| 1 | [[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/new_bodhum_9371.png]]]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:350: Welcome home.]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | You're playing a video game that so far has been good fun--perhaps not all sunshine and light, but still, fairly safe. The story is interesting and everything's going well. Then... things get a little drearier. The color scheme turns drab, the music plays in a minor [[{{Scales}} key]], the creatures seem fearful -- [[NothingIsScarier if they're there at all]]. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | Such a choice may foreshadow something scary, mark a place of evil, or denote the DarkestHour for your character. Sister tropes include the WombLevel for levels made out of flesh in an otherwise un-fleshy game and BigBoosHaunt for the definitely "scary" and "creepy" part of a Bleak Level. See also VileVillainSaccharineShow for when there's that one villain that seems out of place. See also DarkestHour and SurprisinglyCreepyMoment. |
| 7 | ---- |
| 8 | !!Examples: |
| 9 | |
| 10 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 11 | |
| 12 | %%[[folder:Action]] |
| 13 | %% Needs context * In ''VideoGame/{{Glider}} PRO'', "Slumberland" has a sudden "Wrong Turn!" into a graveyard area. |
| 14 | %%[[/folder]] |
| 15 | |
| 16 | [[folder:Action Adventure]] |
| 17 | * ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': After losing consciousness, Ann finds herself awakening in Hinterland, an EldritchLocation that's hard in contrast to the bright and vibrant PostCyberpunk setting, with the area itself illuminated by a {{red filter|ofdoom}}, derogate machinery and structures marked by CreepyCrosses, and it is where an [[EldritchAbomination supernatural entity]] of destruction resides. |
| 18 | * ''VideoGame/BlossomTalesTheSleepingKing'': The Wastelands. The other non-dungeon areas of the game have lighthearted and whimsical themes, but the Wastelands are a grey, barren region covered in skulls, dead plants, and orc encampments with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVI6kX-s620&list=PLQL4aITDfx9_UtOIGDLv-2ieW_dD5kZgL&index=24 ominous, militaristic music]] playing. |
| 19 | * In ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', when you return to the Mimiga Village after escaping the Labyrinth, all of the inhabitants of the village are missing, and the background music is replaced by an ominous, minor-key song, "Quiet". And then you travel to the "Egg Corridor?", which is in complete ruins, with the eggs incubated there having hatched into dragons in definitely imperfect state. |
| 20 | * ''VideoGame/{{Cubivore}}'' has entirely different bleak levels early on, which are purely WHITE and desolate. |
| 21 | * In ''VideoGame/DisneyPrincessEnchantedJourney'', Cinderella's world is AlwaysNight, most of the colors are a muted blue, time is frozen everywhere, there's a creepy forest to traverse, you go to her old home, which is deserted, and at one point the Bogs freeze Cinderella herself, making it the only point where they directly attack a princess. |
| 22 | * ''VideoGame/DogsLife'' for [=PS2=]: All levels so far have been, if not all of them cheerful, and except some creepy moments like the dog catcher's doberman chasing you around and a couple of criminals you thwarted, relatively safe. Then, all of a sudden... the dog pound. The sky is dark,the ground is an ominous blood red, there are no other animals or life (except for the creepy doberman chasing you), and then [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pS6E3omf_Q an ominous background music]] that seems there just to make you want to get out of there. Then there's the final level. Except for the noise of machines trying to gut your love interest, there's no music at all. [[OhCrap The only other place with no background music in the entire game is the pause screen.]] |
| 23 | * The (optional) "Deep Sector" in ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}''. At the beginning, the heroine comments that the air smells like human blood, it is extremely dark and the music is eerie. |
| 24 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 25 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'': The Face Shrine is a one-two punch of the smaller South and the actual dungeon in the North Shrine, the one in the south giving the first concrete hint that your adventure is AllJustADream, and then the boss of the one in the north confirming that yes, the island is all a dream, and as such [[DreamApocalypse you're going to have to do a rather nasty thing to it and its inhabitants to leave]]. |
| 26 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'': |
| 27 | *** The Shadow Temple is underground, so a lot of the environment is in darkness, made of earth or stone. Doors have ominous messages about the fall of Hyrule, and skeletons are some of the most prominent enemies. There's also the Bottom of the Well in Kakariko Village, which is implied to be connected with the Shadow Temple and even has walls built with human bones. |
| 28 | *** After the TimeSkip, the Hyrule Market Town, once a bustling marketplace full of life and people, becomes [[{{Mordor}} a dark, desolate place]] [[FisherKing under Ganondorf's iron-fisted rule]], with roaming [=ReDeads=] as its sole inhabitants. |
| 29 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has the entire area of Ikana Canyon. It's a haunted area with scarce flora, filled by small Stalchildren waiting around for their long-deceased captain (whom the player races and earns the title of the new captain) from, the royal family's skeletons remain in the area, and the only people living here are a thief - and further in are a girl and her turning-into-a-Gibdo father. |
| 30 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has Hyrule Castle and the surrounding area. While the four Divine Beasts that serve as the other main dungeons can be a bit ominous, what with the backstories about how they were corrupted and the {{Ma|deOfEvil}}lice filling their interiors, they're still brightly lit locations with musical tracks that mix ominousness with triumph. Howeever, Hyrule Castle is a bleak ruin dripping in Malice: all the plant life in the vicinity is grey and dead, the town at its base is sufficiently demolished to the point of barely being recognizable as a former settlement, deadly [[MechaMooks Guardians]] are ubiquitous, and all around are subtle signs of the massacre that took place a century before. There's also a more quotidian level of bleakness with [[spoiler:the diaries of Princess Zelda and her father King Rhoam, found at their respective desks in the castle. Both record how they felt plenty of fear, and Zelda plenty of shame, over Zelda's inability to awaken the sealing power needed to defeat Calamity Ganon, and how this was leading to their relationship being badly strained due to King Rhoam's tough approach to guiding Zelda's training. And the final entries of each were written the morning of the day Ganon returned and the catastrophic events that led to the kingdom's destruction began.]] |
| 31 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': |
| 32 | *** Rito Village is beset by an endless blizzard that prevents the Rito from growing crops. For that reason, most of the adults have gone to scrounge for food elsewhere, leaving the village much emptier than in ''Breath of the Wild''. There is also a much more depressing remix of the Rito Village theme playing. |
| 33 | *** Zora's Domain and much of the surrounding Lanayru region have been doused in a toxic sludge that leaves many of the rivers and lakes too polluted for the [[FishPeople Zora]] to swim in. Many of the Zora have been debilitated by globs of sludge falling from the sky, turning the sleeping pool under the throne room into a makeshift hospital. |
| 34 | *** The [[ShiftingSandLand Gerudo Desert]] is covered in a "sand shroud", an uncommonly thick sandstorm that almost completely blocks out the sun and makes navigation very difficult. There has also been a swarm of Gibdos, skeletal monsters immune to most regular attacks. Gerudo Town, once a thriving settlement, is now eerily empty due to the Gerudo taking shelter underground to avoid both the sand shroud and the Gibdos. |
| 35 | * ''VideoGame/LegoDimensions'': |
| 36 | ** The ''VideoGame/Portal2'' levels and Adventure World, while being a bit more light-hearted than the source material, are still set in a massive, decaying underground enrichment center, completely devoid of life outside of [=GLaDOS=], Wheatley, the turrets, and Cave Johnson's pre-recorded messages. And also the [[AscendedExtra Mantis Men]]. |
| 37 | ** The game's main story has "A Franchise/{{D|octorWho}}alek-table Adventure", which has the main trio journey through a run-down facility filled with Cybermen, Weeping Angels, and, of course, Daleks, all of which are portrayed faithfully (for the most part). |
| 38 | * ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'': |
| 39 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'': Lower Maridia has a remarkably dark color palette for an underwater level, and the music is also very quiet and ominous. |
| 40 | ** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'': The [[RuinsForRuinsSake Chozo Ruins]] are set in a [[ShiftingSandLand desert-like biome]], [[SceneryGorn the structures are heavily decrepit]], the music is eerily quiet, [[GrimyWater the water is corrosive]] due to the toxins secreted by the ManEatingPlant boss Flaahgra, and most of the plants are dead thanks to said toxic water. |
| 41 | ** ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' has Sector 5. Extremely quiet music, everything is frozen over... it stops being as bleak when Nightmare starts rampaging through it. |
| 42 | ** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'' has the GFS ''Valhalla''. It is a derelict, ruined spaceship where everything is destroyed, most power sources are offline, the surrounding space is a bright-red nebula filled with floating debris (and sometimes ''hundreds of Metroids''), all the human and invading Space Pirate troopers onboard were killed violently, their corpses disintegrate into ashes when shot, powerful monsters infest the halls, and the music is a quiet and eerie atmospheric piece. At the end, you can witness [[spoiler:the ship's Aurora Unit describing the horrific fate of the ''Valhalla'' and itself]]. Definitely not a fun place to visit. |
| 43 | * ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'': The game features a mixture of cheery and dark areas, but the bleakest one among the latter group is Sei-an City under the Blight's influence. The atmosphere is very foreboding, as the city is being shrouded by a thick green mist that originates from the Emperor's body (the culprit isn't him, but Blight who invaded his body). As a result, the inhabitants' morale has deteriorated, and so did the health of some. Even Issun tells Amaterasu that the place has gotten a more sinister appearance than Orochi's cursed zones, which says ''a lot''. |
| 44 | * ''VideoGame/PhoenotopiaAwakening'' has some inhospitable terrain, but it's generally fairly standard for a fantasy epic. The human population might be sparse in spots, like in the desert, and the monsters might be tough, but even the forbidden area Between the Wall still fits this mold. Until you reach [[spoiler:the Scorched Lands, the bombed-out remains of a city that is now populated almost exclusively by killer robots, some of which are unkillable.]] |
| 45 | * ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'': Dragon Rock is bleak and it helps that its original location in Sauria (before its separation from the planet) was near the equally-bleak Moon Mountain Pass. The latter is a desolate location with a dark-green sky, lunar rocks and toxic geysers, and it has some surreal enemies. The former is a barren wasteland, whose ambiance shows a strong feel of despair and impotence represented by the shades of orange, red, brown and purple in the scenery, as well as dreary music. |
| 46 | * ''VideoGame/TurnipBoyCommitsTaxEvasion'' has [[spoiler:The Bomb Bunker. There is absolutely no humor there, the music features ''air-raid sirens'' and is low-key, [[AfterTheEnd the true nature of the game's world is revealed]], the color palette consists mainly of grays with a red glow like an alarm going off, the few enemies you encounter there are hideous and can kill Turnip Boy very quickly, and it's capped off with a boss fight against a horrific mutant that you inadvertently create when you expose a human girl to nuclear radiation.]] |
| 47 | * The ''Videogame/{{Uncharted}}'' series has a few examples of this: |
| 48 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/UnchartedDrakesFortune Drake's Fortune]]'', after getting to the German bunker, [[spoiler:zombie-like creatures show up]]. It doesn't help that they don't appear in an obvious pattern, making the scene (along with the slow music and the darkness) not only bleak but difficult. |
| 49 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception Drake's Deception]]'', when Nate crashes the {{Mooks}}' plane in Rub al Khali, he gets lost in the desert. He spends several days there without food or water, suffering from hallucinations and walking in circles without noticing. The fact that you don't fight enemies or hear anything more than Drake talking to himself is terrifying. |
| 50 | * ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory'' has The Bottom, an area found at the very bottom of the game world, where the music is merely an ambience, enemies don't exist and there are no means of escape aside from [[WarpWhistle using a]] SavePoint. There is, however, a HeartContainer and entrance to [[LevelInTheClouds another definitely less scary area]]. |
| 51 | [[/folder]] |
| 52 | |
| 53 | [[folder:Adventure Game]] |
| 54 | * The fifth level of ''VideoGame/{{Flower}}'', in contrast to the levels before it, takes place in the midst of a thunderstorm and is covered by GreyRainOfDepression. Electrical transmission towers dot the landscape, and [[spoiler:the screen fades to black before you can reach the LevelGoal]]. |
| 55 | * Zomberry Island, Ghost Story Island, S.O.S. Island, and Vampire's Curse Island have a darker tone than the rest of ''VideoGame/{{Poptropica}}'''s ordinarily colorful and upbeat levels. Zomberry takes place during a zombie invasion, Ghost Story takes place in a haunted town, S.O.S. Island is set in a sinking ship in which you must rescue survivors, and Vampire's Curse has you finding a cure for vampirism. |
| 56 | * ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'' has everything going smoothly up until the end of Act 3, where [[spoiler:the Bard's attempt to grab the next Earthsong piece is immediately shut down by Audrey, the hero destined to facilitate [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX4 the impending end of the universe]], which is ''not'' what the Bard wants. Unfortunately for him, he [[HeroicBSOD doesn't take kindly]] to being bluntly told off that what he wants is impossible, and that he was expected to give up because he was never meant to be a hero.]] By the time Act 4 starts, the Bard has moved back to his old hometown of Chismest, which is tonally opposite to the past Acts and [[FriendToAllLivingThings the Bard's general demeanour]]. The sky is covered in a thick layer of smog from the immense factory at the center, which also serves as a general source of strife for all the other townsfolk. The colour scheme consists of cold, dark shades of blue and grey, and any warm colors are incredibly muted, [[PaintingTheMedium even the ones on the Bard's singing wheel]]. His facial expression is stuck to being neutral at best, and [[StepfordSmiler deliberately faking a smile]] at worst; his signature voice is also devoid of the energy that he had, now sounding strained. All of this adds up to the greatest shift in tone of the game thus far, though thankfully it doesn't stick as the Bard sucessfully gets out of his slump by the end of the Act. Still, it serves to show that his journey will not be without hardships. |
| 57 | * ''VideoGame/ZackAndWikiQuestForBarbarosTreasure'': All the Barbaros' Castle levels take place at night and usually have ghosts, iron maidens, and other creepy stuff that have inhabited the area. |
| 58 | [[/folder]] |
| 59 | |
| 60 | [[folder:Beat'em Up]] |
| 61 | * ''VideoGame/{{Shing}}'': The Forgotten City level takes place in the ruined remains of a once great settlement long ago destroyed by reckless experiments with the Starseed, leaving a giant crater behind along with ash-covered abandoned homes and deadly cracks in the earth that shoot out deadly gases. The very prospect of having to go there makes the usually irreverent player characters act [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness significantly more serious and somber]] for almost the entire level. |
| 62 | [[/folder]] |
| 63 | |
| 64 | [[folder:Edutainment]] |
| 65 | * The Floating Pyramid in ''VideoGame/DisneysMathQuestWithAladdin'' is the tomb of the Wizard Pharaoh [[PunnyName Veri'Ankh-Amman]], where he sealed the lamp of the omnicidal genie Bizarrah along with his own body. In contrast to everywhere else, it's dark and run-down. The guardians are eerie talking statues and every time you try to turn around, the pharaoh's spirit likes to leave you with menacing reminders that there's no turning back. |
| 66 | [[/folder]] |
| 67 | |
| 68 | [[folder:First Person Shooter]] |
| 69 | * While ''Videogame/BioShockInfinite'' is full of dark and scary stuff, the SceneryPorn lightens up a bit... until Finkton and more specifically, Shantytown, which as the name makes clear, it's the beaten up aglomerate of deteriorated buildings and improvised households surrounded by poor and malnourished people, an environment of pure misery. Even the [[https://bioshock.fandom.com/wiki/Pauper%27s_Drop_(Level) ramshack parts]] of [[Videogame/BioShock2 the previous game]] can't compare, specially because the populace of ''Infinite'' are normal people instead of disfigured mutants. |
| 70 | * The Eridium Blight in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' contrasts with the natural SceneryPorn of most of the areas before it. The runoff of Hyperion's Eridium refinement plants mixes with the volcanic ash to make a lifeless wasteland where almost nothing grows. Even the ColorWash is dead-looking. |
| 71 | * ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 3'' has "The Mace" level, [[BattleInTheRain fought entirely in the rain]], where the Polish have to HoldTheLine on Mont Ormel/Hill 262/"The Mace" against hordes of German soldiers. The entire battle is just a desperate retreat up the hill as soldiers die left and right, culminating in a LastStand near a manor house at the top and [[spoiler: [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome the arrival]] [[BigDamnHeroes of Canadian]] [[TheCavalry reinforcements]]]]. Made even worse with the knowledge it all [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_262 happened]] in real life. |
| 72 | * The ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' chapter "We Don't Go To Ravenholm..." takes Gordon Freeman through the namesake town where the headcrab infestation turned everyone into zombies, save for one Father Grigori, who is very determined to tend to his "flock"... with shotguns, that is. |
| 73 | * Surface II from ''VideoGame/{{GoldenEye|1997}}'' is a more unsettling version of an earlier level. Instead of a well-lit setting with uptempo music as the first Surface was, Surface II takes place under a blood-red sky and has slower, more somber music. The masked guards from the first level are present again, and look much creepier in the murky conditions. |
| 74 | * The level "343 Guilty Spark" from ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' follows immediately right after the cutscene ending the previous level, in which Cortana gives a disjointed warning to the Master Chief that the Covenant found something... buried, and that Keyes is about to unravel it. Arriving at the level, you're treated to a dark bog with lots of wrecked equipment and a [[ApocalypticLog eerie barely functioning distress call on repeat]]. The general lack of enemies in the beginning, and the fact that what enemies Chief encounters ''are'' ''fleeing in sheer panic and terror'' from the place you are heading towards, serves only to reinforce the quiet creepy factor as you stalk through the wrecked facility. In particular, the gradual realization that the terrified Covenant are not fighting (and largely getting slaughtered by) the two-dozen humans you were sent to rescue, but something else entirely that has [[BloodKnight the Covenant]] of all people [[OoCIsSeriousBusiness fleeing in terror]], and that the sole human survivor you actually find is so panic-driven from whatever it is he's seen that he ''shoots at you'', makes the build-up to TheReveal of the level extremely tense. When [[spoiler:the Flood]] finally do show up, you then must find another way out of the facility, except you now have to fight the horrific, unrelenting horde every step of the way--making the second half of the level a Bleak Level ''of the Bleak Level''. |
| 75 | * ''VideoGame/QuakeIV'' is hardly sunshine and roses to begin with but the ''Waste Processing Facility'' takes bleakness to the next level. It's a CreepyBasement below the Stroyent production facility with [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot cyborg zombies]] who were discarded for being unsuitable to the Strogg war effort. Dried blood coats many of the surfaces, bodies are stored in barrels for disposal, and waste chutes feed giblets from the levels above. |
| 76 | [[/folder]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[folder:Hack and Slash]] |
| 79 | * ''VideoGame/{{Genji}}'' has the marketplace [[spoiler: after it has been destroyed by dark magic]]. |
| 80 | * ''VideoGame/NieR'' has the mansion on the hill. Everywhere else is bright and sunny, then you find Emil's mansion. Suddenly your screen loses all colour and everything goes grey, and the camera somehow picks up grime. There's also a couple of portraits that slowly change the first time you go in. And the soundtrack starts screaming at you. |
| 81 | * ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'': |
| 82 | ** The first game has the stage against Speed Buster occurring in a wrecked city where Travis witnesses his mentor getting killed prior to the battle. |
| 83 | ** ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'': Matt Helms' stage is set in an abandoned cemetery, while Matt himself is fought inside a HauntedHouse. |
| 84 | ** ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'': Call of Battle. While the other areas of the game are colorful and have at least some liveliness, Call of Battle has nothing but browns and greys and is full of ruins, being mostly devoid of life. |
| 85 | * Operation 008 of ''VideoGame/TheWonderful101'' takes place in Blossom City, the city from the first few missions of the game, [[spoiler:now reduced to floating chunks of debris that the team has to maneuver across while being hounded by hordes of GEATHJERK soldiers. Periodically during the stage, MissionControl informs the player of the quickly-worsening status of their CoolAirship base, which the player can do nothing about.]] At least the Wonderful Marts were left unharmed! |
| 86 | [[/folder]] |
| 87 | |
| 88 | [[folder:[=MMORPGs=]]] |
| 89 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' has Dynamis. A mirror world created by [[spoiler: Diabolos, ruler of Dreams]] from nightmares in an attempt to escape Vanadiel's inevitable end. Dynamis is in a perpetual state of night and inhabited by the souls of those who fell during the crystal war, now locked into an eternal battle. |
| 90 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': |
| 91 | ** The game throws another PlayerPunch by having you walk around what's left of Taris [[AfterTheEnd about three hundred years after]] Malak had it carpet-bombed from orbit early in the first ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic''. Crumbling permacrete, twisted and rusty starship hulks, polluted water, rakghouls ''everywhere'', and [[spoiler:a Republic player finds out the Outcasts the canonical light-side Revan "saved" were picked off by rakghoul attacks, starvation, and disease before toxic waste finished them off. Imperial players then crush any little HopeSpot by tearing apart the Republic's efforts to restore the planet.]] |
| 92 | ** In the Rise of the Emperor storyline, the surface of Ziost gets decimated by Darth Vitiate following the player's effort on there. While all organic life on the planet is shown to be destroyed in a cutscene, the surface is still inhabitable. |
| 93 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': |
| 94 | ** Felwood is like the Night Elf areas like Teldrassil and Ashenvale, but filled with plague and suspiciously green glowing stuff. The Ghostlands is the same for the Blood Elves. |
| 95 | ** While the Western Plaguelands is an active warzone, filled with armies of undead just barely held in check by mortal forces, the Eastern Plaguelands beyond them are strangely quiet. The wildlife is depressed where it isn't mutated; roving bands of things assault you, even on the roads, and in a world of saturated color, the sky is browner than the soil. |
| 96 | ** Duskwood is a forest infested with zombies and werewolves just across the river from the peaceful Elwynn Forest and a startling MoodWhiplash for new Human players. Everything in the zone is either dead or on constant watch from attack. |
| 97 | ** Everything in Deadwind Pass is washed out gray, and the only things that are alive are vultures, giant spiders, and a clan of ogres. It's also home to the EldritchLocation known as Karazhan and the creepy crypt underneath it. The good news is that there really isn't any reason to stick around in the zone itself for very long. |
| 98 | ** Desolace, at least before Cataclysm, where a huge forest now grows at the center of the zone. Before this, Desolace was a nearly lifeless desert where scavengers and the hostile centaur were the only life present, with the exception of the giant Kodo, who come here specifically to die. |
| 99 | %%** Gilneas, especially in the initial Worgen starting experience before you get bitten. %%Example needs context to make sense on its own. |
| 100 | * ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' has several accessed from the Temple of Time: |
| 101 | ** The first is the Gate to the Future, a false vision of a potential future in which the [[BigBad Black Mage]] takes over the world. Empress Cygnus and her knights have been corrupted, and their floating island Ereve has fallen to the Maple World. The hillsides of Henesys are burning and the town itself has been reduced to a few buildings, with its market overrun by monsters. Perion is mostly intact, but all of its inhabitants have been enslaved by the Edelstein Resistance, with the land itself in perpetual twilight. A majority of the enemies in these areas are the usual low-level snails, stumps, and mushrooms you'd find there normally... But they've been mutated by the Black Mage's magic into freakishly dangerous and hostile forms. |
| 102 | ** The second is the Arcane River, the place where all timelines but the main go to die. The very first area is the Vanishing Journey, a sandy beach where objects and buildings from every other area in both the Maple World and Grandis are seen disintegrating into the dust that forms the beach itself. Further into the Journey are a shattered plateau with flames erupting from the crevasses, and a cave that contains a forest of giant eerie fungus. From there, the rest of the River is mostly intact until you reach ''Tenebris'', a new world the Black Mage is creating to replace the current one. The first section of Tenebris is Moonbridge, an infinite sky full of monsters made of smoke and ashes. The second is the aptly named [[NamesToRunAwayFromVeryFast Labyrinth of Suffering]], a maze made of sickly green stone full of undead creatures, some of which are the corpses of Cygnus Knights, Resistance Members, and Nova Warriors. The boss of this area is an undead Hilla, who summons zombified versions of Lotus and Damien as minions. The final area is Limina, a place of pure creation magic where enemies are nothing more than abstract patterns of dots and lines, resembling constellations more than creatures. |
| 103 | [[/folder]] |
| 104 | |
| 105 | [[folder:Platformer]] |
| 106 | * ''VideoGame/{{B3313}}'': |
| 107 | ** At the Bob-omb Village, characters warn you against collecting the stars in the level which are their "power sources". If you do so anyway, the game warps you to a [[spoiler:barren snowfield with no music]] instead of the usual respawn point, clearly showing the village has been ruined. |
| 108 | ** The Ice-Cold Warzone is a version of Bob-omb Battlefield set during winter at night that portrays a war between crowds of Bob-ombs and Goombas. It is contrasted by two other versions -- a lively one in the past where more enemy species inhabit the area and a future one devoid of enemies in which the remaining [=NPCs=] speak about the war now being fought with "silent weapons". |
| 109 | ** The Destroyed Castle Grounds are seemingly set AfterTheEnd, on a red flooded field surrounded by ruins and two massive portraits of Peach in the distance. Entering a pipe warps you back in time to the Haunted Castle Grounds. It starts with Mario atop Peach's Castle, but the whole scenery is likewise crimson red-and-black and ominous despite the circus music playing. Yoshi is gone and Toad's statue is beheaded for some reason. |
| 110 | * ''VideoGame/TheCatInTheHat'': Attic Adventure is a [[BigBoosHaunt haunted attic]] that's notably creepy compared to the off-kilter whimsy of the previous levels. |
| 111 | * ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot1996'': |
| 112 | ** The [[TempleOfDoom temple levels]] "Temple Ruins" and "Jaws Of Darkness" take place in abandoned, dark temples, where the only lumination are the lit fire torches in the background, filled with smashing traps, and accompanied with a foreboding, spooky soundtrack. |
| 113 | ** The "Generator Room" too. It's a dark, empty level only filled with metallic platforms, a few robot enemies and videos of [[BigBad Dr. Cortex]] staring at you. It also has the arguably most minimalistic yet creepiest track in the whole game. |
| 114 | * ''VideoGame/DinoRun'' kicks it off with a scarily dark volcano section, with some ''seriously'' creepy music. Since before this level the oncoming apocalypse was treated fairly lightheartedly, it's a fair bit of MoodWhiplash. |
| 115 | * ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'': |
| 116 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'': Stop & Go Station from the second world has a very oppressive and unnerving atmosphere compared to any prior level, no thanks to its creepy, invincible enemies and minimalistic music. |
| 117 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'': [[BigBoosHaunt Gloomy Gulch]] definitely lives up to its name. Crocodile Isle is not a friendly place in general, but Gloomy Gulch stands out as a dark and barren region high up on the mountain, surrounded by dead forests. Cementing this is the world's theme song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYyMNXM8Kgg Forest Interlude]], which is much more downbeat and moody compared to the rest of the game's soundtrack. |
| 118 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'': Mekanos as a whole is a massive case of MoodWhiplash in a game that appreciates the beauty of nature in its first three worlds, only to suddenly throw Dixie and Kiddy into a bunch of dark factories, toxic pipelines and a pursuit from a giant ripsaw rampaging through a whole forest. |
| 119 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'': Frantic Factory and Gloomy Galleon (both unlocked at the same time) are markedly drearier than the preceding levels. Appropriately, they are both found on K. Rool's side of the HubWorld. |
| 120 | * ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim'' |
| 121 | ** The "Big Bruty" level in the [[UpdatedRerelease Special Edition]] of the first game features the worm hero having to avoid being eaten by the eponymous creature, a blind dinosaur-esque monster with a strong sense of smell, in an unsettling and abandoned swamp planet, which is implied to have become abandoned due to the dinosaur-esque monster's eating habits. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUXrb8lJzz0 The music complements the stage perfectly]]. |
| 122 | ** The "Villi People" level from ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim 2'', in addition to being [[MindScrew bizarre]] and [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext inexplicable]] even by Earthworm Jim standards, is also pretty dang depressing, what with revolving around navigating a giant intestinal tract while somber classical music plays in the background. |
| 123 | * ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'': The fourth eversion level turns the scenery gray and the enemies stop moving. Subsequent eversion levels only get nastier and darker, going from gray to brown to blood-red to practically pitch-black. |
| 124 | * ''VideoGame/{{Futurama}}'' has [[SinisterSubway the Subway]]. To put it into context, the level before this took place in the sewers of New New York, and true to the show, the whole place has a campy horror vibe, being filled with [[GrimyWater glowing green waste]], cartoony mutants as enemies, and [[SewerGator alligators]], plus a very funky soundtrack. But then when you reach the ruined subway, everything turns [[RealIsBrown drab and brown]], the enemies are sinister-looking [[DisasterScavengers post-apocalyptic scavengers]] in {{gas mask|Mooks}}s, and the music [[NothingIsScarier is completely gone]] -- replaced by an unsettling ambience which includes ''distant screaming''. The whole place seems more at home in a ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' game than a ''Futurama'' game, and the weird thing is that it's the ''third level''. No other level later in the game comes even close to being this bleak, not even Old New York, which immediately follows it, or [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon MOM's HQ]] at the very end. |
| 125 | * ''VideoGame/KingsleysAdventure'' has [[MeaningfulName Poorluck Village]], which follows the vivid and upbeat [[BrightCastle Carrot Castle]] and [[PalmtreePanic Sea Town]]. In stark contrast, all the homes in Poorluck are dilapidated, all the grass is dead, it's always dark and rainy, and the highest-running emotions are the dogs'. On top of that, when you first arrive, the village is in the midst of a dragon-induced famine. [[spoiler:You eventually solve the famine, but the place never gets any cheerier.]] |
| 126 | * ''VideoGame/Kirby64TheCrystalShards'': |
| 127 | ** By the time you get to Ripple Star's second stage, the game officially stops being cute thanks to the gloomy areas and the freaky music. |
| 128 | ** Shiver Star's fourth stage is infamous for being at complete odds with the rest of the world's levels, being a spooky factory with scary-looking machinery and dramatic music. |
| 129 | * ''VideoGame/LaMulana'': |
| 130 | ** Confusion Gate/Gate of Illusion. Dear lord, between the creepy organ music played in an eerie minor key, the dull background colors, and the sacrificial pit, it's easily the most disturbing part of the game. The remake doubles down on the creepiness, spotting the background with splashes of blood, giving the stone heads [[StepfordSmiler uncanny expressions]], and kicking the whole zone off with a [[JumpScare sudden scream]]. |
| 131 | ** The Shrine of the Mother in the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} remake. Adorned with intimidating rock formations and featuring a gloomy and deppresing musical theme, this area is littered with skeletons of all the children that failed to accomplish Mother's wish and were killed to make room for the next generation. It is home to more instant-kill traps than any other area in the game. |
| 132 | * ''VideoGame/LocoRoco'': |
| 133 | ** Dolangomeri is an eerie forest full of old machinery, and serves as the domain for the BigBad and his minions. The normally-cheerful background singers sound mournful and frightened while singing this area's music, which is periodically accompanied by maniacal laughter (unless you're playing as Budzi, in which case his incredibly [[SoundtrackDissonance funky]] ImageSong plays instead). |
| 134 | ** The final level of the original game is a WombLevel taking place inside the BigBad, Bonmucho. The cheery music and colorful visuals that accompany every other WombLevel in the game are absent, replaced by murky black and grey backgrounds and a foreboding VillainSong called "[[https://youtu.be/Wp0OId0KZ4U Merure Merure]]". |
| 135 | * ''Franchise/MegaMan'' |
| 136 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' |
| 137 | *** Sky Lagoon, the very first level in ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'', is a floating city under attack by Mavericks. The second area is the ruins of the city after the Mavericks [[ColonyDrop dropped it to the ground]]. |
| 138 | *** The first level of ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'' is also set in the ruins of a ColonyDrop, this time the Eurasia from ''VideoGame/MegaManX5''. |
| 139 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' |
| 140 | *** Most of the overworld in ''VideoGame/MegaManZero1'' is already bleak, but then Neo Arcadia leads an assault on the Resistance Base. Zero now has to rescue his allies from the Mooks while finding bodies of dead Resistance soldiers throughout the halls. There was even an EmpathyDollShot usually held by TagalongKid Alouette left on the floor. However, once the mission is over, it's revealed Alouette is one of the few survivors of the attack. |
| 141 | *** When the Resistance's acting commander Elpizo launches his assault team for Operation Righteous Strike at the halfway point of ''VideoGame/MegaManZero2'', Zero was requested to keep an eye on them. No sooner had he teleported in did the results of the operation be apparent: dead Resistance soldiers clutter the level, and Zero only manages to rescue the SoleSurvivor, Elpizo himself, from the three Guardians. |
| 142 | %%** Ballade's special stage in ''VideoGame/MegaMan10''. %%Example needs context to make sense on its own. |
| 143 | * ''VideoGame/PizzaTower'' is normally a really goofy and over-the-top game that features very little scares. But one level in the final world, titled 'Don't Make a Sound' is a creepy run-down pizzeria with HostileAnimatronics that activate if you get spotted by certain enemies. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-CLAPJ1PLs The music]] is also a lot more ambient and creepy than any other track in the game. [[spoiler:And then, at the end [[CatharsisFactor you grab a gun and shoot the hell out of the animatronics]]]]. |
| 144 | * ''VideoGame/RabiRibi'' manages this with the Warp Destination (aka [[spoiler: the real world]].) There's color to be found, but most of it is just shades of grey, and the whole thing feels...off. The music suddenly gets [[https://youtu.be/VX6CH_kSLMc more serious than normal]], there are actual [[LadyLand male characters for once]] (and they're all [[spoiler: creepy otaku who stalk and take pictures of Erina because of her PlayboyBunny outfit]],) there's no magic to be found anywhere aside from [[spoiler: Noah and the clones of Erina and Ribbon she sics on her]], and even Ribbon finds it oppressive due to the lack of nature. [[spoiler: And when you finally find Miru, it's in a RoomFullOfCrazy, and the resulting boss fight has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWZtcBP6Mc one of the most sinister themes in the game.]]]] |
| 145 | * ''VideoGame/Rayman3HoodlumHavoc'' has The Desert of the Knaaren, which has an intense and really scary atmosphere that only gets worse when you reach the underground area and have to deal with avoiding the invincible Knaaren and fending off Zombie Chickens. |
| 146 | * Eifer Skute's stage in ''VideoGame/{{Rosenkreuzstilette}} Freudenstachel'' is filled with the undead, a ghastly {{Expy}} of Mothraya from ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'', and creepy {{Ethereal Choir}}s. |
| 147 | * ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndThePiratesCurse'' has Mud Bog Island, which especially clashes with the silliness of the previous Tan Line Island. Mud Bog Island has a bleak atmosphere teeming with sludge-like monsters. Deeper into the island is an entrance to the Village of Lost Souls and eventually the Oubliette of Suffering, a FireAndBrimstoneHell dungeon where only the nastiest of souls reside to be tortured. Another example would be the return to Scuttle Town after freeing the Pirate Master. The skies are in perpetual darkness and the route to the Sequin Land Palace replaces the starter enemies with even tougher monsters. |
| 148 | * ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'' has Episode 4: Jailbreak and Episode 5: A Tangled Web. Taking place in Prague after the previous episode's lush jungle in India, the areas feature an incredibly creepy {{Uberwald}} aesthetic with blood-red skies and water, a full moon, creepy-looking Wolf, Bat and Vulture guards (With the former having a tendency to disguise themselves as statues and [[JumpScare attacking when you get near]]), ruined Gothic-style buildings, spike traps around the place, supernatural elements and creepy as heck music. To top it off, [[spoiler:you are stuck playing as [[SquishyWizard Bentley]] for the first half of Episode 4 due to Sly and Murray being captured by [[SpiderPeople The Contessa]] in the previous Episode]]. |
| 149 | * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': |
| 150 | ** The BadFuture time zones in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'' are basically the current levels, but completely run down, with a dose of GaiasLament thrown in. Considering all the other timezones including the Good Futures are brightly coloured, this only serves to make them seem even more gloomy. The [[SoundtrackDissonance catchy music]] certainly helps. |
| 151 | ** Crazy Gadget in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' comes just after Eggman captures Tails and Amy, forcing Sonic to traverse a deathtrap of mutated clones of Chaos and toxic waste to save them, all while Eggman repeatedly taunts over the PA system that Amy ''will'' die if he doesn't show up. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgoCc0kGvW8 The music]] is noticeably darker and more intense than the usual TotallyRadical tone of Sonic's level themes, and the level ends with Sonic falling into a trap and [[DisneyDeath seemingly dying.]] |
| 152 | ** GUN Fortress in ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' is the final level on the pure evil end of the KarmaMeter, and it shows. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo44M2uW5RY somber music]] really sets the tone: with Shadow's help humanity has been all but defeated by [[AliensAreBastards Black Doom]], and you're storming their last stronghold. Regardless if you go for the Hero or Dark mission in the level, humanity and the world is doomed. |
| 153 | ** End of the World in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006''. It's a decaying [[AllTheWorldsAreAStage hodgepodge of all of the levels in the game]], set after [[spoiler:Sonic was assassinated, Blaze performed a HeroicSacrifice, and Solaris has been reformed]]. The ambience is a creepy purple glow, graphical glitches mar the screen, moreso in later segments, dimensional rifts open up everywhere, and the music is a mournful and empty piece as the seven remaining playable characters scramble to find the Chaos Emeralds before the dimension crumbles completely. |
| 154 | ** Special note should be made to [[LoveInterest Amy Rose's]] section. Set in [[DeathMountain White]] [[RemilitarizedZone Acropolis]], the stage is made colder and bleaker with Solaris' distortion. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Abi1xZN7Q music for this section,]] [[VariableMix which is actually a section of a bigger track that encompasses all seven characters' sections]] completely breaks down into nothing more than a OneWomanWail backed up by OminousLatinChanting. When [[spoiler:Sonic's death was revealed to everyone]] Amy was [[DespairEventHorizon the one who took it the hardest]] and you can just hear her pain and determination to [[spoiler:save Sonic's life]] in the music. |
| 155 | * ''Franchise/SpongebobSquarepants'': |
| 156 | ** ''VideoGame/SpongeBobSquarePantsBattleForBikiniBottom'': |
| 157 | *** Rock Bottom, which is every bit as creepy as it was in the show. Most of it is set on small platforms hovering over a dark abyss, and the music is ominous and minimal. |
| 158 | *** The [[DerelictGraveyard Flying Dutchman's Graveyard]] is a wasteland full of shipwrecks and toxic ooze with a darker appearance than most of the other areas. In the original version, even the "flower clouds" in the sky look distorted, and ''Rehydrated'' places a giant glowing green moon over the stage. |
| 159 | ** ''VideoGame/TheSpongebobMovieGame'': Almost every level from "Bubble Blowing Baby Hunt" onwards has noticeably darker and unsettling environments, even when they're based on lighthearted parts of the movie (e.g. "Now That We're Men", which plays the depths of the trench for grotesque horror rather than comedy). To wit, "Bubble Blowing Baby Hunt" takes place in the Thug Tug, a seedy and dimly-lit bar full of rugged brutes, "I'll Let You Pet Mr. Whiskers" is set in a field littered with the skeletons of the Frogfish's victims, "Rock Slide" and "Now That We're Men" take place in a dark trench full of ghoulish monsters, "Shell City, Dead Ahead" and "Name's Dennis" are set in a dingy scrapyard, and "Welcome to Planktopolis... Minions" and "Drive of the Knucklehead-[=McSpazitron=]" are set in a dystopian version of Bikini Bottom full of smoggy skies, lava, spikes, heavy machinery, and oppressive monuments. |
| 160 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': |
| 161 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'': |
| 162 | *** The Deep Woods area of the Wooded Kingdom is a stark contrast from the rest of the setting. It is a dark, music-less forest where the player cannot warp out and has no map of. The dreary atmosphere is not just for show, as a hostile, uncapturable T-Rex patrols the area. The game's description heavily implies that even the native machines of the Wooded Kingdom consider this place dangerous and discourage people from entering. |
| 163 | *** Near the end of the main campaign features the [[spoiler:Ruined Kingdom, a derelict land of crumbling Gothic towers covered in fog and swarming with bats. The boss of the level, the Ruined Dragon (also called the [[ShockAndAwe Lord of Lightning]]), is a frightening and [[NonstandardCharacterDesign abnormally realistic-looking]] dragon the size of a {{Kaiju}} and implied to be responsible for destroying the kingdom in a GreatOffscreenWar. The Kingdom and the Dragon look much more like something from ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' than something from a ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' game.]] |
| 164 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosWonder'': |
| 165 | *** The game is as bright and cheerful as any other ''Super Mario Bros.'' game, until the player reachers Muncher Fields. Set in a dreary, rainy environment with unsettling music completely unlike anything seen up to this point, Muncher Fields is also situated right in front of Castle Bowser on the world map, so Bowser looming ominously on the horizon is a constant fixture of the level as well. |
| 166 | *** Fungi Mines (World 5) is a swampy forest area with a lengthy underground section. With the exception of the brightly-colored Upshroom Downshroom, most of the levels in the world are dreary with a subdued color palette with the same unsettling music as in ''Muncher Fields''. Fungi Mines contains the only [[BigBoosHaunt Ghost House]] in the game, before going into the underground area which contains dark and abandoned ruins. |
| 167 | ** ''VideoGame/WarioLand'': |
| 168 | *** The BrutalBonusLevel of ''VideoGame/WarioLandII'', "Steal the Syrup's Treasure!!", is a WombLevel with ominous music filled with mouths, ears, and other body parts interspersed alongside the frozen bodies of various types of enemies embedded in the walls with looks of shock on their faces. |
| 169 | *** ''VideoGame/WarioLand3'' has the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Forest of Fear]]. It's a forest with eerie, minimalist music, tons of spikes and vines, and intimidating faces on all the trees. |
| 170 | * World 3 (Ocean of Oblivion) of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioFusionRevival'' takes place in a dimension that is not quite the real world and not quite Hell. It takes place in a vast ocean eternally shrouded in unsettling dusk and constant thunderstorms. It is the realm that lies past World 2 in the Bermuda Triangle. |
| 171 | * Upon entering the final area of ''[[VideoGame/{{Tomba}} Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return]]'', the BigBad casts a spell that causes the entire world to [[TimeStandsStill stop moving]] and [[DeliberatelyMonochrome be black and white]]. The end result: no enemies whatsoever, lots of black voids (this was a [=PS1=] game, and the draw distance combined with the lack of color causes this effect), and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y9uLrvswNg ominous ambient noise for "music"]]. |
| 172 | [[/folder]] |
| 173 | |
| 174 | [[folder:Puzzle]] |
| 175 | * The third chapter of ''VideoGame/TheUnfinishedSwan'', "The Darkness". Up until now, the game has been very bright (literally, almost everything is white until you throw paint at it), cheerful, and adventurous. Then out of nowhere, this [[BlackoutBasement super-dark level]] appears with light sources few and far between, and [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes glaring at you from the darkness]], which [[DarknessEqualsDeath will kill you if you spend more than a few seconds in it]]. This is also noticeably the first and only place where you can be hurt by anything; the only hazard so far has been drowning, which is [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist nothing more than the screen fading to black and you reappearing on land with a little bit of coughing]]. |
| 176 | * ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheAzranLegacy'' features multiple playable locations, most of which display the cheerful, lively atmosphere that is characteristic in the ''VideoGame/ProfessorLayton'' series. But then Layton and company arrive Mosinnia, a bleak city with a twilight sky and alleys approaching ruin in which nearly all adults are suffering from a mysterious disease that has put them to a seemingly-endless sleep, and it's up to the main characters to figure out the cause. Even the music is dreary. |
| 177 | [[/folder]] |
| 178 | |
| 179 | [[folder:Real Time Strategy]] |
| 180 | * ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': |
| 181 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': |
| 182 | *** The Wistful Wild. In this case, the ambiance evokes a sense of melancholy and nostalgia, and even Olimar makes notes of this feeling during his treasure logs; it exhibits shades of orange and red (in this case because of the level taking place during autumn), as well as a music that induces anxiety onto the characters ''and'' the player. Averted with the caves placed here, though, as they're considerably more overrun by wild creatures than the exterior, and said caves are thematically a salad of all previous caves in the game, not all of which were bleak at all. |
| 183 | *** Submerged Castle is a dark sewer with an ominous music track and an [[RiddleForTheAges unexplained,]] paranormal, invincible boss that stalks the player until the final floor. It is the only cave in the game where the player cannot just take comfort in having an army of Purple and Red Pikmin for offense, as only Blue Pikmin can enter it, giving a feeling of defenselessness. |
| 184 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'' has the Formidable Oak. It's on a giant termite mound in the middle of the desert, there are initially no enemies, the music is very minimal (unless it's raining), and the color scheme outside is mostly brown. After encountering [[spoiler:enemies that ''aren't'' the EldritchAbomination FinalBoss, killing them reveals that they are actually made of the same substance said boss is made of. There isn't even any fruit; the goal of the level is to instead get Olimar to the ship.]] |
| 185 | [[/folder]] |
| 186 | |
| 187 | [[folder:Racing]] |
| 188 | * The ''Videogame/FZeroX'' adaptation of White Land has a theme song which, while not outside the game's hot-blooded heavy metal trappings, sounds surprisingly sad compared to some of the other tracks. |
| 189 | [[/folder]] |
| 190 | |
| 191 | [[folder:Role-Playing Game]] |
| 192 | * The Black Horizon in ''VideoGame/AtelierLydieAndSuelleTheAlchemistsAndTheMysteriousPaintings''. It's the home of [[spoiler:the Remplir]], and the environment is DeliberatelyMonochrome. |
| 193 | * ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'': This game is very silly and upbeat... for its first seven chapters, and then you’re plunged into the First Internet, a ruined age that was mostly devoured by [[GreaterScopeVillain Legion]]. The locals aren’t bad, but they’re pretty pessimistic about their fate. |
| 194 | %%** There’s also the Deep Web, a BonusDungeon that runs on pure nightmare fuel. %%"Pure nightmare fuel" is not enough context. |
| 195 | * While ''VideoGame/BugFables'' is typically cheerful, there are several areas that are ''not'': |
| 196 | ** [[BubblegloopSwamp The Wild Swamplands]], a gloomy swamp populated by hostile Leaf Bugs and [[spoiler: [[CreepyCentipedes The Beast]], a giant monster responsible for [[HeroKiller the death of Kabbu's old friends]].]] |
| 197 | ** The [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Forsaken Lands]] is a grey, foggy area with several cliffs and a noticeable lack of plant life. |
| 198 | ** The [[spoiler:[[AbandonedLaboratory Snakemouth Lab]]]] is a dilapidated area full of [[spoiler:innocent bugs who were experimented on and turned into {{Parasite Zombie}}s]]. |
| 199 | ** [[spoiler: [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace The Deadlands,]] ''the'' scariest area in the game. It's just an abandoned {{human|sAreCthulhu}} house - except it's full of EldritchAbomination BossInMookClothing enemies as well as the Dead Lander Omega, a giant monster that drops enemies on you whenever it sees you, seemingly for no reason other than [[JustToyingWithThem its own amusement]]. The absence of people is never explained.]] |
| 200 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has the Dead Sea, a futuristic city where [[TimeCrash time is essentially broken]]. You can walk on [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom the waves destroying the buildings]] like they're solid, ghostly echoes of living beings are common enemies seen walking in fixed looping patterns, and in the center of it all is the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Tower of Geddon]], [[AlienGeometries an impossible collage of building interiors and locations]]. It's every bit as eerie as it sounds. |
| 201 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' has 2,300 AD, a time period [[AfterTheEnd centuries after Lavos' awakening]] that devastated the planet, as well as the ground level in 12,000 BC, which is ravaged by an ice age brought by Lavos crashing into the planet in the first place. |
| 202 | * ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'': If the player chooses to undertake Spamton's sidequest, they eventually find their way to [[spoiler:the basement of Queen's mansion]], an eerie and dimly-lit series of hallways with a few hazards here and there, punctuated by "Digital Roots", a slow, rumbling arpeggio. It's a far cry from the upbeat eccentricity of the rest of the game. |
| 203 | * ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': The [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Dead Trenches]] start out with ominous music and a dead city, include some really creepy poetry from a traumatized dwarf, and end with a boss whose origin and appearance are 190-proof BodyHorror. Congratulations! You now know where darkspawn come from. Chances are you really wish you didn't. |
| 204 | * ''Franchise/DragonQuest'': |
| 205 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI'': The alternate-history events of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestBuilders'' shows exactly the type of world the Dragonlord would mean to create if the Hero should fall before him one way or another: an ashen wasteland antithetical to life as a concept, cloaked in a pitch black sky, where even the skeletons that emerge from the earth to kill in his name are pitiably weak and frail. |
| 206 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestXI'': The Ruins of Dundrasil. There aren’t very many enemies in the area wandering around (aside from a [[BossInMookClothing Green Dragon]]), but the site itself is depressing to walk through considering the sheer aftermath of the destruction left behind, least of all the bad memories it holds for certain members of the party. |
| 207 | * ''[[VideoGame/{{Mother}} EarthBound Series]]'': |
| 208 | ** ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}''[='s=] final level, the Cave of the Past, is a stark departure from the rest of the game. Whereas other areas were quirky and colorful with an eclectic variety of sights and sounds, the Cave of the Past is a stark gray series of cliffs in a sea of equally gray fog at the center of the Earth. The level is punctuated only by eerie silver orbs, a sole, tentacle-like spire, and the vaguely Freudian entrance to the dark, pulsating lair where Giygas resides. Likewise, the background music consists solely of the LyricalColdOpen to [[Music/{{Sunflower}} "Deirdre"]] by Music/TheBeachBoys, slowed down to resemble an elegiac wail of wind. |
| 209 | ** ''VideoGame/Mother3'' has the abandoned Clayman factory in chapter 7. In previous chapters it was quite lively, in addition to the rest of the game at that point. But here, it's empty save for a few scattered sentry robots, all the machines have stopped running, and there's a unique piece of music playing: a very dark and depressing remix of one of the first mini-boss themes in the game. |
| 210 | * ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' is covered in SceneryGorn, but uses a wide, colorful pallet. The capital, Leyndell, has mostly avoided the fate of the rest of the Lands Between as a result of Morgott holding it against the endless sieges since Marika's disappearance. Late in the game, the Tarnished uses the [[spoiler: fire of the last giant to set fire to the Erdtree]]. The result is the golden city being covered in ash, its shining peaks turned gray. In a world as bleak as the Lands Between, the Ashen Capital stands out as the only one the players witnesses fall into ruin. |
| 211 | * ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy5'': Redpine Town. It is right next to the BigBad's location and is themed accordingly. Unlike every other town in the series, it is infested with monsters, many of the residents are hiding in buidings believing the world is coming to an end, it is given an ominous music theme, plenty of undead roam around, and the whole place as a drab orange color scheme (although it's implied that Redpine is a ForestOfPerpetualAutumn anyway, and the plants are not orange because of the Great Impact). The proper final area it borders is even more ominous, but it at least has a more upbeat theme and various quest [=NPCs=] who cheer the party on in the central screen. |
| 212 | * ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'': |
| 213 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyI'': The first three strata are beautiful woodscapes. The fourth stratum is a barren, sandy land where [[spoiler:you have to kill a bunch of [[TheFairFolk Forest Folk]]]], but at least it's still nothing really out of the ordinary. Then comes the fifth stratum and you find [[spoiler:the ruins of Shinjuku, establishing that the game's fantasy setting actually takes place after the end of a modern Earth]]. |
| 214 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIVLegendsOfTheTitan'': The fifth stratum in the game, the Forgotten Capital, is located in the renmants of [[spoiler:the Yggdrasil after its demise]], and hinted to be one of the extinct major cities of modern Earth. It has only one floor, but it makes up for it by featuring an unsettling atmosphere and a cramped layout, making it stand out from the relatively cheery previous dungeons (which, additionally, have to be revisited in order to start exploring this place). Interestingly, it doesn't have a boss (the opponent at the end, the Cursed Prince, is a MiniBoss), but completing it leads to the reveal of the FinalBoss, [[spoiler:the Heavenbringer (the personified form of the Yggdrasil)]], who awaits in the Cloudy Stronghold. The BonusDungeon (Hall of Darkness) is even scarier, but at least it's to be expected due to it being an AbandonedLaboratory, so the impact factor isn't as big. |
| 215 | * ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'': |
| 216 | ** While ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' [[AfterTheEnd isn't]] the [[ScavengerWorld brightest]] picture of humanity, the underlying themes are hope and rebuilding; [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking even the color palette is happier than its predecessors']]. Then you go to the Glowing Sea, a haunted wasteland where the bomb meant for Boston actually hit. After 210 years, the ambient fallout is still lethal.[[note]]At least according to Doctor Amari; in-game it's a measly few rads per second and can be out-healed via Radaway and Rad-X.[[/note]] |
| 217 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' has the Ash Pile, where the majority of West Virginia's coal mining industry was centered. Twenty-five years of the machines running out of control since the Great War has caused this region to be coated in soot and ash, enough that entering the region without a gas mask means possibly contracting Sludge Lung disease. There are also areas that are eternally burning, especially old coal mines where flames have been burning nonstop for over two decades. |
| 218 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 219 | ** The City of Ancients in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. Hardly any enemies, strange scenery, and unsettling music that only plays there. |
| 220 | ** In ''Videogame/FinalFantasyVIII'', sorceress Edea's act of retaliation against the Gardens for the assassination attempt on her is to order a missile strike. The heroes only managed to save Balamb Garden (by turning it into a mobile fortress), while Edea converts Galbadia Garden into her own base of operations. The last one, Trabia Garden (where Selphie, one of the protagonists, was from), was not so lucky. When the heroes visit, the entire garden is in ruins, and its students are living like squatters, and there is even a giant improvised cemetery dedicated to those who died in the attack. |
| 221 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' |
| 222 | *** Kingdom of Burmecia, the last dungeon of Disc One. By the time the heroes made it there, the kingdom is in ruins, and its citizens are running for their lives from the Black Mages. The dungeon (and Disc One) ends with the heroes facing a HopelessBossFight against General Beatrix for the first time. |
| 223 | *** Lindblum after Alexandria's invasion. Some sections (like a part of the Theater district) are completely destroyed, and Alexandrian soldiers now patrol the city, although they don't engage the party. |
| 224 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': |
| 225 | *** The Baaj Ruins, the first area where Tidus wakes up in Spira. There are no RandomEncounters (just a fixed unwinnable fight), but there's a perpetual storm raging outside, and the ruins itself is abandoned and derelict, giving Tidus an atmosphere of loneliness. |
| 226 | *** Thunder Plains is an entire plain of grey, dreary darkness, only [[{{Pun}} lightened up]] by the constant lightning strikes that make it such an unhospitable wasteland. However, all this is offset by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ax45TprB4A this]] adorable soundtrack. |
| 227 | *** Zanarkand itself, which is when the story catches up to its flashback-telling and the entire party is shown to have become resigned to the upcoming fate of Yuna. Zanarkand is nothing but ruins upon ruins, night doesn't end anymore and the area is filled with Pyreflies, which let the player see memory upon memory of previous summoners and guardians making it to this place. And as [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic amazing]] as the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xRCjjiTR7I background music]] may be for this area, it's still melancholic. And then the BackgroundMusic changes to a much more subdued and very low note, with barely any music playing inside the Zanarkand Dome itself. |
| 228 | *** Mushroom Rock Road. Located in the already dark and gloomy looking Djose region of Spira, the party visits just in time to see the catastrophic failure of Operation Mi'ihen and take stock of the casualties after. Overall the entire region of Djose marks a dark and gloomy point in the game. |
| 229 | ** Mag Mell from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles'' has some very unsettling music and is blanketed in fog and seemingly uninhabited when you first get there. If you revisit it enough times, though, you find out it's actually inhabited by hibernating carbuncles, who turn out to be not all that bad when they finally wake up. A more traditional example is Tida, a town who's caravan never returned home, and is now a miasma and monster-infested DungeonTown. |
| 230 | %% Needs context ** ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXIII'' has [[spoiler:the ruined, [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Cie'th]]-infested]] village of [[spoiler:Oerba.]] |
| 231 | %%** Meanwhile, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' has [[spoiler:A Dying World and New Bodhum, both in 700AF.]] %%Example needs context to make sense on its own. |
| 232 | ** ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' has the Cathedral in Luxerion on the Final Day, which couples as the [[VeryDefiniteFinalDungeon final area]]. It starts by showing people trying to break down the gate to get into the cathedral, running away from the Chaos and getting turned into monsters. The sky is full of dark clouds and the few [=NPCs=] found outside are lethargic or praying, hoping for salvation. The inside isn't much better, being nothing but blue-grey stone walls and floors and the player is following the [[OminousLatinChanting ominous chanting]] that gets louder, the closer they get to their goal. |
| 233 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' |
| 234 | *** ''Stormblood'' has an endgame dungeon called "The Burn": a region bordering Doma and Garlemald that is completely devoid of aether, purportedly due to repeated primal summonings in the distant past. Without aether, the entire region is little more than a continuous expanse of grey, dead earth. |
| 235 | *** The ''Endwalker'' expansion has [[spoiler: Garlemald, the capital of the Garlean Empire, now reduced to rubble by both civil war and an ApocalypseCult [[BrainwashedAndCrazy tempering]] most of the survivors to serve a Primal born of the late emperor's corpse. As for the people, anyone who managed to avoid getting tempered is starving and freezing out in the frozen wastelands, at the mercy of the local wildlife, the tempered soldiers, and rampaging magitek. And to top it off, years of being subjected to the Garlean propaganda machine means that most of the survivors would rather die than accept the help of the "savages" they've been taught all their lives to fear.]] |
| 236 | *** ''Endwalker'' ramps it up in the final chapters of the game with [[spoiler:Ultima Thule, a zone created around the nest of Meteion, the one responsible for the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Final Days]]. Ultima Thule is made up of three regions modeled after worlds that Meteion observed in their waning days: the dragons' homeworld, where a war with machine invaders left the star polluted and desolate, leading to the dragons' slow and agonizing extinction; the world of the Ea, a scholar race who abandoned their physical bodies in pursuit of knowledge, only to learn about the [[NaturalEndOfTime eventual heat death of the universe]], driving them to despair; and the Omicrons, the selfsame machine race that invaded the dragons and created Omega, who became mechanical overlords as a matter of self-defense, only to realize that there would be nothing for them to do once they eliminated all perceived threats. The last dungeon of the 6.0 MSQ, The Dead Ends, introduces yet more downer areas with another three worlds in decline: one that succumbed to disease, one that was destroyed in a nuclear global conflict, and one where the inhabitants became so enlightened that life lost all meaning and they summoned a primal to end their lives.]] |
| 237 | ** ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXV'' has [[spoiler: '''the entirety of Chapter 14.''']] The game already lets you know all bets are off the moment Noctis [[spoiler: steps out of Angelgard, a good ''[[OlderAndWiser ten years older]]'' at that, and seeing that the world has been plunged into TheNightThatNeverEnds. And just as one would expect, {{D|emonicSpiders}}aemons that the player once took solace in knowing only appeared at night have '''''completely overrun the world and drove humanity to near extinction, with the final bastions on the verge of collapse at that.''''' The sky that was once a vibrant blue and at least two towns the player once went through and enjoyed the sight of company and fellow humans are now [[AftertheEnd devoid of any and all life besides the murderous Daemons, with a heavy implication that the once our-world-level population has dwindled from billions to a mere city and a gas station's worth,]] with the sky now perpetually a sickly black-and-green combination with flecks of darkness falling like snow.]] And to top it all off, the only way to end this horrific nightmare is [[spoiler: to [[HeroicSacrifice have Noctis sacrifice himself]], alongside potentially the rest of the party, all to set the world right again and end this twisted perversion of the world.]] |
| 238 | * The Grave Eclipse from ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' [[WhamEpisode sucks the light out of most of the world]], leaving some awesome [[SceneryGorn images]] of destroyed towns, complete with decomposing bodies. |
| 239 | * As you return to Cyrum Kingdom in ''VideoGame/GrandiaII'', you find the dead and dying everywhere, and the dark god's minions just won't stop coming. All but one of your party members are stuck in HeroicBSOD mode (since it is, after all, partially their fault that this is happening) and no one has any idea what to do. Oh, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V59gD1TVmJU THIS]] music is playing. |
| 240 | * In ''VideoGame/GrimDawn'', you can find riftgates connecting to otherworldly islands that look as if devastated by a volcanic eruption, with ash blowing everywhere through the landscape dotted by obsidian spires and ruins of human settlements (with clocks that can still be heard {{tick|TockTerror}}ing). They are home to eldritch spawns birthed by Ch'thon. |
| 241 | * The ''VideoGame/KingsField'' series of games features sporadic villages with very few people, and even some of them contain monsters or abandoned houses. The music is hardly ever lively and a lot of the areas can feel claustrophobic and empty. Most conversations in the games are usually sad or morose, and many people have given up hope of being saved by the impending dark times. Even the environment itself seems dark or dimly lit, and you almost never see sunlight throughout the course of the games, even when outdoors. There are multiple graveyards and dead people in various locations. The monsters seem to outnumber the people 10-to-1. |
| 242 | * A favorite trope for endgame in the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series. |
| 243 | ** In [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI the first game]], the final world is called The End Of The World...in a literal sense, considering that it is probably the edge of reality as we know it near the encroaching [[EldritchAbomination Heartless.]] Features a darker version of one of the first songs in the game, "[[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic Destati]]". |
| 244 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': |
| 245 | *** The Pride Lands, based off of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994''. The game's version takes place after Scar's takeover, so there's no plant life outside of the oasis that Timon and Pumbaa live in and the color scheme is dominated by differing shades of grey. |
| 246 | *** The final level is an enormous white castle owned by [[HumanoidAbomination Organization XIII]], located in a place called The World That Never Was. Made eerier by the dissonant nature of the music and the overtly nihilistic names of its locations ("Altar of Naught", "Where Nothing Gathers"...) |
| 247 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' features a return of The World That Never Was and manages to make it even more nightmarish. The world is largely in ruins, an aftermath of the endgame from the aforementioned game, with creepy fog, ''breathing buildings'' and a twisted, labyrinthine castle. The music, too, has been remixed, into a suitably grave and disquieting piece. |
| 248 | ** The most disturbing may be [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep the Keyblade Graveyard.]] While in the other two games, the main character and his two friends accompany him, this game features every main character entering it completely alone. [[DeathWorld It is a vast desert without any sort of life]] lined with thousands [[InferredHolocaust if not millions of ownerless magical swords.]] This is definitely helped by the demented piano music that serves at the world's BackgroundMusic. |
| 249 | ** Birth By Sleep's Final Mix edition has the Realm Of Darkness. Mile after mile of darkness, and creepy structures that look vaguely like someone's insides. Unlike every other level, there's no-one else to talk to, just rank upon rank of powerful Heartless. Amazingly bleak music that plays throughout, ones that make the Keyblade Graveyard look almost welcoming. |
| 250 | ** The Depths of Darkness in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts02BirthBySleepAFragmentaryPassage'' are the most desolate area in the game, being a barren and empty cave with blue crystals providing the only light. While the ruins of the worlds are more spectacular, Aqua is all alone as she passes through them and the Realm of Darkness itself is trying to break her spirit. By the time she gets to the Depths of Darkness, she's teetering on the edge of despair. It's here that Mickey finds her and pulls her back from the brink and joins her as the game's sole party member, making it the most hopeful part of the game. |
| 251 | * ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' brings you back to Dantooine -- the pleasant farming planet from the first -- five years after Malak carpet-bombed the place. The farmers hate the Jedi and blame them for all their misfortune, mercenaries are running unchecked, the moss-overgrown Jedi enclave is being picked clean by thieves, and you get confirmation that most of the characters you encountered or liked died horribly in the attack. |
| 252 | %%* ''VideoGame/LostKingdoms'': the Burial Grounds level, and the final level, Broch Black. %%Example needs context to make sense on its own. |
| 253 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'': |
| 254 | ** The atmosphere on the ''[[PlayerHeadquarters Normandy]]'' in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' just isn't the same after the mission on Virmire, [[spoiler:where circumstances [[SadisticChoice force you to leave either Ashley or Kaidan behind]] to die in a nuclear explosion]]. That change is accentuated by the background music changing to a somber tune. |
| 255 | ** A DLC for ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' allows Shepard to visit the crash site of the original ''Normandy''. The mission consists solely of exploring the snow-covered wreckage in search of dogtags of Shepard's former crew, spots where they can experience flashbacks and a place to put the memorial statue on. |
| 256 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': |
| 257 | *** The game in general is fairly bleak, but [[spoiler:Thessia]] takes the cake. [[spoiler:The most advanced race in the galaxy, the asari, is getting ripped apart by the Reapers, and Shepard is forced to watch, helplessly, as the Reapers continue to pour in. Shepard also gets roundly defeated by Kai Leng, who steals vitally important data on the Catalyst and taunts Shep over it. It's about as close to a breaking point as Shep gets]]. |
| 258 | *** Of all things, the [[spoiler: ''[[PointAndClickMap galaxy map]]'']] gets this towards the end of the third game. [[spoiler: When you return to the map after clearing the [[PointOfNoReturn Cerberus Base]], [[OhCrap every single sector in the map has been dominated by the Reapers]]. You are literally unable to go anywhere but the Local Cluster to begin the final push towards Earth. It really drives home how everything is riding on the final mission to stop the Reapers once and for all.]] |
| 259 | *** Earth has been reduced to a grey, post-apocalyptic wasteland by the time Shepard gets there in the endgame. The whole mission has an aura of desperation as Shepard, their squadmates, and the rest of Hammer Squad race through London to get to the conduit, [[spoiler:with Shepard and Anderson being the only ones to make it to the beam]]. |
| 260 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' has [=H-047c=], a world smashed to pieces by the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Scourge]]. It's entirely dead, the player can only get out of the ''Nomad'' in special domes, and driving about the party members are utterly terrified, because if something goes wrong it's certain death. |
| 261 | * ''Franchise/MegaMan'': |
| 262 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'': The Undernet takes the form of a FireAndBrimstoneHell with none of the upbeat elements from the other Net areas and the background is a constant static. It is filled with criminal Navis, garden-variety thugs, and even renegade forces such as Bass. |
| 263 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'': {{The Bermuda|Triangle}} Maze in the second game. It's an empty area filled with green fog and serves as TheMaze with a dark hooded figure as the guide. [[spoiler:Geo would later have a HeroicBSOD after Sonia chooses to join The Murian solely to [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim keep Geo safe from harm]]]]. |
| 264 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'' has the Rotten Vale, a massive boneyard filled with the remains of dead monsters, toxic gas, and deadly acid pools. [[spoiler:It is revealed that the vale is not simply a mass grave for monsters: it is the final destination of elder dragons near the end of their lives, whose bodies subsequently provide nourishment for the beautiful Coral Highlands above.]] |
| 265 | * ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'' has the Netherworld, a bleak wasteland covered in skulls where the [[BlackoutBasement lights regularly go out]] and skeleton monsters, tentacles, ghosts and grim reaper-like enemies roam. |
| 266 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has [[OnceAnEpisode a tradition]] of including one of these per main game: |
| 267 | ** Lavender Town and Pokémon Tower in particular from ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue''. A dreary funeral town with a graveyard for Pokémon with eerie {{Creepypasta}}-inspiring music, Ghost-Types disturbing possessed trainers, and restless Pokémon spirits. |
| 268 | ** Mt. Pyre from ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire''. New Mauville, an abandoned power facility, uses the same bleak music, and definitely fits in the remakes, where the implications are that Wattson pulled the plug on the project [[spoiler: because it was being powered with the life energy of Pokémon.]] The Abandoned Ship (Sea Mauville in the remakes), a shipwreck with a surprisingly dark backstory [[StoryBreadcrumbs if you know where to look]]. |
| 269 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'': |
| 270 | *** The southern part of Route 212 (just outside of Pastoria City) is always rainy, and the ground has lots of mud pits where the player can get stuck. |
| 271 | *** There's the Old Chateau and Sendoff Spring, which are such a jarring change (the former is in a peaceful forest and the latter is along the road between two of the more upbeat towns in the game) that even the music they both share [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hzTU5x6igA functions effectively as]] a ScareChord. |
| 272 | ** The Strange House in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'' is haunted by the ghost of a young girl who is strongly implied to have died in an incident involving Darkrai. The house is dark and spooky, and the furniture rearranges itself to force you to take a certain path. |
| 273 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'': |
| 274 | *** Route 14 (aka Laverre Nature Trail) is perpetually dark and swampy, and sometimes rainy. The abandoned playground that the player encounters just after proceeding north from Lumiose pretty much sets the tone. There's also the "Scary House" where an old man will tell a ghost story. |
| 275 | *** Snowbelle City. Apparently, the source of all the snow is from the gym. The music doesn't help either. |
| 276 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': |
| 277 | *** Po Town. A dark and rainy town, Po Town is taken over by Team Skull and is surrounded by white walls, [[spoiler:presumably supplied by the Aether Foundation.]] Its BackgroundMusic is somber and sounds more fitting for an abandoned mansion, and it's where you get to see what Team Skull is ''really'' like. |
| 278 | *** [[BigBoosHaunt Abandoned Thrifty Megamart]]. It serves as one of the trial grounds, full of ghost types and haunted merchandise. The place is a mess, there are no lights, and the building is crumbling, due to Tapu Bulu destroying it since the Megamart was built on its territory. The music sounds incredibly ''wrong'', having a constant static effect, cutting out frequently, and when listened on headphones, it sometimes stops playing through one speaker. You fight the Totem Mimikyu in the back room, only to find out it doesn't ''have'' a back room. Going in again reveals that the door you went through before is ''gone''. |
| 279 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' builds upon Ultra Space, which was visited for a pretty short time in ''Sun and Moon'' and cannot be revisited. Some of them are quite jarring: |
| 280 | *** Ultra Deep Sea is the same location as visited in ''Sun and Moon'' and is as dark and dreary as it used to be...only now there's a small rock the player character can sit on, which will trigger Nihilego to slowly glide on down and attempt to brainwash him or her. |
| 281 | *** Ultra Desert is the homeworld of Pheromosa, and while it's quite a breathtaking, otherworldly sight to see, and it's full of bright, clean colors, it feels a little ''too'' clean, as if there is something missing from the place. The music is also a waltz that starts off with an elegant and refined feel but will occasionally drop into a minor key. |
| 282 | *** Ultra Ruins is the mother of it all, however. This is a Hau'oli City destroyed by Guzzlords. Whatever humans remain have to live underground and wear hazmat suits to not die, and on the surface, buildings have either been toppled over or are half-eaten. The music is also Hau'oli City's day theme, only played in reverse and sounding like it's being played on a barely functional radio. |
| 283 | ** In ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers'', all of the dungeons explored in the BadFuture have a grim feel to them, dark colors being prevalent, and the music being similarly dark in its tone. They also tend to be crawling with Ghost, Dark, and Poison type Pokemon. |
| 284 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonSuperMysteryDungeon'' manages to one-up the previous installments by making basically the entire last quarter of the game into this by '''''[[spoiler: literally sending you, your partner, and several of your allies to what is essentially Hell.]]''''' The place is barren, filled with enemies of unknown species, and seemingly inescapable, as well as being one of the more difficult parts of the game. And even when you finally escape that part of the game, just to make matters worse, [[spoiler: almost all of the [=NPCs=] are either missing from the world, or [[TakenForGranite turned to stone]] and might as well be dead.]] The music is non-existent when it isn't flat-out horrific, and just to top it all off, [[spoiler: the planet is about to fall into the sun and burn everyone who somehow isn't dead yet unless you can save the source of the planet's life from dying out, which it ''is'' while you traverse it.]] |
| 285 | ** The entire region of Hisui becomes this in the late stages of ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus''. After calming the frenzied Noble Pokemon, your character wakes up the following morning to see that the dimensional rift that sent you there in the first place has suddenly become more unstable, casting the sky into an ominous, deep-red hue. The narrative takes a turn for the bleak as well, as your character is blamed for what has happened, you are exiled from Jubilife Village, and as you're led out you even get treated to the [[SarcasmMode wonderful news]] that most of the townsfolk never actually trusted you to begin with. While the landscape itself never changes, the blood-red sky is visible no matter where you go throughout Hisui, and any background music has been replaced by a very unsettling, atonal ambient track that encapsulates the urgency of the situation, as the world inches closer toward being torn apart. Only by pacifying Dialga/Palkia (whoever it is depends on a choice you make late in the story) can you clear your name and avert the destruction of the entire world. |
| 286 | * ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'': |
| 287 | ** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' turns the entire city of Tokyo transformed into this by the Conception. Humanity's dead, save for a few (who are rapidly driven to insanity), the few remaining buildings are separated by vast swathes of sand, demons are crawling everywhere, and an alien sun shines above. |
| 288 | ** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' features the depressing, ominous Monochrome Forest. As the name implies, it's a bleak, colorless expanse of vegetation. [[spoiler: And it serves as headquarters for the OmnicidalNeutral White, unfathomably ancient entities of despair who want you to destroy the MagicalParticleAccelerator that has been allowing you to travel between worlds. This will have the effect of unleashing a black hole through the Solar System, potentially dragging the multiverse to oblivion.]] |
| 289 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'': |
| 290 | *** The game features [[spoiler:Yomotsu Hirasaka, the true final dungeon]]. Covered in fog and creepily stark with harsh, geometric architecture and a blue-and-red color scheme makes for a very alien-looking level, not at all helped by the [[LonelyPianoPiece utterly depressing music]] that constantly pervades. Fitting, considering it's [[spoiler:an analogy for the entrance to the Japanese underworld]]. There's also [[spoiler:Magatsu Inaba, the Killer's hideout]]. Unnerving [[RedSkyTakeWarning red and black]] skies and a layout made of police tape, jagged metal, and broken highways serve for a clear visual representation of [[spoiler:the Killer's twisted, disturbed psyche]]. |
| 291 | *** The ''Golden'' rerelease adds a new BonusDungeon that places the party in [[spoiler:a representation of Marie's melancholy over her returned memories and subsequent decision to isolate herself from her only friends and experiences. She tries to convince the party to leave her]], while the player explores dungeon floors consisting of ruined pieces of town landmarks and with names such as "Memories of Parting" and "Memories of Loneliness". |
| 292 | ** ''VideoGame/Persona5'': The Depths of Mementos, the first half of the original version's final dungeon, is a bleak, RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver prison, full of apathetic inmates who'd rather let the world end than make decisions. Its music is the bleak and somber "Freedom and Security", which like Persona 4's final dungeon above, is also used for the bad ending's credits. |
| 293 | ** ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' has the Evil Spirit Club labyrinth, a pitch-black, eerie abandoned school/hospital that resembles something out of a SurvivalHorror game. Compounded with two truly horrifying-looking [[BeefGate FOEs]] native to that level (which respectively resemble an aborted baby and an old-looking doll), one portion of the level involves the party's [[NeutralFemale non-combatant]], Rei, going out into a [[PrimalFear large, pitch-black room in order to find several keys to free the rest of the party]]. This also doubles as a major case of MoodWhiplash, as the previous dungeon had soothing music, cutesy romantic decor, and a hilarious RomanceSidequest. While the next dungeon, the Inaba Pride Exhibit, isn't remotely bleak (it's inspired by Japanese festivals, for one thing), its boss floor certainly ''is.'' All of the vibrant colors that made up the dungeon are gone, it is abandoned and dark, and a very somber reprise of the dungeon's theme serves as the BGM. |
| 294 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': |
| 295 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'': |
| 296 | *** Joke's End. In a game that takes place in the Beanbean Kingdom, whose culture in large part revolves around humor and which features regions with laughter-themed names like "Chucklehuck Woods" and "Teehee Valley", in comes this bleak [[SlippySlideyIceWorld icy level]] that is specifically stated to be a graveyard for bad jokes featuring some rather sinister music. |
| 297 | *** Woohoo Hooniversity. With a name like that, you might expect it to be cheery as the rest of the game. Nope, completely destroyed, broken down and overrun by freaks of science (strongly implied to be the ''mutated faculty'') and man-sized versions of the viruses from ''VideoGame/DrMario''. |
| 298 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'': |
| 299 | *** Hollijolli Village. [[CutesyNameTown The name doesn't sound bleak]], but that's because the village is Christmas-themed. However, [[TwistedChristmas you never get to see it in its normal, "holly-jolly" state]]. By the time the Mario Bros. get there, [[SugarApocalypse it's been blasted to bits]] by [[AlienInvasion the Shroobs]], and all the friendly [=NPCs=] who live there are abducted, never to be seen again. All of this is set to what sounds like [[IronicNurseryTune a depressing rendition of Jingle Bells]] and ends with a HopelessBossFight. |
| 300 | *** Toad Town, an upbeat area in every other game it appears in, is a devastated wreck here. The whole place is covered with [[AlienKudzu purple mushrooms]] and [[DungeonTown infested with enemies]], and the only people that remain there are [[DungeonShop two shopkeepers]]. |
| 301 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'': |
| 302 | *** Dreamy Mount Pajamaja Summit. While the lower areas of the mountain had goofy oom-pah music and featured the [[LargeHam ham-tacular]] [[HuskyRusskie Massif Brothers]], the summit has fairly depressing music, is mostly an ice level filled with drab colors and a fair lack of variety and which comes right in the middle of a PlotTunnel that takes place when the whole real world is stuck asleep and completely inaccessible. |
| 303 | *** Dreamy [[spoiler:Neo Bowser Castle]]. The regular [[spoiler:Neo Bowser Castle]] has an exciting intensity to its ominousness that keeps it from being too eerie, but the Dream World equivalent has nightmarish chains and [[spoiler:Bowser faces]] floating around and two musical tracks, a dirge-like one for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKCGDq4RVcM the main portion]] and a harsh electronic one for [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAwK_k9NCSw Bowser's Dream]]]], that give it a very sinister vibe. |
| 304 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPaperJam'' |
| 305 | *** Twinsy Tropics Dungeon is a literal dungeon where the heroes and several Toads are held prisoner, and the latter are forced into slave labor supervised by the Koopalings. When the Marios and Luigi make their escape, it becomes a weird NoGearLevel where they learn [[InterfaceScrew their Command Blocks have been confiscated]] and must track down the prison guards to get them back. |
| 306 | *** Luigi must sneak through the western section of Gloomy Woods, now haunted by Boos, on his own in a pseudo-StealthBasedMission, trying to find the two Marios (the second of which is held prisoner by King Boo himself, only freed during that battle). |
| 307 | ** Twilight Town from ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' is a dark and dreary town filled with shadowy ragdoll-like citizens who are slowly being turned into pigs every time a bell rings. After a suspiciously early boss battle with a bedsheet-ghost character named [[spoiler:Doopliss]], the boss [[GrandTheftMe takes over Mario's body]] and leaves him as a ghostly shadow. |
| 308 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' |
| 309 | *** [[PlanetHeck The Underwhere]], despite its rather silly name, is far from pleasant. The place takes many cues from the Greek interpretation of the underworld, complete with its own version of the River Styx (a pink lake filled with disembodied hands called "River Twygz", complete with utterly terrifying gibbering in place of BackgroundMusic) and {{Exp|y}}ies of Hades, Charon, and the Fates. The way Mario and friends initially get there is by being outright ''assassinated'' by Dimentio, who very cruelly averts NoSneakAttacks. Fortunately, most of the locals are pretty friendly, and a ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''-style RPG battle against a Cerberus {{Expy}} lightens the mood significantly. |
| 310 | *** Sammer's Kingdom, after [[spoiler:[[AfterTheEnd it's destroyed]] by the world being swallowed by darkness. There's little BackgroundMusic, and everything is [[WhiteVoidRoom a blank white]], with the only thing breaking up the monotony of the background being the occasional fragments of buildings, reduced to outlines. Presumably, this would be the fate of every world that falls to the Void]]. It gets better, but it's incredibly depressing while it lasts. |
| 311 | ** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'' has [[spoiler:Black Bowser's Castle]]. While Prism Island is divided into sectors, themed on one of the colors of the rainbow with Port Prisma representing the entire visible light spectrum, this locaton and its associated locations have their color scheme based around black, and have a more serious tone than the rest of the game, with [[spoiler:Mario stopping a bomb factory that could coat the entire world in toxic black paint]]. |
| 312 | * ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'' |
| 313 | ** ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' has Akzeriuth. The [=NPCs=] are all on the ground, sick from the miasma leaking all over the place and in desperate need of help. The music is subdued and the short 'dungeon' the player needs to traverse is straight-forward and not very fancily designed. It shows the player just how bad the situation in Akzeriuth is [[spoiler: before [[PlayerPunch punching the player]] by revealing that Van manipulated Luke into using his hyperresonance and ''killing'' the entire population of the town and the land itself]]. |
| 314 | ** ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'' sends the player onto the E.S.S. ''Zenethra'' that was overtaken by Exodus, a terrorist group, and the symmetrical and low-saturated color design of the place makes for an uncomfortable atmosphere. And then the area ends with [[spoiler: Milla's senseless sacrifice]]. |
| 315 | ** ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2'' has another ship, which couples this as a very harsh CallBack to the [[VideoGame/TalesOfXillia previous]] game, right down to a similar, bleak design. The player can and needs to save various injured [=NPCs=] within a time limit, one of your party members is having an existential crisis and the chapter ultimately ends with [[spoiler: Alternate Milla's death, similar to Milla's death above]]. |
| 316 | * The city of Cloudbank in ''VideoGame/{{Transistor}}'' slowly goes from a [[SceneryPorn gorgeously-rendered]] art deco cyberpunk metropolis to a wasteland of white square columns over the course of the game as the Process slowly revert the entire city to a blank slate. Music that plays in the more heavily-processed areas tends to be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M120kMHbIU more harsh]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LRWJYlerbQ electronic mixes]] of previous songs. |
| 317 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'': |
| 318 | ** New Home is colored in stark whites and grays and almost completely empty, aside from an eerie reproduction of Toriel's house and some [=NPCs=] who appear in "random encounters" to regale you with [[spoiler: the tragic backstory of Asgore and his family.]] At first there's no BackgroundMusic, but then "Undertale", a touching symphonic remix of the game's opening theme "Once Upon a Time", starts playing... |
| 319 | ** If you go for the No Mercy route, all the trademark wackiness is slowly drained from the game as you murder all the goofy enemy encounters to extinction, the save points where the protagonist is filled with determination through strange, innocuous things around them are simply replaced with the number of enemy encounters left and then a flat "Determination" once you've wiped them all out, the colorful [=NPCs=] are almost completely absent and even the various puzzles are already solved once you get to them, as everyone is running like hell to get away from the genocidal psycho. Even the music becomes slowed down to the point of creepiness, and you get a special, equally-creepy song through the entire region once you've cleared it out. [[spoiler: By the end of the game, the First Child erases the entire world from existence, leaving nothing but a black, windswept void until you offer your soul to them in exchange for restoring everything.]] |
| 320 | ** On the True Pacifist route, you'll explore [[spoiler:the True Lab]]. It's dark, dilapidated, abandoned, and filled with hordes of [[spoiler:scientific abominations]] that employ copious InterfaceScrew and can't be attacked. It contains numerous {{Apocalyptic Log}}s that display horrible accidents. The area's battle music also sounds very similar to [[VideoGame/EarthBound1994 the Cave of the Past]], another bleak, depressing, and scary area. Note that this area [[MoodWhiplash comes shortly after a lighthearted extended cutscene where you help two characters try to get together]]. |
| 321 | %%* VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'s Old Miltia, after the Federation's siege becomes an open assault. Also the ruins of the Ormus' homeworld, Michtam. %%Example needs context to make sense on its own. |
| 322 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' has two. [[spoiler:The Land of Morytha, the remnants of our world reduced to a wasteland infested with zombie-like creatures that are actually people that used Core Crystals in a last-ditch attempt to survive the results of Klaus' experiment, and Elysium, a desert with no signs of anyone having been there, human or monster, save some town ruins and its sole inhabitant being Klaus himself. The latter really exemplifies this trope, as it served throughout the entire game as humanity's last hope. To say that the sight of the real Elysium was a punch in the gut would be an understatement.]] |
| 323 | [[/folder]] |
| 324 | |
| 325 | [[folder:Shoot'em Up]] |
| 326 | * ''VideoGame/SuperAleste''[='=]s 12th and final stage: A WombLevel with organic enemies and a very grisly background. |
| 327 | * ''VideoGame/RType FINAL'''s first stage, aptly named "Metropolis Quietus", is set in the wreckage of a fallen space colony, and has an uncannily disturbing atmosphere with its minimalist dark ambient music. The desert version of Stage 2 also qualifies, with its parched and cracked lakebed, withered trees, and soundtrack consisting mostly of howling winds. |
| 328 | [[/folder]] |
| 329 | |
| 330 | [[folder:Simulation Game]] |
| 331 | * ''VideoGame/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar'': Mission 11, "The Inferno", involves the Allied Forces [[WarCrimeSubvertsHeroism indiscriminately bombing the Belkan industrial city of Hoffnung and setting it ablaze, killing scores of Belkans including civilians]]. Then retreating Belkan troops implement a scorched-earth policy and set fire to their own city's buildings. Even the mission's music sounds like a dark reprise of the upbeat music that plays during the liberation of Ustio's capital earlier in the game. The horrors of the bombing lead to [[spoiler: Pixy's FaceHeelTurn and eventual defection to A World With No Boundaries.]] |
| 332 | * ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite'': The fourth island has been {{Curse}}d by Nemesis in retribution for its villagers worshiping [[AGodIsYou you]], so it has an ominous {{red sky|TakeWarning}} full of [[HostileWeather lightning]], unpredictable rains of fire, and an entire village transformed into [[DemBones living skeletons]]. Fortunately, you can undo these effects. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/RainWorld'': The Silent Construct is the completely destroyed carcase of the [[spoiler: [[ArtificialIntelligence Five Pebbles Superstructure]]]], bordered to the west by what remains of the [[BlackoutBasement Shaded Citadel]]. The wall, once a sunny section of its exterior, and the only view of the sky above the overcast clouds, is now a pile of half-submerged rubble, named "The Husk". Inside, maintenance lights and broken walls become the only source of light, and various creatures use the overheating machinery to hide from the [[HostileWeather raging]] [[SnowMeansDeath blizzard]] beyond. [[spoiler: Five Pebbles himself is barely alive, with all of his biological components either eaten or removed, save the puppet, which huddles next to a dead music pearl for entertainment, and barely registers your existence. You may [[MercyKill cross it out]], if you choose.]] |
| 334 | [[/folder]] |
| 335 | |
| 336 | [[folder:Sports Games]] |
| 337 | * VideoGame/LuigisMansion in ''VideoGame/MarioSuperSluggers'' has ghosts, graves and a mysterious music in the middle of the night. |
| 338 | [[/folder]] |
| 339 | |
| 340 | [[folder:Stealth]] |
| 341 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGear'': |
| 342 | ** The section in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' where Raiden escapes imprisonment on Arsenal Gear and has to survive with no gear, while also receiving strange calls on his Codec. |
| 343 | ** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'': The setting of the battle against The Sorrow. Snake is forced to wade through a waist-high mangrove swamp during downpour, while the boss and [[WhatMeasureIsAMook the ghosts of every person the player has killed thus far]] tries to kill Snake. Considering everything goes from [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism campy/realistic to gritty/grim in a few scenes]], ''creepy is an understatement''. |
| 344 | ** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'': Shadow Moses Island. Though a NostalgiaLevel, the whole place is completely deserted with almost none of the elevating traits from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', the end section in particular has a profound effect on both Snake and Otacon as both lose of their close allies. |
| 345 | [[/folder]] |
| 346 | |
| 347 | [[folder:Tactical Role Playing]] |
| 348 | * ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' features the Midmire, setting of Chapter 10, "Renewal", which takes place right after a PlayerPunch. You have to fight in the midst of a giant dragon's ribcage in the middle of a rainy wasteland, all while slow SadBattleMusic plays regardless of whether it's your turn or the enemy's. Furthermore, the Plegian soldiers you fight are deeply ashamed of their role in the events of the last chapter, with one unit stating outright to his sympathetic general that he would rather desert and face execution than fight against the Shepherds. So as if the previous plot context and battle setting weren't bad enough, the catharsis you might otherwise get from dispatching enemy troops is somewhat lost as well. |
| 349 | [[/folder]] |
| 350 | |
| 351 | [[folder:Wide Open Sandbox]] |
| 352 | * While ''VideoGame/DontStarve'' is a dark game, it's actually pretty easy to forget the dark themes due to the bright and colourful environments. Then there's the swamp biome. The ground is purple, tentacles pop up from the ground seemingly at random, and the few trees there are are all dead. And frogs and the fishmen. No, not fish''er''men, ''fish''men. Then comes Winter, and every plant dies for its duration, several animals disappear, and you realize that you are all alone in a barren enviroment, but you still need to eat, stay warm and fight back the insanity lurking in the darkness. |
| 353 | * ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has The End, a parallel dimension of pale stone islands in an unsettling void populated by alien horrors inspired by Slender Man. A slight change of tone for a game primarily known for such activities like punching trees and building statues out of brightly colored wool. |
| 354 | * In the ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'' universe brimming with countless [[SceneryPorn vibrant, colourful planets]], you will also find airless planets that are anything but. Instead of atmospheres in [[AlienSky pleasant (not necessarily blue) colours]], there is only floating dust and stars clearly visible at daytime. Instead of exotic flora in all colours of rainbow, there are only a few plants providing a bare minimum of crucial resources on the vast expanses of dust and rock (or snow in some cases). Instead of unique creatures wandering the landscape, there are only [[XenomorphXerox Gigeresque monsters]] that emerge from the ground to swarm anyone who touches the "whispering eggs". Instead of settlements populated by helpful people, there are only ancient ruins, monoliths and spaceship crash sites. Instead of music accompanying your journey, there is only eerie ambience. |
| 355 | [[/folder]] |
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