The 5 Darkest Moments in Games
This is going to be a bizarre week. After months of disbelief that someone who has never held public office, someone who brags about sexual assault, someone who mocks the disabled, someone no one took seriously for years will now hold the highest office in our country, well we’re are finally here. On Friday Trump will be sworn in as the next president. These feel like dark times.
So let’s do what we always do and distract ourselves with games and ponder similar ideas from a medium, unlike politics, we do understand. Here now are the 5 Darkest Times in a Video Game.
5. The destruction of the Normandy – Mass Effect 2
Let’s start this list out with arguably the best moment in the best game from one of the best franchises in recent memory, the explosive intro to Mass Effect 2. After spending a few dozen hours in the first game saving your crew and the day against the long forgotten Reapers, the sequel opens in way no one sees coming – you die. A few weeks after the first game’s conclusion, Mass Effect 2 picks up with Shepherd and his crew suddenly under attack by an unknown ship that simply over powers them. You’re given a few opportunities to be a hero saving your pilot, Joker, and trying to save the ship but it’s ultimately in vain as prized ship Normandy goes out in a blaze of glory and Shepherd is jettisoned into space to asphyxiate in his suit.
Dying is a heck of a way to start
Mass Effect 2 is a fantastic game throughout but it’s opening as an impressively hard act to follow. If you were a fan of the first game, the opening of the sequel no doubt proved traumatic and was an incredibly dark way to start.
4. Finally finding Dom’s wife – Gears of War 2
The first Gears of War was a brutal, visceral cover based shooter that honestly gave Halo a run for its money. Among the active reloads, blood splattered chainsaw fatalities, and grenade tagging gib fests that never grew old, I’m sure there was a story in there somewhere – I mean Marcus was in prison for something, right?
We’re not saying she’s ok, but we’d probably get at least one doctor’s opinion before jumping to euthanasia
Gears 2 tried to make up for the considerable lack of drama by over reaching a bit. Marcus’ trusty brother in arms, Dom, is on a mission to find his wife who has been taken by the Locusts for unknown purposes. After destroying an impossibly long earth worm quite graphically from the inside and saving the town of Jacinto, Marcus and Dom remarkably find Dom’s wife, Maria, imprisoned in a cage. The devs deftly trick you though as you see the sequence from Dom’s perspective who initially sees Maria as perfectly healthy only to realize a minute later she’s been tortured and abused which has disfigured her and vacant of her mental capabilities. Even darker, Dom decides the best thing for his wife at this point is euthanasia (seriously, not even like a day of therapy?). The later games featured more martyrdom and sacrifice, but seeing Dom’s story, which was the featured narrative of Gears 2, conclude in a tragic way left us stunned.
3. You go to Hell – God of War
Considering how dark and brutal this franchise can get, there are several moments we could have cited for this list. Seriously you gauge out the eyes of Poseidon (viewed from his perspective, until he doesn’t view much of anything), you bash the brains of Zeus apart as long as you want, and you basically doom the world to oblivion by the time the series came to a close. There is a lot of darkness here to choose from. But our favorite moment occurs in the original game.
A long time servant of the gods as punishment for killing his family, Kratos is given a chance of redemption by Athena provided his willing to kill his former master, Ares. She sends him across the Desert of Lost Souls to find the titan Cronos who carries Pandora’s box on his back which can be used to level the playing field to take on the soon-to-be-former god of war. But the moment Kratos secures the box, Ares from countless miles away manages to spear Kratos which kills him nearly instantly.
Arguably one of the most helpful NPCs ever
What follows is Kratos’ journey into hell which amounts to one of the biggest comeback stories we could come up with and ends with a call back to a fairly innocuous character you meet at the very beginning of the game. It’s surprising when you die, but the game foreshadows this whole sequence from the beginning which made it memorable for us.
2. Ellie must die – The Last of Us
Naughty Dog is an outstanding developer and once they get away from the world tromping murder simulator that is Uncharted (seriously, Nathan Drake is the most prolific serial killer ever; like thousands of men have died by his hand), they can deliver some incredibly experiences. The Last of Us proved to be one of the best original IPs from the last generation and, even though we didn’t think it would happen, we’re glad to hear a sequel is on the way.
The story of Joel and surrogate daughter Ellie surviving the harsh world of infected zombies, blood thirsty bandits, and the occasional box puzzle lasted with us for a while. The game is heartbreaking but hopeful as the two form their bond to survive – nowhere is that more emblematic than the finale. Ellie possesses the cure to the world altering virus but to cultivate the cure means dissecting her brain. She has to die.
Aww geez, now we gotta play the whole game again.
We hate to spoil the ending of this game just in case someone out there still hasn’t played it but we’ll just say it’s entirely in tone with the rest of the game – hopeful but mournful – and like any other great story it resonates with you leaving you to consider its ramifications long after you stop playing.
1. White phosphorous – Spec Ops: The Line
If you’ve played the game, you’re already thinking back and know we couldn’t possibly end this list with any other scene.
Spec Ops: The Line is remarkably better than it should be thanks largely to the impressive narrative from Walt Williams and Richard Pearsey. The game’s story is told out of sequence and is frequently confusing as to who you’re fighting which is largely by design. It’s war. Combat and game mechanics take a backseat here as the reason you should play this game is because it’s written so well.
On a recon mission, your characters quickly learn that the occupying force, the 33rd, have taken up martial law in this nearly deserted Dubai and are committing atrocities everywhere to suppress rebellions and maintain order. You make it a personal mission to take out the 33rd’s leadership, namely Colonel Konrad (references to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are deliberate).
In the game’s most pivotal scene, your team is unable to progress as the 33rd has heavily fortified the appropriately named Gate however you stumble upon a supply of weaponized white phosphorous you use to literally rain fire down upon the otherwise overwhelming odds. After simply obliterating the 33rds stronghold, you venture in only to realize among the soldiers were dozens of unarmed civilians now dead by your hand in one of the most brutal ways imaginable.
We weren’t sure about much of this game, but we knew this was a bad thing
This is the moment that completely unhinges your lead character, which you’ll realize later, but as a gamer leaves you floored. Games all too frequently glorify war, but Spec Ops: The Line challenges that assumption leaving you confused in the sandstorms and uncertain about your own principles. Napalming innocents early sets the tone for this dark game that refuses to let you off the hook for it for the rest of the way. We still feel bad about it and we played this game years ago.
What other dark moments from games did we forget? Let us know in the comments below!
