord military warlords]] with varying degrees of brutality. If you're ''lucky'' you will live in poverty under a DisasterDemocracy or a half-decent warlord - more likely you will be ruled by an [[TheGeneralissimo insane military dictator]] (likely [[DirtyCommunists Soviet]]) instead. If you are ''un''lucky, you might live under the rule of the {{Mad Scientist}}s of Magnitogorsk, Dirlewanger's [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores army of bandits]], the [[LesCollaborateurs Nazi-worshiping]] Aryan Brotherhood, or the [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge revenge-obsessed]] Black League of [[HeWhoFightsMonsters Omsk]]. What's worse? Even ''more'' insane warlords can take control if the game goes on! |
| 285 | * If you wake up as a player character in ''VideoGame/NexusClash'' and aren't a BloodKnight, your life has taken a permanent turn for the worse, since you're trapped in one apocalyptic battlefield after another, killing and being killed to decide the fate of the next world. Even the end of the world and the birth of the next one doesn't end it, since as a soul caught in the Nexus, you sleep through the entire life of the world and wake up at its end in the next apocalyptic battlefield. There's a WorldHalfFull aspect in that winning the war can cause life in the new world to be happy and peaceful, but even if you fight for the side of good, [[HeroicSacrifice you never get to]] live in the positive worlds that you've helped to come into existence. |
| 286 | * ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'': Santa Destroy, as shown through Travis' map of the place. The beach is full of toxic chemicals, there is an old weapons testing ground filled with killer scorpions, the people are actually ashamed to live in the town and all to happy to leave, the job employers send you tips for work at the assassination center disguised as an advertising agency, and the fast food places are garbage. That's not even getting into the Ranked Assassins. In ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'', it turns out that the main character inadvertently popularized the assassination business and turned the town into a booming WretchedHive. And in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'', the whole city becomes even more dangerous with the arrival of FU's alien army; a ''big part'' of it, in fact, is obliterated by them. |
| 287 | * The first three ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}'' games center on industrial excesses taken to such an absurd degree that no-one bats an eye at a meat packing plant planning to make their slave laborers into their next product line, while ''VideoGame/OddworldStrangersWrath'' takes place in more of a Crapsack World of a Western, where the townsfolk are so exaggeratedly helpless and cowardly they're ''literally'' chickens. |
| 288 | * The system of Thousand Peaks in ''VideoGame/OpusEchoOfStarsong'' is far from what one call idyllic. Still reeling from the after effects of the Lumen War. People are forced to live in space stations or asteroids as the only planets in the system are gas giants that orbit the incredibly temperamental star Ignis. Meanwhile, poverty is rampant while the United Mining Corporation rules with an ever increasing iron fist as they continuously exploit whatever recourses are available in the system. And all that is if you are a normal human. For witches things are even worse as they are increasingly being treated less and less human by those around them. |
| 289 | * ''VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds'': Welcome to the Halcyon System, site of a once-promising space colonization project, now a cautionary tale one what happens when MegaCorp[=s=] are allowed free reign and unregulated power. By the time you arrive and are awakened from cryostasis, the entire system is suffering under the thumb of the corporations basically grinding the colonists down to a nub, and class warfare is all but inevitable. [[spoiler:If you decide to side with the corporations, the game's ending shows the colonists placed back into cryostasis -- ''permanently'' -- while the big wigs while away the time as the system's resources are bled dry.]] |
| 290 | * ''VideoGame/{{Overlord}}'': |
| 291 | ** It's all played for laughs, but the world is so nasty, with everyone either corrupt, stupid, or useless, that your explicitly villainous HeroicMime and his army of goblins are among the most likable characters. The character's brutal rule as tyrant or madman may actually be an improvement over what it's like already. |
| 292 | ** By the second game, the realm of the first games have been wiped out by a magical Cataclysm that apparently destroyed the halflings and dwarves, there's a massive anti-magic [[TheEmpire Empire]] wiping out as much as they can and the only real {{Hero Antagonist}}s are the Elves that the previous Overlord apparently saved, but now they're all a bunch of whiny hippies concerned with the protection of fluffy creatures. |
| 293 | * ''VideoGame/PapersPlease'' has the entire continent the game takes place in, with each country being crappy in its own respect. Arstotzka, your homeland and the main setting of the game, is a Soviet Union-esque totalitarian dictatorship ruled by oppressive xenophobes, but somehow is not quite as bad as most of the other countries, being home to some of the best doctors, the brightest scientists, and the most stable economy in the continent. Kolechia, Arstotzka's neighbors, is considered to be ''even worse'', with a terrible health care system and being host to terrorists that regularly attack Arstotzka's borders, thus fueling Arstotzka's xenophobia. Antegria is under the thumb of an outright tyrant who spies on and kills their own citizens on a whim. Obristan is a hotbed of criminal activity, particularly drugs, and has even crappier border security than Arstotzka. The United Federation has a decent economy, but a lousy health care system that results in a resurgence of polio. Republia is an oppressive PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny, not unlike modern-day North Korea. The only country that doesn't seem to have any major issues is Impor. All of this on top of the fact that the game takes place during TheEighties, [[GeniusBonus which was the twilight years of the Soviet Union, a time when Communist states were on their last legs.]] |
| 294 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Pentiment}}'', most of the characters seem unhappy about their lot in life regardless of station, and it seems Tassing and Kiersau have always been that way. |
| 295 | * ''Phantom Dust'' takes place in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] world where the last few remnants of mankind are forced to exist in pressure sealed underground sanctuaries to avoid the titular dust and the terrifying [[EldritchAbomination freaks]] it creates. If aforementioned monsters don't get to you there's a good chance your trigger happy and mentally unstable allies will. Not to mention that the dust will erase your memories if you stay out in it for too long. As for the only known bastion of civilization, its leader only communicates through a single spokesperson (who may or may not deliver the message accurately), supplies are gotten through raids on the surface since no one knows how to grow or make more, the non-dust using civilians are kept locked away in what appears to be a giant pit, and, perhaps most tragically of all, its hospital consists of two stone beds lying beneath buzzing, malfunctioning machines run by a nurse who seems to have gotten the job only because she looks cute in the uniform and seems to cure all ailments by stuffing patients full of whatever medication is found on the surface. |
| 296 | * ''VideoGame/{{Phoenotopia}}'' and its remake ''VideoGame/PhoenotopiaAwakening'' subvert this; the ancient humans who went to space expected Earth to be stuck as one after the war, but it got better: human life is flourishing on the surface in several [[SchizoTech quasi-medieval]] kindgoms. Played straight in the Dread/Scorched Lands: wasteland remains of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth, filled with ruins and old yet [[RagnarokProofing still functional]] war machines. |
| 297 | * ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternity''. Eora is not a nice place. Racism, classism, and religious intolerance are prevalent. An ethnic cleansing of non-believers took place during the Leaden Key inquisition, while the Eothasians are slaughtered in retaliation for the Saint's war and Waidwen's legacy. Meanwhile, the hollowborn epidemic is causing many babies to be born [[TheSoulless without]] [[EmptyShell souls]], which has put the nation of dyrwood's population in danger of collapse. Attempts to remedy this situation included giving them animal souls. [[HopeSpot This worked at first]]...but caused the children to transform into animalisitic monsters called wichts when they hit puberty. |
| 298 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 299 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon: [[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky]]'' gives you [[BadFuture the future]]. A future where [[MadGod the god of time has gone mad]], so the [[TimeCrash flow of time has stopped]], the wind doesn't blow, and the sun doesn't shine. [[spoiler: Grovyle's mission is to collect the [[MacGuffin Time Gears]] from the present and place them in Temporal Tower to prevent time from freezing]]. Better yet, [[CrapsaccharineWorld Treasure Town]] is a fine place to live in, if you don't mind a crime rating BIGGER THAN Detroit, a CloudCuckooLander guild master, time traveling saints from Hell, your daily dose of horror, and an exploration team that actually [[KickTheDog steals from children]]. What's fine about Treasure Town again? |
| 300 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonGatesToInfinity'' it's such a crapsack world that... [[spoiler: One of the main villains wants to destroy it and kill everyone in it, since no-one can hate or suffer if they're dead]] the Villain even outright admits it's a crapsack world, though doesn't use that word. |
| 301 | ** For those of you who want humans in your Pokéverse experience, we have [[VideoGame/PokemonColosseum Orre]] (or, as a better word, [[DeathWorld Hell]]). The government barely has anyone of note. The police are utterly pathetic and cannot keep two goof-offs behind bars for very long. The deserts which make up the Eclo Wastes are almost utterly barren of life. The police turf in Pyrite Town has ''more hoodlums per square foot'' than any other region to date. Occasionally, these hoodlums form gangs which make life for the locals pretty bad. And then, there's Cipher, the patron saints of ParanoiaFuel in the Pokéverse. The group believes only in power, and will engage in methods to obtain it that can only be described as inhuman - trainer assault, Pokéverse theft, federal subversion, MindRape, ''homicide''... these guys were the undisputed bottom of the morality barrel in the Pokéverse before [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Ghetsis]] showed up, and the two are fighting over that title to this day. The [[VideoGame/PokemonRanger Ranger Corps]] talks about lots of other regions (except maybe Unova due to limited intel) - even ''they'' will not bring Orre up. '''''It's THAT bad'''''. |
| 302 | ** To make this even worse, whatever disaster turned Orre into a wasteland rendered Pokémon almost extinct in the wild, making them rare. Villainous organizations not only steal them the way typical villains in the franchise do, but use a horrid technique that turns them into Shadow Pokémon, corrupted, evil creatures that are prone to mad rages in the midst of a battle. (In both games, a big part of the heroes' mission is to rescue ["snag"] and then cure ["purify"] these corrupted Pokémon.) |
| 303 | ** In ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndMoon'' you can visit the homeworlds of the [[EldritchAbomination Ultra Beasts]], and when you arrive in Guzzlord's you learn that it comes from an [[AlternateUniverse alternate version of Earth]] that's heavily implied to have been [[PollutedWasteland ruined by pollution]] to the point where humanity left for other worlds, and the only person you meet wears a hazmat suit designed to look like Guzzlord and warns you that the air is toxic. |
| 304 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Postal}}'' series. In ''VideoGame/Postal2'' at least, every townsperson is a jerk, the cops are mean, and the town of "Paradise" is portrayed as very corrupt and broken beneath the surface. All this is played up for humor, and also makes your HeroicComedicSociopath the most sympathetic character by comparison. |
| 305 | * And just because they're DuelingGames, ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' has a crapsack world where super-viruses can rewrite people into monsters, civilians are shot on sight for no good reason, and people keep dangerous biological weapons in major metropolitan areas. It gets progressively worse the further into the story you get. How bad is it? Okay, there's this [[HumanoidAbomination guy]]. He is borderline sociopathic, and [[IAmAHumanitarian eats people]] to [[BrainFood absorb their knowledge]], [[KillAndReplace assume their form]], and [[LovecraftianSuperpower fashion claws, blades, and tentacles out of biomass]]. That man is the hero. He's not a VillainProtagonist, either. He is the actual ''[[TheHero hero]]''. And now, not only does Manhattan host Alex Mercer, it also has James Heller to contend with, who is willing to whatever it takes to destroy Alex. In other words, two [[CannibalismSuperpower psychopathic mutants]] sharing [[ImAHumanitarian an unending hunger for flesh]] are now rampaging in a war-ravaged city. To further accentuate the degeneration of the situation in New York City, fresh and potent strains of the Blacklight virus are emerging, creating whole new abominations to wreak havoc on the hapless survivors. Blackwatch has been compromised, and is now actively ''prolifigating'' the virus for experimentation and sadism. |
| 306 | * ''VideoGame/PunishingGrayRaven'' is set in a world ravaged by the titular Punishing virus, which either kills people, or infects machines and makes ''them'' kill people. Survivors have either fled into space or are desperately holding out in besieged cities, free to face starvation or death, if they're not being used by warlords who are probably backstabbing each other for survival. The only best solution so far is going to war against the infected machines, which requires turning humans into combat cyborgs that are still susceptible to the virus, and only opens up more avenues for exploiting people as HumanResources. [[spoiler:Then there are the Ascendants, who are humans and machines that have learned to control their infection, but rather than do anything to help, they are the GreaterScopeVillain of the series, and are trying to TakeOverTheWorld.]] |
| 307 | * ''VideoGame/PsychicForce'' has a world constantly ravaged in a war between Psychiccer and humans, creating an endless strife. However, what makes it crapsack is that the world will go out of its way to NOT give anyone with sympathetic qualities a happy ending. Happy endings goes to villains, anyone else receives a [[DownerEnding Downer]] or BittersweetEnding. |
| 308 | * Another parody example that actually has a story of why the world is that way is the PC game ''VideoGame/{{Pyst}}'', which is supposedly what the world of ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' ended up looking like after millions of tourists wandered through it. |
| 309 | * The city ''VideoGame/RabbidsGoHome'' takes place in doesn't quite fulfill the visual requirements for this trope, but between the intercom announcements reminding people that they're constantly under surveillance and that their breaks have been cut to ten minutes, the increasingly militaristic response from the Verminators, and the bizarre infrastructure of the city itself (seriously, ''[[FridgeHorror where]]'' [[FridgeHorror is the fire department?]]), it's pretty clear that this is ''not'' a nice place to live. |
| 310 | * Stages 3-6 in ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'' take place in an inhabitable post-apocalyptic world where there's absolutely no signs of life, only ruins which are partly transformed into a factory for Stone-Like to produce ships and weapons against the remaining battleship crew. |
| 311 | * Let's face it: the ''VideoGame/RedFaction'' universe sucks. Civilization on Earth is collapsing because all of its metal ores are used up and running dry, so Mars is colonized and mining operations begin there. Unfortunately, the [[MegaCorp Ultor Corporation's]] last concern is the safety and treatment of the miners, with the people constantly abused, shoved into atrocious working and living conditions, and infected with a mysterious plague [[spoiler: caused by Ultor's experiments in nanotechnology]]. The titular Red Faction, with assistance from the Earth Defense Force, manage to destroy Ultor, and the EDF gains control of Mars, and terraforms the surface so humans can live unaided on the surface. Unfortunately, the EDF begins running the mining operations exactly like Ultor, and the Marauders, [[spoiler:descendants of Ultor]], regularly raid colonist settlements. The new Red Faction, after several hundred casualties and deaths, manages to fend off the EDF and the Marauders, and take back Mars again. In ''Armageddon'' it is revealed that the EDF's terraforming technology has malfunctioned horribly, causing severe storms to ravage the surface and make it uninhabitable, forcing humanity to flee underground. All seems okay now... at least until [[SealedEvilInACan an alien species sealed in old Marauder temples is released]], terrorizing humanity again. The colonists just can't catch a break, can they? ''Red Faction'' shares a universe with the ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' series, set in the present day where you play as a gang member who takes over the criminal empire of the city of Stilwater ''twice''. In the first game you were just a member of a gang trying to restore order to the city, yeah, but in the second game you lead the gang in your war to turn the city into your own personal playground. Oh, and the second game also deals with Ultor heavily, and at times even foreshadows the role they'll play in the ''Red Faction'' games, most notably in the DLC "Ultor Exposed". Then there's [[ExaggeratedTrope Steelport.]] |
| 312 | * The world that the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' series takes place in: bioterrorism is common, an American city was nuked in order to end a zombie outbreak, and major corporations are involved in huge conspiracies which could cause the apocalypse. Really, when you get past the action movie cliches and the {{narm}} of some of the dialogue, the series is quite disturbing. |
| 313 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}}'' games appear to be built purely on this concept. Over the course of the game, every single thing you attempt ends up either failing or blowing up in your face. On top of that, at the end of the second game [[spoiler:[[NiceJobBreakingItHero you single-handedly manage to bring about the end of the world that the entire goal of the games was to prevent]]]]. i.e., TheBadGuyWins. By the time of the third game, humanity has been reduced to scattered enclaves of survivors, and extinction is looking very likely. |
| 314 | ** [[spoiler:Subverted, thankfully, in the end of the fourth game. Humanity wins, and begins to recover.]] |
| 315 | * ''VideoGame/{{Rift}}'': So a bunch of [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] ([[EldritchAbomination so to speak]]) are in the process of [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} ripping the world a new space-hole]] for their own crazy reasons. This ''[[RashomonStyle could]]'' be because [[TheGodsMustBeLazy the gods fucked up big-time]], or it could be because people were building [[ArtifactOfDoom artifacts of doom]]. As if ''that'' weren't bad enough, either [[TheUsualAdversaries a bunch of crazed heretics or a bunch of delusional religious zealots]] are [[SympatheticPOV trying to thwart your attempts to save the world]]. And to ice this cake, if you play Defiant, this is all a vast ''improvement'' on your [[TheBadGuysWin starting]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt point]]... |
| 316 | * ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheReds'': This GameMod[=/=]FanSequel for ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' depicts a bleak future where [[ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption international diplomacy fails to catastrophic effect on a regular basis]] and [[NukeEm WMDs have become accepted and conventional weapons of warfare]]. The USA has become the FallenStatesOfAmerica and their military makes liberal use of [[AgonyBeam microwave weapons]], the [[UnitedEurope ECA]] is [[HeWhoFightsMonsters fascist, autocratic and militaristic in the face of Russian aggression]] and frequently commits what would be considered war crimes in our world through sheer defensive desperation, the [[MakeTheBearAngryAgain big Russian bear has risen again]] and is hellbent on conquering Europe, China has become TheEmpire meets [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Oceania]], Israel is a [[BigBrotherIsWatching paranoid police state]] after a chemical weapons attack wiped out Tel Aviv, and most of the Middle East and Africa has been re-colonized by the major powers or [[AfterTheEnd ruined by constant war]] leaving it easy pickings for the [[HatedByAll GLA]]. Apparently the UN in New York still exists but it's treated as a ''local curiosity'' as it is completely toothless and everybody ignores whatever resolutions and sanctions it issues. Quite disturbingly, the mod's backstory originally began as a futuristic take on what the 2030s might look like if UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror [[GoneHorriblyWrong Went Horribly Wrong]] and caused the deaths of millions of people and the destruction of the global economy and world order, but more recent lore is written to {{deconstruct|ion}} recent geopolitical developments and where they might lead us. |
| 317 | * Despite the SceneryPorn, ''VideoGame/{{Riven}}'' under Gehn's rule is pretty darn miserable: the landscape is being ravaged for bookmaking materials, the AGodAmI ruler feeds dissidents alive to a whale/shark/whatever, LaResistance are a bunch of religious wackos in spook masks, and the underlying fabric of reality is inexorably falling to pieces. |
| 318 | * Pretty much any title by Creator/RockstarGames is going to be set in one, in addition to the previously mentioned titles like GTA and Max Payne. Heck, even ''Bully'' has shades of this. |
| 319 | ** Speaking of ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}''; Bullsworth Academy. A school where all the students are separated into their own cliques which can't seem to get along with each other. Bullying has become such a rampant epidemic, to the point that campus guards march around the school all day. A simple infraction such as a dress code violation or being slightly late to class results in the school's prefects coming after you in mass numbers. The nearby town is not much better, with its homelessness, regular theft and violence, and unfriendly townspeople. |
| 320 | * The world of ''VideoGame/{{RuneScape}}'': |
| 321 | ** For starters, while none of the major deities are really evil, they're not exactly the nicest bunch of folks, and many of them think nothing of starting apocalyptic wars to expand their dominion, wipe other gods' followers out, or just for the sake of warfare. And that's just the gods; there's also: |
| 322 | ** A nation of NighInvulnerable vampires hellbent on expanding their rule over all of Gielinor, lead by a MonsterLord [[EvilTaintedThePlace who corrupted the land]], humans living there are [[IndustrializedEvil treated as cattle]]. All held in check by a [[LaResistance tiny resistance movement]] and a blessed river (that they've almost managed to corrupt); This threat has been resolved as the resistance were able to slay the head of the Vampyre StateSec and then [[VampireMonarch Lord Draken]] himself ([[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu but not without the majority losing their lives]]), the river now permanently turns Vampyre's to humans and TheStarscream has [[KnowWhenToFoldThem conceded]] and has ended expansion attempts. The region is still a dangerous place and will [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome take years to change]] but for the first time the human population have something they've never had: [[SurprisinglyHappyEnding hope]]. |
| 323 | ** A clan of elves conspiring with the ruler of one of the largest human cities to bring Zamorak back into the physical plane of existence; This threat has also been resolved, and it turned out they actually weren't serving Zamorak, they were actually working for an [[TheHeartless evil fragment]] of the Elves' [[PiecesOfGod god]], now [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu destroyed]]. The rogue elf clan has been redeemed and the evil human King is [[EvilIsNotAToy killed by the evil fragment]]. The restored elven city is now likely the nicest place to live in Gielinor thanks to the player's efforts. Later their benevolent Goddess is made whole and stays in the city to guide the elves instead of ruling them. |
| 324 | ** Not one, but several holes in reality spewing hideous extradimensional monsters; |
| 325 | ** A ProudWarriorRace of {{Humanoid Abomination}}s called the Mahjarrat, many of who seek to ascend to godhood and usurp their leader, Zamorak; |
| 326 | ** A race of draconian {{Humanoid Abomination}}s known as the dragonkin, accidentally unleashed, empowered, and enraged by one of the Mahjarrat, who seek to annihilate all life on Geilinor. |
| 327 | ** Penguins are secretly intelligent and evil and planning to take over the human lands, but try to warn anybody about this and they will think you are crazy. |
| 328 | ** The Eastern Lands have tons of their own problems. Pirates, slavers, FantasticRacism, natural disasters, corrupt rulers, sea monsters, and other threats are everywhere. |
| 329 | ** After the events of [[WhamEpisode The World Wakes]] the Gods are now able to freely enter Geilinor again and an extremely dangerous Trickster possibly has gained godhood. When he shows up again he has managed to obtain the Stone of Jas which has the power to grant godhood or increase the power of a god but at the cost of making the dragonkin even more dangerous when it is used, and has offered it as a prize to the faction that kills the most gods, and so the apocalyptic god wars are likely to start again. Due to the world no longer being protected from outside gods, the Airut, a race that uses a mindless god of destruction as a super weapon for destroying worlds so they can scavenge the remains, are preparing to invade. However, some things have actually gotten better since these events. In the very first battle since the competition started, the most evil of the gods was killed by one of the nicest gods. |
| 330 | ** But the worst threat of all is the sleeping Elder Gods. [[CosmicHorrorStory When they wake up, all worlds will be destroyed except for the Abyss and Gielinor, which will be turned into a]] DeathWorld. This part of a cycle that has repeated many times. Most of the young gods are completely unaware of this threat. |
| 331 | * Earth's pollution in ''VideoGame/RunSaber'' has reached the breaking point, turning it into unhabitable for humans. And then appears a MadScientist with promises of cleansing it, only to end up exiling humanity into space colonies and filling it up with mutants and parasites under his total control. Most of the locales are abandoned ruins run over by monsters, and while the ending does end on a high note, it's still pretty much a barren Earth humanity is returning to. And that's assuming the good doctor did take care of pollution before enacting his master plan... |
| 332 | * The world of ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction'' doesn't look that bad at first -- there's some intense FantasticRacism, but nothing too alarming. Then you start seeing what the world is ''actually'' like as you play. Plagues of natural disasters and hostile creatures. Humans who are literal or virtual slaves to Ferals -- beastmen who rule the world, and have so much political and physical power that they can literally get away with ''eating'' human children over trivial slights. The fact that the world appears to be headed for an inevitable decay into an uninhabitable desert. And that's just some of the ''first'' things you see or hear about. It's not too surprising that the ''heroes'' are the ones who said "screw it" and [[OmnicidalManiac want to destroy the world]] because whatever comes next will ''have'' to be better -- even if what's next is nothing at all. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' in which AllMythsAreTrue, and most of them are nothing short of nightmarish. Even before you start getting into the grisly history behind the locations you visit, it's pretty clear that the entire world is dominated by various secret societies with highly suspect motives, the playable factions consisting of the ultra-conservative but [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned]] Templars, the power-hungry but [[PragmaticVillainy pragmatic]] [[TheIlluminati Illuminati]], and the [[TheChessmaster chaos-mathematician terrorist group]] known as [[AncientTradition the Dragon]]. All three have done some pretty unpleasant things in their time, but because the [[FictionalUnitedNations Council of Venice]] is too hamstrung by corruption and bureaucracy to get anything done and all the other societies are too preoccupied with their own petty struggles, the Big Three are probably the only factions capable of saving the world… and all of them have their work cut out for them: a ZombieApocalypse in New England, the return of the [[NephariousPharaoh Black Pharaoh]] and the [[GodOfEvil Aten]] in Egypt, a vampire army amassing in the Carpathian Mountains, a death cult detonating a [[MysticalPlague Filth-bomb]] on the Tokyo subways, a supernaturally-owned corporation moving to harness the setting's CosmicKeystone with disastrous results, and the [[EldritchAbomination Dreaming Ones]] poised to awaken from their slumber and destroy everything. [[spoiler: And for a final cherry on the doom sundae, the only thing that can prevent the End of Days are the Gaia Engines – the aforementioned CosmicKeystone: most of the time, they act as music boxes lulling the Dreamers to sleep and keeping the Filth from building to dangerous levels, but if something apocalyptic does occur, they channel the power of the Dreamers into hitting the ResetButton on the entire planet. Unfortunately, this has happened three times already, and a fourth time might just be impossible...]] |
| 334 | * ''VideoGame/SeraphicBlue'' sets in a world where countless problems like world destroying Gaia Cancers, Sera-human children mutating into monsters exist due to the fact that their existence defies natural laws, high suicide rates, corrupt authority figures, etc. The game also deals with the characters' nihilistic views on this world, to the point they are also qualify as {{Woobie}}. |
| 335 | * ''Shadow Bane'': The world has been [[EarthShatteringKaboom shattered]] into numerous fragments, the All-Father is missing or dead, the Green Mother is crippled and in agony, [[FaceHeelTurn Malor]] has joined the forces of Chaos, [[ForgedByTheGods the most powerful sword in existence]] is in the hands of a vampire queen, and the Titan Torvald has been [[ZombieApocalypse raised as a walking corpse]] by the Mother of Winter. Oh, and every time someone is reborn the world come a bit closer to destruction. |
| 336 | * Thanks to the main character's actions in [[VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2013 the previous game]], the world in ''VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2'' is a mess. The mortal world has been corrupted by malevolent forces, basically a sort of inter-dimensional hernia. This means that [[ProceduralGeneration the world is constantly changing]] and occasionally demons will leak out into the world and attack people. There are some {{Cyberpunk}} "Safe Cities" where the demons can't go, but this safety comes at a price: living in them throws you at the mercy of the MegaCorp which runs them, which will control just about every aspect of your life and exploit you for profit. According to Lo Wang in the trailer, the world doesn't even want to be saved, the presence of demons having brought out all of mankind's worst aspects which they now revel in. |
| 337 | * ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'': |
| 338 | ** Go on, just pick ANY game. The first one starts fairly nice for the first hour or so, then promptly gets doused in nuclear fire, leaving a pockmarked hell, and even before that happened, demons were attacking damn near anything, and after the world goes to hell, we're treated to a replay of The Great Flood. By the end of first game and by the time of the second, it seems to have gotten slightly more tolerable, only to utterly crush your hope when it get revealed that [[{{God}} YHVH]] HIMSELF is planning to destroy everything the demons haven't raped to extremes that make the first game seem like Sunday school, and regardless of ending, a hell of a lot of dead people/demons pile up trying to save what's left of the planet. In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', the world is reduced to a demon filled embryo like state, and most options you have to fix things still leave it mostly crappy or can make it even worse. ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' takes place in a Crapsack World, and depending on what ending you get, the whole planet can join in on the fun. In short, if its a ''SMT'' game, pack a lunch, cause the crapsackiness is gonna be around for awhile. WordOfGod is that all of this is because the universe itself is somehow broken, and YHVH's insanity is a symptom of the problem. |
| 339 | ** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' |
| 340 | *** East Mikado, which proves you can have this even in a lush, fertile land: there's a brutal, racist caste system, demons literally live under their capital, and the citizens above believe themselves to be the single civilization in existence. Public executions are considered ''national holidays''. YouDoNotWantToKnow about the Ashura-Kai and their dealings with demons. And no matter which ending you get, people ''are'' getting hurt. You wanna change the world? ''Learn to live with the consequences.'' |
| 341 | *** [[spoiler:The {{Alternate Timeline}}s of Blasted and Infernal Tokyo don't have it good, either. In Blasted Tokyo, the angels' plan went off without a hitch, God's Chosen have left and [[NukeEm God's Wrath]] has reduced most of Earth to a barren wasteland. In addition, God has enacted a plan to control all underworld divinities to ensure the remnants of Humanity are eradicated. Pluto's poison, which fills the atmosphere, has a ''100% lethality rate''. Say you destroy Pluto; a very short time after, God will send his KnightTemplar avatar the Ancient of Days, which is very nearly successful in finishing all Blasted Tokyo natives.]] |
| 342 | *** [[spoiler:In Infernal Tokyo, the angels were quickly killed and nuclear holocaust was averted, but the demon technology quickly rotted society as the barriers between Demonoids and Neurishers were established. Governments and states have all disappeared in favor of a SocialDarwinist world, enforced by the will of the King of Tokyo. Okay, kill the guy. Shortly after, the divine monster Sanat will head there to check on his experiment. Though in Infernal Tokyo there are a ''surprising'' number of Neurishers who don't mind their situation and enjoy life alongside the Demonoids, unlike in Blasted Tokyo where most people can barely struggle to survive.]] |
| 343 | ** The fourth game actually reaches a point that the end goal of The White is [[spoiler:the complete and utter destruction of the entire universe (and possibly even more) via a black hole generator, believing that no matter what anyone does, the world will still be terrible, and only in complete oblivion will everyone be free from suffering. Some players actually consider this to be the best possible ending.]] |
| 344 | ** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiV'' gives us an alternate-universe version of the Tokyo the protagonists inhabit that have been overrun with demons and ''[[HumanitysWake every human in existence has been systemically hunted down and slaughtered.]]'' The resultant "war in heaven" between Law and Chaos destroyed any semblance of human civilization, prompting things to get bad enough that [[GodIsEvil freakin' God]] creates [[spoiler:an alternate miracle version of Tokyo where the apocalypse never happened with the intent of having sustainable Magatsuhi fodder]], and is shortly afterwards killed by Lucifer. The miracle Tokyo quickly begins failing, and when the demons break out, everything goes to hell very soon afterwards. Depending on the ending you choose, you either help pick up the pieces to press the ResetButton on the whole clusterfuck or you can outright make things worse by the end. |
| 345 | ** ''Persona 3'' and ''4'' start out happy, until you find out about [[VideoGame/Persona3 The Dark Hour]] and [[VideoGame/Persona4 The Midnight Channel]]. However, most people aren't affected by those events, so the world is otherwise okay. [[spoiler: Psyche. As both games progresses, things start turning to shit; in ''Persona 3'', a demon named Nyx is descending to screw over humanity and there's a cult that starts up and grows in the later months of the game, and in ''Persona 4'', a fog has appeared seemingly permanently, and if you don't get rid of it, [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the Shadows come into the real world]]. Still though, unlike the other [=MegaTen=] games, the world will still be in a happy, normal state if you get the ending and [[MultipleEndings True Ending]] in the fourth game's case.]] |
| 346 | ** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' still manages to be the most optimistic game in the entire series. Hell, one of the most optimistic in the entire [=MegaTen=] ''franchise''. |
| 347 | ** ''VideoGame/Persona5'' somehow managed to up the ante, at least as far as Persona games go. After all, [[SarcasmMode there's no better place to be]] than Tokyo, a city full of {{Ephebophile}} [[EvilTeacher Evil Teachers]], MadArtist [[ConMan Con Men]], {{Yakuza}} [[TheDon crime lords]], [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corrupt Corporate Executives]], [[DirtyCop Dirty Cops]], [[spoiler:a CorruptPolitician who came ''dangerously'' close to becoming PresidentEvil, and a GodOfEvil manipulating everything behind the scenes all to create a WorldOfSilence.]] Best part is, [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror the public is too scared or apathetic to do anything about it.]] Actually, what makes Tokyo such a great place in this world again? |
| 348 | *** It should be noted that pretty much most of the Phantom Thieves have suffered thanks to that Crapsack World. With Joker being framed for assault after stopping a drunkard from sexually harassing a woman, Ryuji having a CareerEndingInjury thanks to [[EvilTeacher Kamoshida]], Ann having to [[spoiler: witness her best friend attempting to commit suicide]], Yusuke ended overworking, suffering from anemia, and barely geting enough to eat thanks to his mentor, Makoto having to deal with the false rumors of her being an AcademicAlphaBitch that ended up hiding Kamoshida's actions, Futaba being a victim of a KickTheDog moment [[spoiler: that had her believe that she killed her mother and was nearly DrivenToSuicide because of that]], Haru being forced into an ArrangedMarriage to a SmugSnake, and Akechi having to grow-up as a bastard child with a FriendlessBackground. No wonder why this game has a lot of {{Woobie}} characters in this game. |
| 349 | ** ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga''. Imagine a vast battlefield populated by soulless automatons. Each of the warring factions has to kill all others [[ThereWillBeCake to reach Nirvana]]. ''Then'' add human emotions and the SuperpowerLottery into the mix. The rigidly imposed order breaks down into a SocialDarwinist society, and ''then'' a Tribe ''succeeds'' in killing all major competitors and breaking the final rules. '''''Then''''' it's revealed it's all an AI simulator... and the real world's blasted beyond recognition, corrupted and twisted... due to a [[HumansAreBastards human attempt to study God and harness his power]]. And of course, the world of the Junkyard isn't portrayed much better in [[Literature/QuantumDevilSagaAvatarTuner the novels]] either. |
| 350 | ** ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' takes everything about Pokéverse (already a CrapsaccharineWorld if you look at it hard enough) and deconstructs every trope it was built on for as much horror as possible. For one, handing civilians the ability to summon [[EldritchAbomination demons]] is shown to have sickeningly high level of abuse and potential for disaster. Second, the mons running around ''ARE A VERY REAL AND DEADLY THREAT'' to mortals and each other, and if you don't have the ability to fight them, they will kill you without an ounce of pity. This is also a universe where supernatural forces can literally decide ''THE VERY INSTANT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DIE'', and speaking of supernatural forces, did we mention ThePowersThatBe are in the middle of kicking off TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt even before the game starts? |
| 351 | * Very much inescapable in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri''. Earth has become a polluted mess in the backstory, and Planet will quickly become a world where EverythingIsTryingToKillYou to deal with the human infestation. Plus [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation depending on your personal ideological leaning]], most of the colonies would be this: pretty much everybody would agree the Human Hive are bad news, for [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill all]] [[BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood sorts]] [[HumanResources of]] [[MoralSociopathy reasons]]. It's telling that the trilogy of game-based novels end with [[spoiler:the Lord's Believers allying with the Human Hive and destroying Morgan Industries and the Spartan Federation with their [[ExaggeratedTrope singularity]] [[NukeEm planet busters]], resulting in the remaining leaders and a few hundred of their followers entombing themselves in a mountain to live out their lives in VR. Meanwhile, Planet has had enough and [[GaiasVengeance sends massive mind worm boils that overrun every human settlement on the planet. Basically, humanity is about to go extinct thanks to our own intolerance, extremism, and inability to learn lessons of the past]]]]. |
| 352 | * In ''VideoGame/SierraOps'', Mars is a miserable place to live, especially for the poor. Living conditions are so bad that even water is scarce at times, dangerous mining jobs are the only real source of employment, and the unemployment rate is rising due to automation. While the [[MegaCorp Sigil Corporation]] does hand out subsidies for the most impoverished Martians, corruption ensures that most of this money never reaches its intended recipients. Small wonder, then, that the Martians have risen up in revolt after centuries of living like this. |
| 353 | * Despite its cute looks, the world in ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' is an utter hellhole. The world has just barely begun to recover from a cataclysmic war, and as a result much of the world is in ruins. There's a powerful EldritchAbomination wandering the world, most sources of income are in debt to or controlled by a crime syndicate, the only safe country is a totalitarian state based on Nazi Germany, mad scientists can act with impunity (or worse, support), with horrifying abominations and killer robots rampaging across the land. and slavers are able to operate in the open. |
| 354 | * Crisis City from ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' can be considered this as the entire city is on fire thanks to Iblis. This, in turn, causes Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat to turn to Mephiles and travel back to the past in an effort to save the future. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, this involves the killing of Sonic the Hedgehog himself.]] |
| 355 | * The ''Franchise/StarCraft'' universe. Earth's government oppresses its inhabitants and exiles its criminals and political dissenters to the Koprulu sector. Said convicts found the [[TheEmpire Confederacy]] which proceeds to oppress its inhabitants. The Sons of Korhal overthrow the Confederacy and found the Terran Dominion in its place, which also [[RuleOfThree oppresses its inhabitants]]. Then Earth's government comes to bring order to the lawless and war-torn sector (read: [[OverlyLongGag oppress its inhabitants)]]. All while embroiled in a seemingly HopelessWar between the Protoss and the Zerg. |
| 356 | * ''VideoGame/{{Starsector}}'' takes place 206 years after the collapse of the gate network in the isolated, backwards Persean Sector. Since The Collapse, humanity has done nothing but slide backwards towards barbarism and war. The core systems erupt into violence on a frequent basis, ruins of The Domain are scattered about everywhere, and numerous planets have hostile, decivilised populations on them. The factions consist of The Hegemony (a military dictatorship), The Sindrian Diktat (a fascist military dictatorship), Tri-Tachyon (a horrendously amoral corporation that's caused two separate wars by utilising AI), The Persean League (ineffective and mostly consists of oligarchies and dictatorships), the Luddic Church (an anti-technology religious organisation), the Luddic Path (A terrorist organisation that broke away from the Church), the Pirates, and the Independents who just want to be left alone. [[spoiler: This is ignoring the Remnants, what's left of the AI fleets Tri-Tachyon made, and the Omega who the Remnants seem to worship, consisting of technologies far beyond even pre-collapse humanity that have cruiser-class ships able to take on an entire fleet ''and win''.]] |
| 357 | * Depending on the what kind of star nations spawn in any given game of ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', the galaxy can be a SugarBowl full of peaceful xenophiles... or a nightmare to rival ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', where AliensAreBastards and various shades of warmongering imperialists and genocidal maniacs constantly war for supremacy. |
| 358 | * ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRogue'' takes place in one. Put simply, the government is corrupt, average people are less than helpful in general, the resistance, which the player is part of, is only marginally better than the government, although at least it seems to care just not always enough to do something about all the problems. |
| 359 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Strider}} 2'', the world is on the verge of a cataclysmic annihilation, suffering from overpopulation, constant wars and pollution, all of which has led to the destruction of the environment and the spread of chronic diseases and genetic mutations. The world governments are part of a NebulousEvilOrganisation and are corrupt to the core, funding crime groups and amoral pharmaceutical organizations while letting crimes (and suicide) rates skyrocket. {{Transhuman}}ism is in full vogue, with people willingly getting cybernetic implants, genetic surgery or enhancing drugs. The early stages in the game are a window into this world (the first stage, for example, shows Hong Kong having turned into an overblown megacity for the rich, while the poor had to make a living in the ruins of the old city, underground.) The 2014 ''Strider'' is only marginally better, although we don't really get to see the world outside Kazakh City. The city itself, however, has become a massively overpopulated and polluted complex ruled over by [[TheCaligula General Mikiel]], a madman who demands perfection and full obedience from is subjects under threat of incarceration or even execution. Citizens live under constant martial law, are forced into labor and have very strict curfew times. Those trying to escape are faced with the possibility of being killed or, worse yet, [[FateWorseThanDeath captured alive to serve as guinea pigs]] in the research facility. Even those who manage to escape the city can only go to the nether regions of the city, where survivors live in hidden imporvished towns suffering from constant hunger and attacks from mutant BigCreepyCrawlies lurking around. |
| 360 | * ''VideoGame/StrikeCommander'': TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of global terrorism, [[PostPeakOil the sudden scarcity of oil]] and a few natural disasters sprinkled on top have caused every superpower in the world to [[BalkanizeMe break apart]] into multiple constituent countries. This might've been fine, if not for the fact that most (if not all) of these countries are either ''at'' war with another country, ''threatened'' with war by another country, or ''aiding'' another country in their wars. Naturally, there are humanitarian crises all over the place, dictators are running rampant in some places (including the EvilStatesOfAmerica), and no country is truly safe. Even the corporations [[CorporateWarfare strike at one another]] for business-related purposes. Since most countries have lost the ability to maintain a powerful standing army, much of this is done by mercenaries who ''rarely if ever'' feel that they are bound by any rules of war. |
| 361 | * ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha'' |
| 362 | ** ''Gaiden'' sends the good guys to a crapsack alternate future, where mankind was really screwed three times over. First, a gigantic gravity wave devastated the planet, then the Dinosaur Empire from ''Manga/GetterRobo'' beat up on the survivors, and THEN a full fledged war broke out between the Earth bound [[Anime/{{Xabungle}} Innocent faction]] and the Space bound [[Anime/TurnAGundam Moon Race]] that totally set back civilization for a good, long while. By the time your heroes get there, the ocean level is about 45% what it used to be, over half the world is a wasteland, the politicians on all sides are scheming, technology hoarding assholes with power complexes, and did we mention the Dinosaur Empire wants to turn the planet into the Mezosic Era, killing us all off, or that some creepy mechanically mutated humans called the Ancestors also want to kill us and literally redefine the world by their terms? It should also be noted that it's implied all the space colonies are destroyed, and whats left of the planet is valiantly struggling to heal from centuries of nukes, biomechanical destructive nanomachines, and more than a few {{Colony Drop}}s. In an interesting aversion of SRW's idealism, even if you do give the alternate future Earth the ability to have a second chance and change history, that does NOT activate the ResetButton, and the Earth is still shown healing from all of the damage it has taken. |
| 363 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars64'' has the Earth completely taken over by [[Anime/{{Dancougar}} Muge Zolbados' Empire]] |
| 364 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsDestiny'''s BigBad essentially is feeding off the fact Earth became one due to the events of ''Shin Manga/GetterRobo Armageddon'', Anime/MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack, and [[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam Victory Gundam]], and wants to continue the misery in perpetuity. Thankfully, since this is VideoGame/SuperRobotWars, the fact it has good guys who won't stand for that upgrade the Crapsack World to a potential [[AWorldHalfFull world of possible hope.]] |
| 365 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars30'' has a ''really'' rough world. New Space Era 90 had the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam One Year War]], [[Manga/GetterRobo The Lunar Wars]], [[Anime/MazingerZ Dr. Hell's uprising]] and the [[Anime/GreatMazinger Mycene Empire invasion]], and the [[Anime/GaoGaiGar Primeval War]] happen at the same time. 92 had [[Anime/MajesticPrince first contact with the Wulguru]], 97 saw [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam the Gryps War]] and [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ First Neo-Zeon War]] happen alongside [[Anime/CodeGeass the rise of the Holy Britannian Empire]], 99 saw the assassination of Emperor Lelouche and the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack the Second Neo-Zeon War]] and 100 saw the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Laplace War]] and the rise of the [[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam Zanscare Empire]]. ''Sheesh''! |
| 366 | ** In general it's safe to assume the world in any ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' game is going to be pretty crappy, with various anime bad guys invading the Earth, conducting their plans, joining forces or fighting against each other, with the [[OriginalGeneration original villains]] on the top of all of it. And it's up to heroes to fix things up. |
| 367 | * '''Any''' setting in ''VideoGame/TheSuffering''. It's bad enough that Carnate Island had seen just about every sort of crime and punishment in history ''before'' its infestation by the Malefactors; it's even worse when the city the PC hopes to escape to is a fetid den of urban decay and misery that promptly suffers a Malefactor infestation of its own. |
| 368 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' is a crapsack world for sure. You start in (Sylvarant), a world that's dying from a severe lack of {{Mana}}, and the only person who can [[SavingTheWorld Save the World]] is a [[KidHero 15ish year old girl]] who just happens to be a major [[TheKlutz Klutz]] and a DumbBlonde, mainly because her HeroicLineage [[GeniusBreedingAct has gone through generations of forced selective breeding by the government]]. [[ThePoorlyChosenOne She is not the first to be given this destiny, as all the other chosen ones]] [[EverythingTryingToKillYou have succumbed to the trials, were killed by terrorists, mauled by wild animals, betrayed and enslaved by corrupt nobles, or what have you]]. Not to mention the world is being oppressed by a group of half-elves called the [[FacelessGoons Desians]], whose sole purpose is to enslave humans and stop the world from being saved. This causes the humans to develop a [[FantasticRacism hatred of ALL half-elves]]. This is all made worse when you realize [[AwfulTruth EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS A LIE]]; [[spoiler:[[LightIsNotGood angels are racists who outright control the Desians]], [[DeusEstMachina the heavens are made of sufficiently advanced technology]], GodIsDead, and [[CrystalDragonJesus Mythos]] [[MadGod is completely insane]]]]. Then you escape to another world, and things ''still'' suck. [[spoiler:(Tethe'alla) is ruled by a CorruptChurch, whose pope is poisoning the king, and actively promotes racism against half-elves. It turns out the worlds are in a tug-of-war over limited mana supplies, so when one world prospers, the other begins to die. The Desians and Cruxis pretend to fight each other so they can manipulate both worlds and keep them bitterly locked in the cycle of suffering, all while hoarding all the mana for their selfish personal goals (mainly to resurrect the goddess, who is outright horrified by all of the above). And even when you patch things by destroying Heaven, you just plunge the world into Chaos. In fact, the whole plot of the second game is because you "fixed" everything by freeing the world from Order, you screwed up BOTH worlds (especially by mooshing them together like play-doh) and almost allowed Hell to take over. And centuries later your world falls into a Dark Age anyway.]] How's that for a crapsack world? Admittedly it can also fall under CrapsaccharineWorld and AWorldHalfFull. |
| 369 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' wouldn't have much of a story without reaffirming this with every single plot development. Out of the six playable characters, Ion and Mieu: two don't know who their real parents are, two aren't who they claim to be, two are double agents, two are exiles, two have to kill family members, the very existence of two of the main characters has ruined the lives of two of the villains, two are [[spoiler: replicas]], two are relatives of the villains [[spoiler: (four if you count the replicas)]], one desires to kill [[spoiler: Luke]], one is indirectly responsible for [[spoiler: killing Ion]], one is indirectly responsible for a mass genocide and one is responsible for the creation of the most despicable science in Auldrant, and MORE. And these are just the HEROES. |
| 370 | * The world of ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', anybody? Sure, the characters all look like they're from a Pixar movie, but they are all pretty much amoral mercenaries who slaughter each other every day. The only other option to this seems to be a life of submitting to bureaucracy. The world is secretly controlled by two bitter rival megacorporations, and their heads are too idiotic and senile to realize they, and effectively the entire world, are controlled by an immortal evil mastermind. And it's all PlayedForLaughs. That said, there are some nice people, even among the mercenaries. The Sniper comes to mind (ironically more so than the Medic), as does the Engineer. The rest of the world, while wacky to an extreme, has generally gone through life oblivious of the secret war and its masterminds. Although it's rather telling that even the ''nice'' characters in this setting are mass murderers. |
| 371 | * ''VideoGame/TheiaTheCrimsonEclipse'': |
| 372 | ** Ariathale is suffering through an energy crisis, putting the majority of the population in poverty. The few energy sources left, Atlas and Orihalcon, have a tendency to make monsters aggressive, making it dangerous to use technology out in the wild. |
| 373 | ** [[spoiler:Altilliah, one of Ariathale's moons, is even worse, with most of the surface being dominated by Orihalcon-enhanced monsters. The people of the moon, the Theia, are dependent on Orihalcon to live, yet at the same time, are also in danger because of that same energy source. Worse yet, the Altillians are ruled by Halcon, an evil alien posing as a guardian deity, who wants their society in constant peril so that they'll do anything for its "help."]] |
| 374 | * ''VideoGame/{{Thief}}'' and its main setting, the City. The gods appear to be jerks, the major religion is perfectly within their rights to [[KnightTemplar torture suspected criminals]] ''and they're not the bad guys'', the ones opposing them are [[{{Cult}} terrorist hippie demon worshippers]] and ''they're not the bad guys either'', [[WretchedHive the entire City is riddled with corruption from the top levels down]], [[ZombieApocalypse the dead won't stay buried]], and at one point homeless, prostitutes and purse snatchers were arrested, [[AndIMustScream killed to be turned into cyborg slaves]] and sold to the wealthy, and ''nobody'' with any power cared enough to notice. [[AntiHero The main character]], an amoral burglar, has to be [[BlackAndGreyMorality dragged kicking and screaming]] into doing anything about it, and all he does is save the place from [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt complete annihilation]]; it remains as corrupt as ever. |
| 375 | * ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation'' |
| 376 | ** ''Total Annihilation'' could probably have one of the most grim and darkest settings ever conceived, if it wasn't [[ExcusePlot glossed over a bit too much]]. Four thousand years of hyper-industrialized warfare between the Core and the Arm has completely decimated the entire galaxy and rendered it devoid of all life other than the shattered remnants of the two factions, which continue battling for supremacy across ruined worlds. Humanity is long gone and has been completely replaced by "Patterned" machines, which ultimately was the original cause of the conflict. |
| 377 | ** Its spiritual sequels ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' and ''VideoGame/PlanetaryAnnihilation'' are similar; the former has an inter-human [[ForeverWar Infinite War]] devastating the galaxy for a thousand years and murdering trillions of people, while the latter also has the remnants of [[CosmeticallyDifferentSides various robotic factions]] awakening and fighting over the galaxy like the original. |
| 378 | * It is quite possible to create one in ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}}'' by tearing down all buildings one could live in (besides your palace), let crime go mad, barely have enough food for your people, and pay them all a dollar for anything that isn't being in your military, and let the enviroment go to Hell. Of course, be prepared for rebellions and your international relations to go VERY sour. The island always starts out as a Hell hole. Tropico 3 states that "Tropico has just been declared a fourth world country." |
| 379 | * The {{Lost|World}} [[PhysicalHell Land]] in the ''VideoGame/{{Turok}}'' franchise is a [[AnotherDimension universe between universes]] where "[[PlaceBeyondTime Time Has No Meaning]]". [[{{Hellgate}} Tears in the fabric of reality pull objects and life-forms from other worlds out of their own universes and deposit them there.]] [[FantasyKitchenSink Tribal warriors, evil sorcerors, demons,]] [[SciFiKitchenSink dinosaurs, androids, aliens, giant bugs, man-eating plants,]] and countless other horrors are commonplace. EverythingIsTryingToKillYou. There are a number of {{Lost Superweapon}}s / [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]] capable of unimaginable destruction. [[WorldOfChaos The world is highly unstable (both geologically and dimensionally).]] The land is ruled by a manipulative OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness with its own nefarious agenda. The place's history is defined by [[ForeverWar constant warfare]] [[WorldWarWhatever on a massive scale]]. And there's ALWAYS some jackass trying to conquer/destroy TheMultiverse. If it wasn't for the BadassNative protecting this place, the omniverse would have ended a long time ago. |
| 380 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Tyranny}}'', the war in which [[EvilOverlord Kyros the Overlord]] rose to power certainly didn't do the world any favours. Some parts of it may have been like this even before; one region is described as having been "ruined and depopulated by constant war" such that it has been largely abandoned for centuries. |
| 381 | * In ''VideoGame/UltimaV'' Britannia becomes this, which is saying a lot since this is the land that went through being terrorized by not one, but two evil sorcerers and their demon/computer/whatever creation. True, the monsters that once roamed the countryside are now mostly gone, appearing mostly at night or in the wilderness, but the new regime of Lord Blackthorn has taken a bit of a hardline on Britannia's philosophy of the Eight Laws of Virtue, making charity mandatory, punishing most infractions of justice with death, and even forcing dishonored people to commit suicide! Then there are the Shadowlords [[spoiler:the entities who corrupted Blackthorn to begin with]] whose presence is enough to turn an entire city violent and sadistic. |
| 382 | * Creator/{{Ubisoft}}: If they are part of a SharedUniverse, the settings of ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'', ''Franchise/WatchDogs'' and ''Franchise/FarCry'' are not a nice place to live in. Not only do [[MegaCorp mega-corporations]] such as Abstergo and Blume wield considerable influence over society but they use their innovations for shady purposes and that's not getting into the secret societies that dictate world affairs and politics. Numerous cities have bought the [[MasterComputer Central Operating System]] [[BigBrotherIsWatching to spy on their own citizens]]. Chicago is a WretchedHive dominated by [[TheIrishMob the South Club]] who are responsible for [[TruthInTelevision the VERY high incidence of crime in the city]]. The rest of the world isn't exactly better as Britain has become a full-blown police state after Brexit and Scotland becoming an independent nation with Albion, a [[{{PMC}} Private Military Company]] ruling the streets of London through drones that have shoot-to-kill orders. The major plots of the games involve [[SerialKiller serial killers]], [[GangBangers gangs]], [[HumanTraffickers human traffickers]], gunrunners, [[RuthlessModernPirates modern-day pirates]], [[TheFundamentalist crazy cultists]], dictators, [[AbusivePrecursors oppressive gods]] and [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corrupt CEOS]]. And to top it all off, the Earth faced not one but two apocalypses in 2012 and 2018, of which the former was only averted due to Desmond Miles taking the Pieces of Eden at the cost of his own life. |
| 383 | * It is practically a MercyKill for the people of Midgard in the original ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'', because life there positively ''sucks'' compared to Asgard and the other roots of Yggdrasil. It's saturated with [[RealIsBrown brown]], with one of its leading powers constantly going on religious crusades, the other being an intense military force, loads and loads of poverty, child prostitution, monsters rampaging everywhere, constant political strife...a lot of this is displayed in only the first two chapters! [[spoiler:We eventually find out that several of the roots, including Midgard, are sustained by one of four great and powerful treasures; along with the three others, Midgard's treasure, the Dragon Orb, was stolen by Odin to be used during the battle of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Ragnarok]], and the after-effect pretty much turned Midgard into this trope.]] |
| 384 | * ''VideoGame/VisceraCleanupDetail'' manages to be a [[BlackComedy bleakly comedic]] version of this trope. Let's not beat around the bush, life in this universe ''sucks''. Even ignoring the monsters and {{Gorn}}-inducing catastrophes, this is a universe packed full of corrupt [[MegaCorp mega corporations]] who are unapologetic about putting their workers in harm's way and squeezing every last cent out of normal people. And [[IncompetenceInc Aerospace Sanitation]] is no better, being a company that treats its workers like crap, views them all as expendable, and doesn't take kindly to any kind of insubordination or protest, as the Uprinsing level demonstrates. Worse is that it's packed full of spiteful [[JerkAss jerkasses]] at best and [[EntitledBastard entitled]], AxCrazy psychos at worst. Do well? They send you jealous death threats. Do badly? They KickTheDog by sending you letters cheering your firing. [[spoiler:Even worse is that according to Bob's notes, the company itself has ties to several illegal operations throughout the galaxy]]. Honestly, it's enough to make you want to ''try'' to get the company shut down with a horrible performance sometimes. |
| 385 | * From [[StoryBreadcrumbs what the player can gather]], the world of ''VideoGame/VoidBastards'' outside the nebula isn't much of an improvement over the DeathWorld of the nebula itself. People are arrested and sentenced to torture and brainwashing for trivial crimes, XON "ambulances" charge massively for even the simples procedures and harvest the organs of those who can't pay to sell on the open market or in vending machines, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and the only kinds of food seem to be cheese and onion sandwiches with the occasional tea biscuit]]. |
| 386 | * ''VideoGame/WeHappyFew'' takes place in an alternate Britain where the USA never joined World War II on Britain's side, resulting in the Nazis commencing Operation Sea Lion, and against all odds the operation succeeded. Desperate to turn the tide, Britain did... ''[[NoodleIncident something]]'', something ''very bad'' to the Germans which was apparently [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone so horrific]] that the surviving British populace turned to voluntary GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul to avoid societal collapse from the ''sheer guilt''. No word on the rest of the world but it's heavily implied [[AfterTheEnd that there's not very much left of it]]. |
| 387 | ** The DLC reveals that [[spoiler:entire alien civilizations have died, serial killers have gone completely unnoticed, and Wellington Wells cannot be saved from total societal collapse.]] |
| 388 | ** The absolute worst part is the state of the outer world: [[spoiler:it's perfectly fine. The Nazis were still defeated. ''It was only Wellington Wells that surrendered without a fight, and has absolutely nothing to show for it.'' The entire town created a little bubble of hell for themselves in their cowardice and eagerness to run from their mistakes, and it's going to stay until the machinery breaks down and Joy stops being produced.]] |
| 389 | * ''{{VideoGame/Whiplash}}'': The game must take place in a world where animal cruelty isn't a crime, considering Genron outright advertises what they do to animals, and Carol Ann is working as an undercover agent instead of just going to the police. |
| 390 | * ''VideoGame/WildArms'': Filgaea is a very, very, very unfortunate planet. Some [[AllThereInTheManual ancilliary media]] indicate that all the games- at least five at last count- take place on the same world, separated by millenia. If this is true, it has had at least three invasions by time-traveling robots, invading alternate universes, invading aliens, etc... and throughout it, most of the time, the entire planet is a resource-poor desert wasteland. Generally, every time they start repairing the environment enough for life to not suck royally all around, they get another bunch of would-be conquerors up in their grills, and, in the process of fighting them off and/or sealing them, ruin it again. It is near impossible for the Filgaias of the various games to be the same planet. For example, humans are natives in 1 and foreigners in 3, Elw were technological gods in 1, turning to nature later whereas in 3 they were always hippies. And extinct. This isn't even going into the various incarnations of Zeikfried and such. It's sufficient to say that each Filgaia is a crapsack in its own right. |
| 391 | * ''Franchise/TheWitcher'': Where to begin? Most people are peasants drudging through life in crippling poverty and neglect, religious intolerance reigns supreme, FantasticRacism sees elves, dwarves and magic users treated as second-class citizens, nobles spend all their time oppressing their own citizens or backstabbing each other, kings driven by shameless greed and hubris lead men to wars of rape and pillage, the ominous shadow of TheEmpire hangs over everyone's heads, all kinds of monsters prowl the wilderness, elven terrorists roam around attacking people, and if that wasn't enough, prophecy says the world and everything in it will be obliterated by a magical ice age. [[spoiler:That last one is averted, but only because of inter-dimensional travel - and the world is still doomed because it cannot mount a solid defense against inter-dimensional conquerors.]] |
| 392 | * ''VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder'' and ''VideoGame/WolfensteinIITheNewColossus'' take place in a world completely controlled by Nazis for fourteen years. And hoo boy, it does not shy away from showing exactly how horrifying a world like that would be. The media is completely state-controlled, conscription is mandatory, mass killings are regular, the most powerful man in the Reich regards human vivisection as fun...to describe all its sins would fill up half the page. Its EstablishingCharacterMoment is the main character waking up in the asylum to find a gang of Nazis abducting recovering patients for the purpose of using them for human experimentation, then shooting the largely-unarmed asylum staff for trying to protect their charges. Some other highlights from this world include the following. |
| 393 | ** London is a police state that makes [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Airstrip One]] look like an anarchist commune, presided over by a HumongousMecha that quashes any resistance movements with missiles. Minorities are forced into disease-ridden ghettos with no electricity or clean water while [[MonumentOfHumiliationAndDefeat the Nazis bulldoze huge areas of the city to build monuments to their victory]]. |
| 394 | ** The United States is firmly under the Nazi's thumb. New York is a radioactive wasteland after the Nazis dropped an atom bomb on it, New Orleans is a massive walled ghetto where people are left to fend for themselves, chattel slavery has been reintroduced, TheKlan is free to walk the streets, propaganda can be found absolutely everywhere, and the people have gradually begun to normalize Nazi ideology. Oh, and after July 4, 1961, speaking English will be outlawed and earn you an immediate execution. |
| 395 | ** The crapsackiness of this world isn't even confined to Earth. The Nazis have created a SpaceBase on the Moon, where they store their nuclear launch codes, have a literal army of space marines, and are planning to build an escape-proof labor camp with robotic guards. The second game reveals they've also built one on Venus. |
| 396 | * ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' has this for the afterlife. You can have a normal life and then die, and what's waiting for you after death? A seven-day game run by the Composer. You do tasks, but you're hunted down by Noise, things that can erase your existence, Reapers, that can murder your existence... and if you make it to the end, only a limited number of winners can receive the ultimate prize [[spoiler:BackFromTheDead]], while the rest either become Reapers or replay the game. Also, the game has been rigged to be UnwinnableByDesign - you can beat the challenges but you ''cannot officially win without cheating'', which nullifies your prize and forces you to play again. Good luck! |
| 397 | * The ''VideoGame/WorldOfHorror'' is teetering right on the brink of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Cultists strive to revive various [[EldritchAbomination Outer Gods]], while rioters, murderers and monsters roam the streets, lurking round every corner. Society is crumbling to pieces before your very eyes. |
| 398 | * Azeroth, the eponymous ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', is about as crappy a world as one is likely to find in the fantasy MMORPG genre. |
| 399 | ** Tirisfal Glades, the starting place of the Forsaken. It seems like a perpetual cloudy night, demons and Scourge roam the forests, and their very capital city is a bunch of tombs. The music is even the same for when you die and your spirit is trying to get back to your corpse. The Plaguelands are even worse. [[{{Mordor}} Icecrown]] turns it up to eleven. |
| 400 | ** The Worgen race is told to come from a vicious world, where no corner is truly safe. That humans could never survive there is a gross understatement. By the time of ''Cataclysm'', BigBad Deathwing has turned Azeroth into a ShatteredWorld simply by reemerging. |
| 401 | ** [[FridgeLogic The effect is somewhat dulled]] [[GameplayAndStorySegregation when you wonder why can't your faction leaders just go out and single-handedly take care of many of the problems by themselves.]] |
| 402 | ** Better yet, humans and most of the other races only exist on Azeroth because of the "Curse of Flesh" that the Old Gods put on the machines that the Titans created, so they could escape more easily. The lore behind the OptionalBoss Algalon the Observer is that he is there to check on Azeroth and seeing the results, will tell the Titans to wipe out the entire world and start over. The Old Gods don't have anything nice planned for this world either, and if they are all defeated, they'll likely destroy Azeroth as well. |
| 403 | ** ''Mists of Pandaria'' shows us why the Titans sealed up the Old Gods instead of killing them. When Y'shaarj was killed, its dying breath corrupted the land, and created a race of energy beings that feed off negative emotions, the Sha; so killing an Old God, just makes things worse. If all the Old Gods were killed, the resulting corruption would be so severe that the only option would be to vaporize the planet and rebuild Azeroth from scratch. Oddly enough, once the final Old God, N’Zoth, is killed, and the Old Gods go extinct as a result, this doesn’t come true. |
| 404 | ** Everyone that goes insane on Azeroth goes insane BIG-TIME. Every other week someone gets it into their head to kill loads and loads of people, and they're only defeated by the skin of the adventurers' teeth. |
| 405 | ** The setting of the fourth expansion, the namesake Pandaria is either this or a {{crapsaccharine world}}. YMMV of course, but the villain races: the [[EldritchAbomination sha]], the [[MasterRace mogu]] and the [[BeePeople man]][[ProudWarriorRaceGuy tid]], and the ever present faction wars between the Alliance and the Horde make a strong case for it being a crapsack world. |
| 406 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': Aionios is almost the textbook definition. The entire world is divided between two factions whose sole purpose is to prosecute a ForeverWar against each other. To carry this out, both sides mass produce vat grown children with 10 year lifespans and send them directly to the frontlines. And you are expected to fight the full ten years. And if you survive 10 years? You still die, but you get to do so in the presence of your respective Queen. [[spoiler:Later, it's revealed the state of the world is even worse as Aionios only exists as a method for Moebius to harvest life energy they need for sustenance, as well as a playground for them to do as they please to alleviate their boredom.]] |
| 407 | * ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}''. ''*deep breath*'' The nation of Solaris controls basically the entire world and rules with a decidedly malevolent fist. They conduct horrible, sadistic medical experiments on people. They kidnap surface dwellers to use as slave labor, and basically treat them as something like occasionally-useful parasites. They keep the world in a state of perpetual warfare. [[spoiler: Assuming you survive all of this, it turns out that all humans on earth, save one, were created for the sole purpose of one day being used as living material to recreate an ancient doomsday weapon which has been worshiped as God. By the end of the game, you're either dead, absorbed into the ancient doomsday weapon, a flesh-hungry zombie, or one of the roughly thousand people in the whole world still alive and intact.]] |
| 408 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}'', you must stop an Main/AlienInvasion before it causes too much damage to Earth powers. After each mishap, the game gives you a popup message about how the current UFO is messing with the world and terrorizing people, and these incidents only get worse and worse as the invasion progresses. (The designer specifically made this system to increase the feeling that you're fighting an escalating war and that the fate of mankind is at stake.) Moreover, the Xenonauts and their support personnel ''all'' have uniformly unhappy expressions whenever you see them. (Wouldn't you?) |
| 409 | * The world of ''VideoGame/YuGiOhBAM'' was devastated by a great and deadly battle, leaving little but memories of previous duels in its wake. The first city, Alba Litora, is a bleak, dreary city that was shattered in time. |
| 410 | * ''VideoGame/ZombieArmyTrilogy'' presents a 1945 Nazi Germany on the brink of defeat opening a gateway to Hell and unleashing a ZombieApocalypse on the world out of spite. [[EnemyMine Americans, Russians and disillusioned Germans join forces]] to survive in a waking nightmare where the real conflict is between the living and the dead. |
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