"Dark" is a Loose Term These Days...

[DoPo]

Diablo 1 ends with the hero killing diablo and saving the day.

And then the hero stabs himself in the head with Diablo's soulstone and sets off in the world trying to find a way to vanquish him, fighting for his soul and mind every step of the way against the essence of the monster. Not that cheery. Especially since they fail and become corrupted by Diablo anyway.

 

[RJ 17]

Might just be my imagination, but can anyone here name a recently released, self described "dark" game that lived up to that description? Because near as I can tell modern publishers haven't amended their definition of what constitutes a "dark" or "mature" game since the hay days of Mortal Kombat (dark = blood). Not even gore. Just blood. For a game to be gory you'd have to be able to get a clear look at the damage that's being done and you'd need the bodies of your enemies to react realistically. But that's not the case- the look of an injured character hasn't changed much in the last decade. (IE: a mannequin with a pressurized ketchup hose taped to it.)

Here's a perfect example- Dragon Age: Origins

So by any estimation, this was a standard fantasy game. Beat for beat. A hero rises from obscurity, unites the land, slays a mighty dragon, roll credits. And yet every pitch I heard before it's release described it as "dark". What makes it so "dark"? Hell if I know, but I do know I found myself coated in blood for about 45 seconds after every fight.

And then just recently I had the pleasure of seeing Diablo 3's ending in its entirety. And... it ends on a high note. A Diablo game. That ends on a high note. Diablo (y'know, THAT Diablo) was not supposed to be about triumphing over evil. Diablo is supposed to be about trying your damndest to beat evil and losing anyway.

Though I'm sure it's already been pointed out, I'd like to call attention to the fact that blood =/= "dark". "Dark" is about story, tone, and theme, not purely aesthetics.

DA: O was "dark" because of the story: an evil horde rising up and laying waste to the land, burning down villages, shattering families, and consuming the very life from the land. It was "dark" because you spend a month wandering in long abandoned tunnels in the bowels of the earth, uncovering new horrors with each new chamber you uncover, ultimately finding the grotesque blob Brood Mother and learning that she got that way by eating other infected dwarves. It's "dark" because of the coup that occurs at the mage tower.

The reason ME 2 is considered "dark" is because it opens up with the Normandy getting destroy, Shepard getting killed, and then waking up in the hands of an organization known to be a bunch of extremist terrorists. While good helpings of blood can be included into the "dark" motif, it certainly doesn't work that blood automatically defines something as being dark.

 

[Vegosiux]

Bastion did it well.

Oh, cartoony graphics you say? Must be a Hello Kitty cutesy kid stuff, right? Oh, how wrong you'd be.

 

[hermes]

These days? No... Dark has been a buzzword since the late 80s (early 90s), when they realize Batman didn't have to be campy, and The Dark Knight sold incredibly well. It saw the popularity of heroes like Punisher, Dredd and Cable, characters that were about shooting first, asking questions third.

For comic books, cladly dressed women with big guns and sex appeal is what was considered "dark and edgy", we simply inherit the marketing.

 

[spartandude]

how about the Witcher 2?

 

[Thetwistedendgame]

If you think darkness is taken too lightly these days, turn the brightness down.

 

[Emiscary]

Its still not dark, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Thats the thing with DA, ME and a lot of other games. The story line is not what makes your game dark, its the presentation, and all Bioware games fall short of that mark by a very long stretch.

This, all over and all the time. The presence or absence of a plot element that could be spun as "dark" doesn't make a game such.

Yes, DA had nasty monsters that lived underground. Yes, they feast on flesh and have a really squicked out method of reproduction. But uh... all that shit? All the really nasty stuff? It all happens off screen or in backstory- it's never anything that you (the player) have anything to do with. So the end result is a series of Disney villains whose nasty attributes are informed exclusively by the dev's word of mouth.

And sure, ME had (seemingly) weighty decisions with long reaching consequences. But seeing as how every single installment in the franchise is an exercise in invalidating those decisions with omissions and retcons- the end result is a series of hollow checkboxes.

 

[Storm Dragon]

I think Mass effect 3 is very dark,

MUCH more than the other two (ME2 was more "gritty" while ME1 was bright and campy)

sure on the surface its still somwhat bright and actiony, its not dark visually and theres not as much graphic violence as other games..but then things really get going the enitre game is jsut one punch to the gut after another..oh sure there are victorys, but then become few and far between

the sheer scale of what you up against becomes more aparent..thse charachters you met/saw or listened too? yeah they probably died, if anyone has anyone they care about out there chances are they could be dead too...everyone dying, the galaxy is burning

dragon age isnt dark...its world just has the usual complexities and shades of grey as any other well thourght out world...

one thing that annoys me (often in sci fi) is you get some world..like Dead space or whatever..and they feel the need to make the ENITRE world some horrible ship heap to live in....I think a world needs ot be more balanced to be belevable

Its still not dark, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Thats the thing with DA, ME and a lot of other games. The story line is not what makes your game dark, its the presentation, and all Bioware games fall short of that mark by a very long stretch.

2 examples - The Witcher and Game of Thrones. (Or A Song of Ice And Fire, if you would prefer that name. Both the TV series and the books will do for this.) Read their story lines on Wikipedia and it would seem like a standard fantasy tale, like one found in Dragon Age. In the case of The Witcher, elves are a tortured minority, and in the case of Game of Thrones, a bunch of people get their head chopped off, just like in most other books and films playing in medieval-ish times. And yet both AOK and GOT are dark brooding tales, while Dragon Age for example is nothing like that.

Then you play Mass Effect and you look at the deaths of major and minor characters, and its a rather different tale. Characters in Mass Effect either die off screen or slowly drift away, in a way more reminiscent of a butcher falling asleep at his job than an actual person kicking the bucket. Compare that to GOT and - well, I wont spoil anything, but I just watched the newest episode and my oh my... Its brutal.

I haven't been able to keep up with the series since I don't have HBO, but I know that they're still on the second book. The darkest is still yet to come, and anyone who has read the books knows what I'm talking about. Calling the event by its name could be enough for someone to figure it out before getting there, so to avoid spoilers, I'll just say this: When "The Rains of Castamere" starts playing, the deepest darkness is close at hand.

 

[ABLb0y]

Kane & Lynch: Dog Days is actually pretty damned dark. I mean, two desperate, morally ambiguous men trapped in a city in which the most powerful man would stop at nothing to have their heads on a silver platter.

The chapter that most strikes me as dark is one in which after rushing across half the city to Lynch's apartment, they find it trashed and his girlfriend missing.

You then spend the next half an hour trying to find her, knowing she's either dead or going to die.

 

[endtherapture]

Mass Effect and Dragon Age aren't dark because you can always get the best outcome.

Like the boy at the castle in Dragon Age - you can kill him...sacrifice his mother to save him, or just wait and let the Mages fix everything.

Same with Mass Effect - a tough decision - Quarians or Geth? Oh doesn't matter, you can save them both!!

Dragon Age is set in a dark world with loads of racism, rape, dark rituals, war, death, genocide, betrayal etc. but it's just not presented well in the game because you can get a "perfect" outcome.

Bioware needs to grow some balls and give you proper difficult decisions, like in The Witcher 2- There's no perfect or optimal playthrough in The Witcher 2, the R rating allows them to show all the dark realities of the world, and the decisions are meaningful and difficult and there are multiple ways of justifying every playthrough you do - there is no "good" or "bad" playthrough unlike in Bioware games.

 

[dragonswarrior]

Im currently reading a book series that is basically 40k but serious. And done well. And with Muslims. And more insects.

When games can pull that shit off they will be "dark". Until then? Eh. It's pretty standard. Compared to a lot of the books out there that I like to read (Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, and George Martin etc.) most games that style themselves as "dark" are pretty tame.

Despite my like of DA:O and Mass Effect, I have to agree with the people who don't think they are dark. They aren't dark. Are they serious and realistic within their stories? Yes I think so. But they certainly aren't dark.

Doesn't stop them from being awesome though.

 

[Emiscary]

There's a difference between Dark (a spin on a realistic, but nontheless kinda "everyone's screwed" setting) and Gothic setting. Dark usually means things that are pretty fucked up, but is down to earth in presentation so that it still has an effect on you. Gothic is just a reversed "cartoonish" style, (take for example Tim Burton or Diablo), those are not trying to be realistic in the slightest, but rather put an aestethic feel to it.

What's bad is that many games seem to think that "dark" just means saying fuck and showing people having sex and getting killed (Mass Effect isn't dark in the slightest, people have sex with their underwear on for christs sake!), Mortal Kombat isn't dark, all the blood and gore is just hyped up * 10000 which means that nothing of it has any weight whatsoever. And, dare I say it, The Witcher is also trying too hard, with people saying fuck in every sentence and being generally unpleasant. The humour in there feels sort of out of place and weird, don't get me wrong, some parts is quite hilarious, but it really doesn't fit in.

I'm with you on the Witcher. Don't get me wrong, I like the games and I think they're doing alot of things well- but the humour/dialogue are off at times. With the former being too campy and the latter being too crass.

And I'll concede that the rhyming intro the Brood Mother boss fight *was* done fairly well. But it was still ultimately just buildup to a fairly standard boss fight. And there was never any followup to the encounter. The insane corrupted lady walks on stage, introduces the boss monster, bows and then walks off.

 

[Zipa]

Might just be my imagination, but can anyone here name a recently released, self described "dark" game that lived up to that description? Because near as I can tell modern publishers haven't amended their definition of what constitutes a "dark" or "mature" game since the hay days of Mortal Kombat (dark = blood). Not even gore. Just blood. For a game to be gory you'd have to be able to get a clear look at the damage that's being done and you'd need the bodies of your enemies to react realistically. But that's not the case- the look of an injured character hasn't changed much in the last decade. (IE: a mannequin with a pressurized ketchup hose taped to it.)

Here's a perfect example- Dragon Age: Origins

So by any estimation, this was a standard fantasy game. Beat for beat. A hero rises from obscurity, unites the land, slays a mighty dragon, roll credits. And yet every pitch I heard before it's release described it as "dark". What makes it so "dark"? Hell if I know, but I do know I found myself coated in blood for about 45 seconds after every fight.

And then just recently I had the pleasure of seeing Diablo 3's ending in its entirety. And... it ends on a high note. A Diablo game. That ends on a high note. Diablo (y'know, THAT Diablo) was not supposed to be about triumphing over evil. Diablo is supposed to be about trying your damndest to beat evil and losing anyway.

You want dark? try this:

"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."

Yeah, shit just got real. God, I love 40k.

This post and your avatar make you truly awesome sir.
/thread

 

[Lucem712]

Though, pretty much every word is abused at a certain point, either by hyperbole or misuse.

Much like the word "gay" (come on people it meant happy before!)

I do my best to discourage its use to mean "homosexual".

On that note you are correct. Soon enough we probably wont even be able to say "like" as in "I like you".

I'll confess I'm a bit guilty of abusing the word 'gay', though I don't use it to mean homosexual or anything dealing with that. Simply as something that is kind of lame, but spell it 'geigh'.

 

[hazabaza1]

"Dark" has also become fucking boring.
I cannot see a single video of The Witcher without someone swearing, bleeding or getting their tits out and it's all just so dumb.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Yeah, shit just got real. God, I love 40k.

Let's be honest, 40k went so dark it rolled right back around to light and fluffy again, and it's all the better for it. I mean all the dark stuff is still there, but it's so hard to take seriously.

Who even tries to take 40k seriously? It's a setting that includes Space Vikings, space-bourne battle-cathedrals, ground based battle-cathedrals, warrior nuns with flamethrowers, and robot zombies.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Might just be my imagination, but can anyone here name a recently released, self described "dark" game that lived up to that description? Because near as I can tell modern publishers haven't amended their definition of what constitutes a "dark" or "mature" game since the hay days of Mortal Kombat (dark = blood). Not even gore. Just blood. For a game to be gory you'd have to be able to get a clear look at the damage that's being done and you'd need the bodies of your enemies to react realistically. But that's not the case- the look of an injured character hasn't changed much in the last decade. (IE: a mannequin with a pressurized ketchup hose taped to it.)

Here's a perfect example- Dragon Age: Origins

So by any estimation, this was a standard fantasy game. Beat for beat. A hero rises from obscurity, unites the land, slays a mighty dragon, roll credits. And yet every pitch I heard before it's release described it as "dark". What makes it so "dark"? Hell if I know, but I do know I found myself coated in blood for about 45 seconds after every fight.

And then just recently I had the pleasure of seeing Diablo 3's ending in its entirety. And... it ends on a high note. A Diablo game. That ends on a high note. Diablo (y'know, THAT Diablo) was not supposed to be about triumphing over evil. Diablo is supposed to be about trying your damndest to beat evil and losing anyway.

You want dark? try this:

"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."

Yeah, shit just got real. God, I love 40k.

This post and your avatar make you truly awesome sir.
/thread

<3
First time anyone noticed the avatar.

I commend thee, sir.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

I'd describe Rule of Rose as a darker game than most.

 

[Bertylicious]

I think Mass effect 3 is very dark,

MUCH more than the other two (ME2 was more "gritty" while ME1 was bright and campy)

sure on the surface its still somwhat bright and actiony, its not dark visually and theres not as much graphic violence as other games..but then things really get going the enitre game is jsut one punch to the gut after another..oh sure there are victorys, but then become few and far between

the sheer scale of what you up against becomes more aparent..thse charachters you met/saw or listened too? yeah they probably died, if anyone has anyone they care about out there chances are they could be dead too...everyone dying, the galaxy is burning

dragon age isnt dark...its world just has the usual complexities and shades of grey as any other well thourght out world...

one thing that annoys me (often in sci fi) is you get some world..like Dead space or whatever..and they feel the need to make the ENITRE world some horrible ship heap to live in....I think a world needs ot be more balanced to be belevable

Totally agree. You need contrast to arive at "dark" otherwise all you end up with "grim/dark" which is basically the same as "camp" because it is OTT due to their being no contrast.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Here's a perfect example- Dragon Age: Origins

So by any estimation, this was a standard fantasy game. Beat for beat. A hero rises from obscurity, unites the land, slays a mighty dragon, roll credits. And yet every pitch I heard before it's release described it as "dark". What makes it so "dark"? Hell if I know, but I do know I found myself coated in blood for about 45 seconds after every fight.

A

Have you played up to the part with the Broodmother? If that's not dark I dunno what is.