Disturbing details in games

[Muspelheim]

Ah, yes, The Path of Glory is really rather creepy. It took a while before I looked down and understood what I was walking about on.

It does make it a bit odd that the Draenei aren't constantly plotting the downfall of the Greenskin species, though. They've had plenty of chances to extract some payback, but the senile old sods have never gotten around to it. But then again, the Orcs not getting any mint on their pillows in those detention camp seems to have been redemption enough.

The Dead Scar is a similar location, being the path that the undead masses of the Scourge took when they approached Silvermoon City. It goes right through the bright and cheerful Eversnog Forest, and is just this trench of dead soil and bones, with broken bits of Scourge war machines jutting out of the sludge. It's a rather neat contrast, and it goes all the way down to the Scourge doom fortress the undead set out from when they marched on the city.

It did a lot to make Eversnog feel less like an elfy themepark (even if it wasn't entirely enough).

 

[Barbas]

In Oblivion, one of the necromancer caves has a tiny coffin with a tiny skeleton in it on a table. And ofcourse there is...well, all of Fallout 3.

I think I remember that. It was in a fort, with a little children's book next to it. There's a similarly creepy place called 'Lost Boy Cavern', although I won't spoil that one. It has a good setup.

 

[EHKOS]

One thing that creeped me out was a quest in Red Dead Redemption. I found this old shack in a swamp area and a sweet old man asks me to gather flowers for his wife. Nothing seemed weird about it at the time (although I kind of guessed what would happen towards the end of gathering the last flower), but when I returned, he opened up his shack and I found the rotting corpse of his wife. While predictable, what really creeped me out was how legitimately oblivious he was to his wife's demise. He sounded so sweet, and happy, and loving... I knew his wife's death must have made him insane with loneliness when he tried to introduce me to a corpse, but the fact he seemed so normal and happy made it me feel sad and sorry for him, while still getting chills all the way up my spine.

I got the same vibe from that scene in Tales of Symphonia. Presea Combatir is feeding medicine to her dead father. Gave me the creeps and permanently changed the atmosphere of the game for me.

 

[Lieju]

A particularly sad and creepy one in Arkham City is Harley's pregnancy test. Finding it before the HQR dlc and you can see the result is positive. After the DLC, however, the result changed. Which can either mean a false positive, a miscarriage or that she had an abortion.

I can't see why she would abort the baby (unless it wasn't Joker's, which would add another layer of creepy, because she wouldn't have had sex with another man willingly.)or keep testing after abortion, so it's likely it was a miscarriage, maybe caused by Batman.

Even if it wasn't Batman, she probably blamed him for it anyway, thinking she lost the baby because their fight or something.

I'm pretty sure that the first test was a false positive as the packaging of the second pregnancy test say that that is a possibility IIRC.

Don't pregnancy tests usually say that?
I can't remember if they changed the packaging, but if they specifically did, then that's even more cowardly from the people who wrote it.

 

[uchytjes]

Well, there is the Apartment in Deus Ex: Human Revolution that is basically dedicated to different forms of suicide. Its one of the apartments in Hengsha, forget where, but it has several odd setups including, but not limited to, a bottle of pills spilled out next to the bed, a tipped over chair, a toaster in the bathtub, and a blood splatter on the wall.

 

[DanielBrown]

Yeah... knowing that it's widely accepted doesn't make it any less disturbing, but thanks for that info.

Now I'm even more disturbed. But then again, that's my problem. Perfectly fine if other people feel differently.

But since this post is about disturbing issues in games, I shall contribute another: the ending of Godhand. Heck, the entire game of Godhand can be considered disturbing, which may be part of its charm.

Might be legal, but it's still considered taboo. At least with the major population of Sweden. Sex with animals is still legal here and in Denmark(as an example), for some reason, but it isn't like anyone except the animal fuckers approve of it.
Might be stereotypes, but as I recall it's by a vast majority only people from the west Asia area that do it. Cousin marriage, that is, not animal fucking.

Still, as long as it's mutual I don't really care what people do... though several generations of cousin marriage puts their children at severe risk. Then it's fucking bad.

Edit: Wiki doesn't fail me!
"The Middle East has uniquely high rates of cousin marriage among the world's regions. Certain Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, have rates of marriage to first or second cousins that may exceed 50%. Iraq was estimated in one study to have a rate of 33%, and figures for Iran and Afghanistan have been estimated in the range of 30?40%."

 

[AntiChri5]

Bethesda really are the masters of this, aren't they?

So many from them. Including mine!

In the Broken Steel DLC, if you blow up the Brotherhood base you can enter the pre-war tunnels underneath it. While wandering around, you come across a skeleton on the floor sitting up against the wall which is splattered with old blood, as is the floor. There is a fan face down between his legs.

Don't know how or why, but this poor bastard had a fan fall into his crotch, doing so much damage that he bled out.

 

[Brian Tams]

Pokemon is almost notorious for these somewhat out of place, disturbing details. In Pokemon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum in the Canalave library, you'll find a book that tells the story of a man who hunted pokemon until they almost died out. ALl the pokemon left the area and the man was left with nothing. One day he was able to find one pokemon who spoke to him, explained the error of his ways and then retreated into the wilderness. At this point, the man snapped his weapon and lay there with nothing left to live for. (Sort of)

I'll give you one more example, here's a pokedex entry for the pokemon Drifloon from Pokemon Y: These Pokémon are called the "Signpost for Wandering Spirits." Children holding them sometimes vanish.

It looks similar to a balloon, so it makes sense that a child might hang on to it, only to be whisked away and never be seen or heard from again. (Yeah. :/ )

This is especially disturbing when you consider the child of the guy who works at the power plant wanted to play with the one that appeared every Friday. Is she still there? I never went back and checked...

OT: Definitely the "good" end of the Tenpenny Tower quest line. You get the humans to eat their bigotry and let the Ghouls stay there. If you come back a few days later...

Spoiler

The human residents are gone. The head ghoul will tell you that they "had there differences" so they had to be dealt with. I at the time assumed this meant they had been evicted. However, you can find their mutilated corpses in the basement. Yikes. I then went on an angry killing rampage against the ghouls. The worst part about it was that the game docked me a bunch of bad karma points, which is bullshit. It marked the day I gave up on the Good/Bad karma mechanics in all non Star Wars video games.
Anyways, the whole questline was a grim reminder that everything cannot always end perfectly. Everyone won't always live, even if you do the objectively right thing.

 

[kurokotetsu]

And in Borderlands 2, while most are easy to miss theres quite a few moments that remind you that Pandora is a really shitty place to live.

Well, the intro songs says it "This ain't no place for no hero". IF you don't take the humour, almost everything in that game can be disturbing.

Hmmm... I usually don't get creeped out by moments like this. What I can think of is in my old NES the Robin Hood game (based on the movie). It was faily typical, if very obtuse, but the "You are dead" with a "realistic" (for the time) human body Game Over screen really didn't sit well with me.

 

[Hunter Hyena]

In SWAT4 you have to do a police raid on a cult that was in an apartment complex. If you go into the basement of the complex there is a mass grave of dead children. Not sure what is says about me when that description is what made me get a copy of the game. That's the main one that comes to mind for disturbing game content.

 

[darkstarangel]

I thought silent hill 4 had an excellent disturbing atmosphere, especially the water prison where the children raised in the orphanage run by the cult were sent to be murdered.

Or when you consider that the serial killer Walter Sullivan, who openly butchered two twins with an axe, used to be an innocent child abandoned by his parents that corrupted by the silent hill cult & whose sole motivation was to find the very mother who left him. Really puts things in perspective when you're an objective observer.

 

[Reed Spacer]

I thought silent hill 4 had an excellent disturbing atmosphere, especially the water prison where the children raised in the orphanage run by the cult were sent to be murdered.

Or when you consider that the serial killer Walter Sullivan, who openly butchered two twins with an axe, used to be an innocent child abandoned by his parents that corrupted by the silent hill cult & whose sole motivation was to find the very mother who left him. Really puts things in perspective when you're an objective observer.

Yeah, but Silent Hill is supposed to be disturbing, so...

 

[Isalan]

Shalebridge Cradle from Thief 3. Sad, disturbing place. As you collect the various notes and clues from around the place you realize that it was an Orphanage and an Asylum. A little later on you realize it was both at the same time.

Until the Moth burnt it to a shell.

 

[Ikasury]

Also, I have seen two skeletons holding each other, a gun in one of their hands.

The worst part is some women people find that romantic.

OT: SMT: Digital devil saga. The jailer . Demons love human meat. The Jailer however only eat 14 year old meat. One of the kids that was caught was eaten. He surely wasn't the only one .

[small] Basically, it's not that the jailer only eats meat that has been aged for 14 years, he prefers the meat of 14 year olds.[/small]

that's an SMT game... i expect such from them... especially when the concept of DDS was 'devour your enemies'... who's the 'good guys' again? oh right... the demons eating everyone else... 14yr olds or not... though i do distinctly remember that... reminded me of Xenogears in Solaris... woo~

speaking of SMT being creepy, SMT4 is totally not skimping one bit, Reverse Hills yes?

what else is creepy... hrm, like i said expect that from SMT games, but seriously, i know everyone 'hates' Aliens: Colonial Marines... but the 'Easter Egg' thing... think about that... i literally started crying T.T you gotta find a code to open up a room off to the side that you'd easily miss, not to mention it requires backtracking, but you open the door and inside are three empty Xeno eggs and one that's not, obviously you have to pop that last one (i think there was a Xeno in there too), but they're all painted up like Easter Eggs... you think its funny 'oh haha! Easter Eggs'... then you look around the room... the LOCKED room... and find childrens toys all over the place with cute crayon drawings and blood on the floor and an acid hole where the Xenos obviously escaped... -.-

Waylan-Yutani, putting Krilian to shame...

honestly, the saddest Easter Egg ever...

 

[ViridianV6]

The Nightmare Room in Milla Vodello's Dance Party level from Psychonauts. While going through her mind everyone is partying, but there is a small dark room, which gives a pretty disturbing backstory.

Spoiler

Turns out she used to work at a daycare which burnt down while she was out grocery shopping and because she was clairvoyant, could see the fire through the eyes of the children and hear the screams.

This is for a game rated Teen by the ESRB.

 

[Ikasury]

i saw mention of Dark Souls... nothing in it can compare to Maiden Astraea... o.o ye gods... Maiden Astraea...

uh... yea... those 'demon babies'... not only are they creepy as all f-ck but just the thought of where they came from... the Maiden sits up on a rock in the back edge of the pool of 'blood' those horrid things spawn from... and her used to be clean white dress is bloody... only not just the tips dunked in the bloody water mind you... no... no if you look hard enough you can see it it goes 'all the way up'... then you remember the line 'after learning the truth, the Sixth Saint Astraea gave herself over to the deamon'... there's honestly only one way my brain can interpret that... and being female... it makes it extra squicky for me ;; demon-rape, demon-babies... and by the gods Sir Garlan has to sit there with her and watch it all... *twitching*

... now i remember why i love Demon's Souls over Dark Souls... despite all the 'unsaid' its really disturbing when you think about it...

 

[darkstarangel]

I thought silent hill 4 had an excellent disturbing atmosphere, especially the water prison where the children raised in the orphanage run by the cult were sent to be murdered.

Or when you consider that the serial killer Walter Sullivan, who openly butchered two twins with an axe, used to be an innocent child abandoned by his parents that corrupted by the silent hill cult & whose sole motivation was to find the very mother who left him. Really puts things in perspective when you're an objective observer.

Yeah, but Silent Hill is supposed to be disturbing, so...

True, but it always achieved this with atmosphere & imagery. The concept of massacring children just brought it to that next level of disturbing. It also made the cult more disturbing too, from a bunch of secret devil worshippers posing as members of society like in the first one to a group of people that do some pretty evil s***.

None of the games prior ever reached that level of disturbing.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

This isn't exactly in the vein of what most have posted, but the moment I first saw a cow's head getting blown away in Fallout 3... and then seeing the mangled neck stump with the open windpipe and all I was definitely a little shaken.

 

[Sp3ratus]

i saw mention of Dark Souls... nothing in it can compare to Maiden Astraea... o.o ye gods... Maiden Astraea...

uh... yea... those 'demon babies'... not only are they creepy as all f-ck but just the thought of where they came from... the Maiden sits up on a rock in the back edge of the pool of 'blood' those horrid things spawn from... and her used to be clean white dress is bloody... only not just the tips dunked in the bloody water mind you... no... no if you look hard enough you can see it it goes 'all the way up'... then you remember the line 'after learning the truth, the Sixth Saint Astraea gave herself over to the deamon'... there's honestly only one way my brain can interpret that... and being female... it makes it extra squicky for me ;; demon-rape, demon-babies... and by the gods Sir Garlan has to sit there with her and watch it all... *twitching*

... now i remember why i love Demon's Souls over Dark Souls... despite all the 'unsaid' its really disturbing when you think about it...

From what I gathered, all the babies are not Astraea, but rather children that have been abandoned or aborted by other people and throw down there, to get rid of. Not that that's not terrible, because it most certainly is, but I don't think she birthed any of them. She "merely" came to the Valley in order to redeem and save the lost people down there. I didn't take the "giving herself" to the demons literally, but more because of a realization, that her god wouldn't answer her prayers and so there was no point serving him/her. Of course, it's always open to intrepretation, which is one of the wonderful things about that awesome game. I thought ENB had some thoughts up on it, but I couldn't find it, so I looked here instead.

As for my adding my own to the thread, I'll say in Half-Life 2, where the headcrabs keep their victims alive up to several minutes, before their turned into actual zombies. Imagining what it must be like before you finally turn is pretty gruesome.

 

[trollnystan]

Don't pregnancy tests usually say that?
I can't remember if they changed the packaging, but if they specifically did, then that's even more cowardly from the people who wrote it.

Oh, I wish I hadn't lost my screenshots in the Great Accidental Hard Drive Delete of early 2013!

If I recall correctly, the box belonging to the first pregnancy test didn't mention that it could be wrong, but the second one did. That could be explained away by the first package maybe lying face up and the second face down. But yes, REAL pregnancy tests say that, but probably not on every side of the box I'd imagine. (Having never seen one up close, I couldn't say sure.)