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{{trope}}
Crapsack Worlds are common in videogames, because they give a player a great justification for the large number of enemies they typically have to deal with and the conflicts they find themselves in.
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* Go on, just pick ANY [[Shin Megami Tensei]] game. The first one starts fairly nice for the first hour or so, then promptly gets doused in nuclear fire, leaving a pockmarked hell, and even before that happened, demons were attacking damn near anything, and after the world goes to hell, [[It Got Worse]], courtesy of a replay of The Great Flood. By the end of first game and by the time of the second, it seems to have gotten slightly more tolerable, only to utterly crush your hope when it get revealed that YHVH HIMSELF is planning to destroy everything the demons haven't raped to extremes that make the first game seem like Sunday school, and regardless of ending, a hell of a lot of dead people/demons pile up trying to save what's left of the planet. In [[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]], the world is reduced to a demon filled embyro like state, and most options you have to fix things still leave it mostly crappy or can make it even worse. [[Strange Journey]] takes place in a [[Crapsack World]], and depending on what ending you get, the whole planet can join in on the fun. In short, if its a SMT game, pack a lunch, cause the crapsackiness is gonna be around for awhile.
** [[Word of God]] is that all of this is because the universe itself is somehow broken, and YHVH's insanity is a symptom of the problem.
** And then there's ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]''. Imagine a vast battlefield populated by soulless automatons. Each of the warring factions has to kill all others [[There Will Be Cake|to reach Nirvana]]. ''Then'' add human emotions and the [[Superpower Lottery]] into the mix. The rigidly imposed order breaks down into a [[Social Darwinist]] society, and ''then'' a Tribe ''succeeds'' in killing all major competitors and breaking the final rules. '''''Then''''' it's revealed it's all an AI simulator... and the real world's blasted beyond recognition, corrupted and twisted... due to a [[Humans Are
** [[
* Notch's upcoming [[Science Fiction]] game [[
* ''[[
* [[I Wanna Be the Guy
** [[Memetic Mutation|They're more like giant cherries.]]
*** [[Word of God|Delicious Fruit.]]
* ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]] Gaiden'' sends the good guys to a crapsack alternate future, where mankind was really screwed three times over. First, a gigantic gravity wave devastated the planet, then the Dinosaur Empire from ''[[Getter Robo]]'' beat up on the survivors, and THEN a full fledged war broke out between the Earth bound [[Xabungle|Innocent faction]] and the Space bound [[Turn
** ''[[Super Robot Wars 64]]'' has the Earth completely taken over by [[Dancougar|Muge Zolbados' Empire]]
** ''[[Super Robot Wars Destiny]]'''s [[Big Bad]] essentially is feeding off the fact Earth became one due to the events of ''Shin [[Getter Robo]] Armageddon'', [[Chars Counterattack]], and [[Mobile Suit Victory Gundam
** In general it's safe to asume that world in any ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' game is going to be pretty crappy with vairous anime bad guys invading the Earth, conducting their plans, joining forces of fighting against each other with the original vilains on the top of all of it. And it's up to heroes to fix things up.
* ''[[Castlevania]] II: Simon's Quest'' shows what kind of world you saved in the previous game. The land is barren and lifeless, gravestones are everywhere, people are too poor to afford anything but unfurnished brick rooms, most will lie to you or tempt you with sin, expensive mansions once owned by the rich have signs of torture and enslavement, and creatures don't even bother to inhabit areas that people have long since abandoned and left to crumble. Blame this all on "Dracula's Curse" if you want, but there's a reason why most of the games take place inside
** Made a ''little'' better in later games, particularly ''Order of Ecclesia'', where the [[Hub Level]] is a small, well-kept village (well, well-kept once you save the villagers). Still, being attacked by Dracula and his monstrous hordes every few decades earns the world a few points in the "crapsack" column.
* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'', a series of fantasy games where time traveling Vampire lord Kain clashes with his soul-eating undead son Raziel across the ages. The world of Nosgoth the series takes place in is host to massive web of [[Ancient Conspiracy|ancient conspiracies]], and over the course of the series experiences poverty, political warfare, extra-dimensional invaders, vampire empires, and due to the way the forces of nature are governed during it all the very ecosystem is slowly getting worse. It gets so bad that in ''Soul Reaver'', which takes place the furthest down the timeline, the humans of the world are confined to one city up in the mountains, the vampires are scattered and going hungry, and the world has become a desert wasteland.
* The ''[[Resistance]]'' games appear to be built purely on this concept. Over the course of the game, every single thing you attempt ends up either failing or blowing up in your face. On top of that, at the end of the second game {{spoiler|[[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|you singlehandedly manage to bring about the end of the world that the entire goal of the games was to prevent]]}}. i.e., [[The Bad Guy Wins]]. It appears to be a [[Foregone Conclusion]] that mankind will be annihilated in the third installment.
* The ''[[Oddworld]]'' is also a [[World Half Empty]]. The first three games center on industrial excesses taken to such an absurd degree that no-one bats an eye at a meat packing plant planning to make their slave laborers into their next product line, while ''Stranger's Wrath'' takes place in more of a [[Crapsack World]] of a Western, where the townsfolk are so exaggeratedly helpless and cowardly they're ''literally'' chickens.
* Combine-controlled Earth in ''[[Half-Life]] 2''. The environment and infrastructure are in such an extreme state of disrepair after just a decade or two of Combine rule that it threatens the human race's very existence.
** It's implied in the games (and outright stated by [[Word of God]]) that the Combine has zero interest in Earth's infrastructure; their interest begins and ends with raping the planet of any usable resources (and stealing our teleportation technology, which is by some aspects superior to theirs). Supposedly, ''Half-Life 2'' was supposed to feature a plant designed to remove the oxygen from the planet's atmosphere; this got taken out because of time constraints. Various types of aliens, such as the antlions (insectoid aliens which are extremely aggressive towards any other lifeform), headcrabs (which the Combine actually seems to breed for biological warfare), and ocean-faring leeches which make even [[Border Patrol|wading out a short distance into the ocean a suicidal endeavor]].
*** Actually
* Pretty much all of Earth in ''[[Command
** And this was an ''improvement'' from ''Tiberian Sun'', where the atmosphere and oceans had been contaminated enough to leave the human race months from extinction, with the few safe population tucked away in the arctic.
** [[It Got Worse]]. In between CNC 3 and CNC 4 Tiberium infestation reaches the point where only 2% of the world is inhabitable at all.
** ''Red Alert'' isn't any better. The world keeps getting devastated by two superpowers for no other reason than they distrust each other. And thanks to Tim Curry, now there are 3 superpowers.
* ''Shadow Bane'': The world has been [[Earthshattering Kaboom|shattered]] into numerous fragments, the All-Father is missing or dead, the Green Mother is crippled and in agony, [[Face Heel Turn|Malor]] has joined the forces of Chaos, [[Forged
** [[Author Existence Failure|And then the severs went offline.]]
* The ''[[Max Payne (
* ''[[Diablo]]''. First game ''starts'' with the noble king being corrupted and his kingdom destroyed. Then you have to kill the undead king, plus demons are killing people, the prince has been kidnapped and possessed. After 16 annoying levels you finally make it to the boss and beat him... except the prince is now dead and you just became Diablo's new, more powerful host. Second game lets you kill most of the major demons... too bad it turns out they all end up getting revived, and the thing holding some semblance of stability over the world is destroyed. So horrible monsters are even more common. Did we mention there is no god and all the angels (except Tyrael...) are humongous jerkasses?
** Humans get a vast power boost because of the destruction of the soulstone. In the long run, [[A World Half Full|there may be some hope.]] They're supposed to get stronger than demons or angels.
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* The world of the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series, especially ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'', which had fewer lighter elements than the others. Here we have a world so filled with corrupt politicians, crooked cops, backstabbing criminals and just plain crazy people that whatever amoral protagonist you're playing as almost looks like a saint by comparison.
** ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City]]'' is also the [[Trope Namer]] for a version of the [[Crapsack World]] / [[Wretched Hive]], [[Vice City]].
* If the [[Luck
** ''[[
*** And then the [[World Sundering|Elf Wars]] occurs sometime after the [[Colony Drop]]. ''Two'' apocalyptic disasters, one after the other? It has to be a record or something...
** Speaking of ''[[Mega Man (
** The series as a whole is like this, to be honest. The series chronologizes about five hundred years of human suffering due to constant robot uprisings, almost all of which can be traced to ''two men''- Wily and Weil. Fast forward to [[
*** The only time life was ''not'' pain was the years between 20XX and 21XX, after Wily's death and before Cain tried copying X. Even the golden age between 22XX and 24XX was marred by occasional maverick uprisings and no less than three [[Evil Plan|EvilPlans]] running just below the surface.
*** When a [[Mega Man ZX
* The world of ''[[Sands of Destruction]]'' doesn't look that bad at
* '''Any''' setting in ''[[The Suffering]].'' It's bad enough that Carnate Island had seen just about every sort of crime and punishment in history ''before'' its infestation by the Malefactors; it's even worse when the city the PC hopes to escape to is a fetid den of urban decay and misery that promptly suffers a Malefactor infestation of its own.
* Holy crap, does the world in ''[[
** And here's more for the crapsackism. So if you remove that totalitarian institution, everything will be all fine and dandy, right? WRONG. You still have to deal with the fact that the world is ravaged, and the Black Beast left poisonous fumes in the world that linger in high concentrations even 100 years afer its death. Also, said totalitarian institute? It is actually a case of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremism]], and if they disappeared, random people would be able to start picking up dangerous [[Artifact of Doom|Artifacts Of Doom]], enabling seeds of further war and chaos to spread in this world that is already teetering on the edge of destruction. So it's either totalitarianism, or a world in utter chaos. Yeah. Hang in there, bro.
** But if said [[Complete Monster]] [[Troll]] is defeated, things will at least make it to a [[World Half Full]] status, right? Well, they might and, frankly speaking, that is probably your best bet here, but considering the fact that said Monster Troll is [[Evil Genius|highly cunning,]] [[Crazy Prepared|intelligent,]] [[Game Breaker|powerful to extreme]] ([[SNK Boss|it also seeps to gameplay]]), and frankly speaking, [[The Battle Didn't Count|unfair levels]], ''and'' [[Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness|is approaching Infinite levels of effectiveness]], [[Karma Houdini|no known weak spots for Karmic Hammer to hit]], making his opposition look inefficient even when "[[Xanatos Gambit|beating]]" him
** Exacerbating the matters is the fact that the cast, aside from the [[Big Bad Duumvirate]], is quite disorganized. Here's a rundown on why:
** With all these you may think that perhaps there will be some good God to handle divine punishment if that [[Complete Monster]] gets too out of hand... wait, said 'God' is 'dead' by the [[Complete Monster]]. And there's this term 'World Antibody', which may be our last bet in place of the dysfunctional cast... except said 'Antibody' is that brother-complex-suffering psychopath, and even if he's working on it, who's designed as the world's enemy by that term? Your resident [[Anti-Hero]], not the [[Complete Monster]]. Yes, just to rub the salt to the wounds, the world ''hates you'' and would prefer to keep the [[Complete Monster]] to exist rather than designating it as an enemy so he could be stopped. [[Sarcasm Mode|What a wonderful world,]] [[Department of Redundancy Department|fellas]].
*** It's even worse since this implies that the [[Anti-Hero]] might actually become a greater threat to the world than the [[Complete Monster]]. And he very well might be, since he possesses a horrific power within him that nobody, not even the [[Complete Monster]], can control.
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** [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|And the entire movie industry]] was killed by [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|online piracy.]]
** Lampshaded by Dr. Warren in the first game. He said that there's no difference between the time of the Third Crusade and the time of the future, that people were just as violent and destructive than as now. And the second game reveals that the time of the Renaissance was even worse than both of them together.
* ''[[
** The sequel is once again a Crapsack World, and there aren't really any [[A World Half Full]] endings this time.
*** Theoretically, the {{spoiler|Omar}} ending is better than the alternatives. {{spoiler|You take out all the assholes pulling the strings, leaving the one group that gives a crap about the common man. Sure, the world will kinda suck for a while, but the entire point of the Omar is that humanity can survive this. And once everything is in place on the ground, the stars are waiting.}}
** ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution
* Stages
* The ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]'' series makes the otherwise detestable and villainous lead character likable and somewhat sympathetic by planting him in a Crapsack World, in this case a warped and insane version of America during the Cold War.
* Another parody example that actually has a story of why the world is that way is the PC game ''Pyst'', which is supposedly what the world of ''[[Myst]]'' ended up looking like after millions of tourists wandered through it.
* The ''[[Postal]]'' series. In ''Postal 2'' at least, every townsperson is a jerk, the cops are mean, and the town of "Paradise" is portrayed as very corrupt and broken beneath the surface. All this is played up for humor, and also makes your [[Heroic Sociopath]] the most sympathetic character by comparison.
* The world at the start of ''[[
* The world of ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
* The world of ''[[
** That said, there are some nice people, even among the mercenaries. The Sniper comes to mind (ironically more so than the Medic), as does the Engineer. Also, we never really see anything outside of the battlefield, and the visible bits that don't have people warring over them look fairly normal. Although it's rather telling that even the ''nice'' characters in this setting are mass murderers.
* ''[[Overlord]]''. It's all played for laughs, but the world is so nasty, with everyone either corrupt, stupid, or useless, that your explicitly villainous [[Heroic Mime]] and his army of goblins are among the most likable characters. The character's brutal rule as tyrant or madman may actually be an improvement over what it's like already.
** [[It Got Worse]] in the second game, where the realm of the first games have been wiped out by a magical Cataclysm that apparently destroyed the haflings and dwarves, there's a massive anti-magic [[The Empire|Empire]] wiping out as much as they can and the only real [[Hero Antagonist
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has this with Tirisfal Glades, the starting place of the Forsaken. It seems like a perpetual cloudy night, demons and Scourge roam the forests, and their very capital city is a bunch of tombs. The music is even the same for when you die and your spirit is trying to get back to your corpse. The Plaguelands are even worse. [[Mordor|Icecrown]] turns it [[Up to Eleven]]
** The Worgen race from is told to come from a vicious world, where no corner is truly safe. That humans could never survive there is a gross understatement. Actually, one can make this argument for Azeroth - its full of undead, corrupted wildlife, evil gods, and demons - and then you get to Outland.
*** [[It Got Worse]] by the time of ''Cataclysm''. [[Big Bad]] Deathwing has turned Azeroth into a [[Shattered World]] simply by reemerging.
** Lets put it this way, the actual heads of the faction tend to be reasonable, but nearly every number 2 is [[The Starscream]]. Garrosh Hellscream will likely take control of the horde, and wants nothing more than to charge at the enemy with the entire horde in a fuel of rage, and literally wants to just charge and ignore anything that smacks of tactics. King Wrynn is equally as crazy and determined, and arguably in charge of enough of his faction to force a war no matter what. The few races that aren't burned from a history of dark magic and demons have done other spectacular things to either doom themselves. Only the Taurens lack a significant fraction of their race that's trying to doom the world, and their leader is on his last legs
*** Then Wrynn and Garrosh really did get put in charge.
*** And one of them {{spoiler|becomes the [[Big Bad]] of the fourth expansion.}}
**** Hey, remember that kind and sweet girl who just wanted peace for everyone, was a friend to all living things, and the most reasonable and tolerant faction leader in Warcraft ever? Yeah, well, now she hates the Horde with a psychotic passion and wants them all to die burning. That's not the Crapsack part. The Crapsack part is the part where, after what Garrosh and the Horde did to Theramore, ''you honestly can't blame her for changing her mind''.
** [[Fridge Logic|The effect is somewhat dulled]] [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|when you wonder why can't your faction leaders just go out and single-handedly take care of many of the problems by themselves.]]
** Better yet, humans and most of the other races only exist on Azeroth because of the "Curse of Flesh" that the Old Gods put on the machines that the Titans created, so they could escape more easily. The lore behind the [[Bonus Boss]] Alganon is that he is there to check on Azeroth and seeing the results, will tell the Titans to wipe out the entire world and start over. The Old Gods don't have anything nice planned for this world either, and if they are all defeated, they'll likely destroy Azeroth as well.
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* Besides undead fallen lords and their hordes of minions, demons from another world, scheming villainous feudals, bloodthirsty wild animals and monsters, uncaring murderous giant Trows, and no less uncaring mages, the world of ''[[Myth]]'' is a perfectly fine place to live.
* Despite the [[Scenery Porn]], ''[[Myst|Riven]]'' under Gehn's rule is pretty darn miserable: the landscape is being ravaged for bookmaking materials, the [[A God Am I]] ruler feeds dissidents alive to a whale/shark/whatever, [[La Résistance]] are a bunch of religious wackos in spook masks, and the underlying fabric of reality is inexorably falling to pieces.
* The world of ''[[
* And just because they're [[Dueling Games]], ''[[Prototype (
** How bad is it? Okay, there's this [[Humanoid Abomination|guy]]. He is borderline sociopathic, and [[I Am a Humanitarian|eats people]] to [[Brain Food|absorb their knowledge]], [[Kill and Replace|assume their form]], and [[Lovecraftian Superpower|fashion claws, blades, and tentacles out of biomass]]. That man is the hero. He's not a [[Villain Protagonist]], either. He is the actual ''[[The Hero|hero]]''.
*** And now, not only does Manhattan host Alex Mercer, it also has James Heller to contend with, who is willing to whatever it takes to destroy Alex. In other words, two [[Cannibalism Superpower|psychopathic mutants]] sharing [[I'm a Humanitarian|an unending hunger for flesh]] are now rampaging in a war-ravaged city. To further accentuate the degeneration of the situation in New York City, fresh and potent strains of the Blacklight virus are emerging, creating whole new abominations to wreak havoc on the hapless survivors. [[Oh Crap|There is no way this will end well.]]
* ''[[Thief]]'' and its main setting, the City. The gods appear to be jerks, the major religion is perfectly within their rights to [[Knight Templar|torture suspected criminals]] ''and they're not the bad guys'', the ones opposing them are [[Cult|terrorist hippie demon worshippers]] and ''they're not the bad guys either'', [[Wretched Hive|the entire City is riddled with corruption from the top levels down]], [[Zombie Apocalypse|the dead won't stay buried]], and at one point homeless, prostitutes and purse snatchers were arrested, [[And I Must Scream|killed to be turned into cyborg slaves]] and sold to the wealthy, and ''nobody'' with any power cared enough to notice. [[Anti-Hero|The main character]], an amoral burglar, has to be [[Black and Grey Morality|dragged kicking and screaming]] into doing anything about it, and all he does is save the place from [[The End of the World
* ''[[Baroque (
* In ''[[Dungeon Keeper]]'', the world is a lush, idyllic place full of happy people who live peaceful and fulfilling lives. Disgusting.
* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]''. The motto of the game is "losing is fun". Unfortunately that means the average dwarf will die of any combination of being torn apart by monsters, starvation, terminal depression, being set on fire, or a variety of other methods. Furthermore, the magnitude of enemy attacks increases as your fortress wealth does. Small fortresses have to deal with the occasional kobold thief, whereas a gorgeous obsidian citadel will likely have to close itself off from the world due to hundred-goblin sieges. In other words, ''the better your fortress, the more crapsack the world.'' Of course, this is ignoring any potential player decisions to build a "flood the world with lava" mechanism in the spirit of Boatmurdered. Finally, there's the world's current state of [[Devil but No God]] (unless you count [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|the player]] as a god, which makes things no better); demons are clearly visible, actively claiming lordship over nations and generally turning the nations the rule into warmongering empires, while the gods respond to prayers with only silence.
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* ''Phantom Dust'' takes place in a [[After the End|post-apocalyptic]] world where the last few remnants of mankind are forced to exist in pressure sealed underground sanctuaries to avoid the titular dust and the terrifying [[Eldritch Abomination|freaks]] it creates. If aforementioned monsters don't get to you there's a good chance your trigger happy and mentally unstable allies will. Not to mention that the dust will erase your memories if you stay out in it for too long. As for the only known bastion of civilization, its leader only communicates through a single spokesperson (who may or may not deliver the message accurately), supplies are gotten through raids on the surface since no one knows how to grow or make more, the non-dust using civilians are kept locked away in what appears to be a giant pit, and, perhaps most tragically of all, its hospital consists of two stone beds lying beneath buzzing, malfunctioning machines run by a nurse who seems to have gotten the job only because she looks cute in the uniform and seems to cure all ailments by stuffing patients full of whatever medication is found on the surface.
* ''[[Final Fantasy]]'':
** ''[[
** ''[[
** In ''[[
** The world of ''[[
* ''[[
** Although it is revealed in ''[[
* The planet Pandora in ''[[
* ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'' takes place in one. The opening cutscene introduces you to a world where Heaven has been destroyed, the world is threatened by a near-unstoppable army of monsters, and the only people who could possibly stop them are nearly extinct and are forgotten and ignored by the world at large, to the point that it might be too late to save the world. It gets worse. Let's see... there's the [[Knight Templar
** ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' [[Darker and Edgier|is even]] worse in this regard. As the game goes on the player sees the Chantry completely collapse as the mages get tired of the oppression they suffer under the templars and rise up, [[He Who Fights Monsters|becoming just as bad as the templars feared]]. [[Grey and Gray Morality|Both sides are filled with fanatics who believe]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|that their way is the only way and anyone who stands in their way deserves no mercy.]] Compromise eventually becomes totally impossible as the actual reasonable people are killed off one by one by accident or to spark the war. What's even worse is that it's implied that the resulting [[Civil War]] is not only horrifying, but completely [[Failure Is the Only Option|inevitable]], with nearly a thousand years of history of bloodshed and oppression (from both sides) coming to a head, only being accelerated at the very end.
* ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]: [[Darker and Edgier|Explorers of Time/Darkness]]'' gives you [[Bad Future|the future]]. A future where [[The Night That Never Ends|infinite night]] rules.
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** For those of you who want humans in your Pokemon experience, we have [[Pokémon Colosseum|Orre]] or, as a better word, [[Death World|Hell]]). The government barely has anyone of note. The police are utterly pathetic and cannot keep two goof-offs behind bars for very long. The deserts which make up the Eclo Wastes are almost utterly barren of life. The police turf in Pyrite Town has ''more hoodlums per square foot'' than any other region to date. Occasionally, these hoodlums form gangs which make life for the locals pretty bad. And then, there's [[Complete Monster|Cipher]], the patron saints of [[Paranoia Fuel]] in the Pokeverse. The group believes only in power, and will engage in methods to obtain it that can only be described as inhuman - trainer assault, Pokemon theft, federal subversion, [[Mind Rape]], ''homicide''... these guys were the undisputed bottom of the morality barrel in the Pokeverse before [[Pokémon Black and White|Ghetsis]] showed up, and the two are fighting over that title to this day. The [[Pokémon Ranger|Ranger Corps]] talks about lots of other regions (except maybe Unova due to limited intel) - even ''they'' will not bring Orre up. '''''It's THAT bad'''''.
* ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Modern Warfare]] 2'' [[Holy Shit Quotient|Hoooolyyyy fucking shit!]]
** To elaborate, the ''[[Modern Warfare]]'' universe at first seems to be a slightly different version of our world today. For all of the first two missions. When, via [[Controllable Helplessness]], you are shot in the face point-blank range by a power hungry warlord, you realize that this world ain't particularly friendly. When {{spoiler|you lose your entire troop regiment to a nuclear bomb, and die slowly due to radiation}}, the crapsackiness of this world sets in. Believe it or not, [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]] as the game goes on. You learn that Russia is being torn apart by a civil war between hard liners called the Ultranationalists and a Russian army that can do all but very little to hold them back. Next, during a flashback, it's revealed that low-level terrorist groups have more than ready access to nuclear weaponry. However, this all gets eclipsed by the American campaign in the second game. Those hard liners? They took power. And, wouldn't you know, they've just been itching for a reason to attack America. Needless to say, it's given to them. {{spoiler|By you, no less.}} You spend the rest of the American campaign defending a war-torn [[Washington DC]] from the Ultranationalists. To finally let you know how much the world in ''Modern Warfare'' sucks, {{spoiler|when you kill [[Big Bad|General Shepherd]], the guy who [[The Chessmaster|instigated all]] [[Complete Monster|of the crapsackiness]] of the second game, it does ''absolutely nothing'' to stop his plans. In fact, he's already succeeded. All you did is prevent him from seeing it.}} Considering the ''Modern Warfare'' series placement on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism]], it'll probably get even worse <s>by the time</s> ''[[Screwed
*** Oh it does it worse in Modern Warfare 3. VERY MUCH SO. Just from looking at a few teaser trailers,the world is fully engulfed in a Third WORLD WAR. And considering this series track record with nukes,expect them to be dropped like rainfall.
* ''[[
** And even if you ARE a capsuleer, nullsec is a never ending hell of being podkilled unless you're in a powerful corp.
** Even if you are in a powerful nullsec alliance, some [[Magnificent Bastard|crafty person]] can steal everything from you and hundreds of alliancemates, and this is the intention of the game. Lowsec is plagued with the more ethical pirates who simply want to ransom you, to the less ethical ones who will take your ransom and kill you anyway, then post your pleas for mercy to the official forums. Highsec, theoretically the carebear section of the game, has dozens of people waiting for you to take out that 5-billion isk faction battleship and blow it up simply for the bragging rights. The backstory for the game is worse.
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*** As stated earlier, the ''Fallout'' games are much closer to [[A World Half Full]]. Yes, the world does suck, with innumerable things that will either kill you or make you wish you were dead, but the stories of the games always end happily. ([[Video Game Cruelty Potential|Canonically, at least they do...]]) Fallout 3 was probably the closest that the series came to this, and even then the main storyline ends with the Capital Wasteland on the path to recovery. The world sucks, but the player can do everything they can to fix it up, and yes, make a long term difference in the Wastelands. Plus, the Oasis in Fallout 3 shows that someday, the world CAN get better.
*** You know the worst part? It's been noted, on at least one occasion, that the Fallout 'verse is an ''optimistic'' view of what the world would be like post nuclear war.
* ''[[
* Let's face it: the ''[[Red Faction]]'' universe sucks. Civilization on Earth is collapsing because all of its metal ores are used up and running dry, so Mars is colonized and mining operations begin there. Unfortunately, the [[Mega Corp|Ultor Corporation]]'s last concern is the safety and treatment of the miners, with the people constantly abused, shoved into atrocious working and living conditions, and infected with a mysterious plague {{spoiler|caused by Ultor's experiments in nanotechnology}}. The titular Red Faction, with assistance from the Earth Defense Force, manage to destroy Ultor, and the EDF gains control of Mars, and terraforms the surface so humans can live unaided on the surface. Unfortunately, the EDF begins running the mining operations exactly like Ultor, and the Marauders, {{spoiler|descendants of Ultor}}, regularly raid colonist settlements. The new Red Faction, after several hundred casualties and deaths, manages to fend off the EDF and the Marauders, and take back Mars again. In the upcoming sequel, ''Armageddon'', it is revealed that the EDF's terraforming technology has malfunctioned horribly, causing severe storms to ravage the surface and make it inhabitable, forcing humanity to flee underground. All seems okay now... at least until [[Sealed Evil in
** Don't forget that Red Faction shares a universe with the ''[[Saints Row]]'' series, set in the present day where you play as a gang member who takes over the criminal empire of the city of Stillwater TWICE. In the first game you were just a member of a gang trying to restore order to the city, yeah, but in the second game YOU lead the gang in your war to turn the city into your own personal playground. Oh, and the second game also deals with Ultor heavily, and at times even foreshadows the role they'll play in the Red Faction games, most notably in the DLC "Ultor Exposed".
*** Then there's [[Up to Eleven|Steelport.]]
**** Arguably diverged from Red Faction continuity now that ''Saints Row IV'' has blown up the Earth and made the Third Street Saints the rulers of what's left of the human race (and apparently the known galaxy), and ''SR4: Gat out of Hell'' just had Johnny & Kinzie essentially ''conquer Hell'' and ''shoot the Devil in the face''.
* [[Wild Arms|Filgaea is a very, very, very unfortunate planet]]. Some [[All There in the Manual|ancilliary media]] indicate that all the games- at least five at last count- take place on the same world, separated by millenia. If this is true, it has had at least three invasions by time-traveling robots, invading alternate universes, invading aliens, etc... and throughout it, most of the time, the entire planet is a resource-poor desert wasteland. Generally, every time they start repairing the environment enough for life to not suck royally all around, they get another bunch of would-be conquerors up in their grills, and, in the process of fighting them off and/or sealing them, ruin it again.▼
***** I said, in the face.
▲* [[Wild
** It is near impossible for the Filgaias of the various games to be the same planet. For example, humans are natives in 1 and foreigners in 3, Elw were technological gods in 1, turning to nature later whereas in 3 they were always hippies. And extinct. This isn't even going into the various incarnations of Zeikfried and such. It's sufficient to say that each Filgaia is a crapsack in its own right.
* Sera in ''[[Gears of War]]''has been rendered a truly awful place by decades of nonstop war. The Locust Horde has been waging a campaign of genocide against the human race since their sudden assault on Emergence Day. The human government (COG) had to resort to using the Hammer of Dawn WMD system simply to stall the Locust and prevent them from using COG's own resources against them, which had the side effect of killing millions more humans and rendering most of Sera a desolate wasteland. By the start of the series, only a minority of the human race survives in the handful of remaining cities or living as Stranded, many of whom are hostile to the COG. Finally, the COG itself has a fascist/communist feel to it.
** Made worse on Gears of War 3, where the Sera is so screwed and uninhabitable they ''have to go live on giant boats'', with no Government over humans and with not only one, but TWO races trying to kill everything.
** Even the hailstorms on Sera are doing their best to kill you by dumping razor sharp shards of ice on your head. Any creature that steps out of cover during a razorhail storm is reduced to ground meat in seconds.
* ''[[Fragile Dreams|Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon]]'' slightly hints humanity was at war with each other {{spoiler|before the Class Cage was activated}}. It was the reason why people said "yes" to the whole thing, in the first place. Unfortunately, they didn't expect it would also bring about [[The End of the World
* [[The Elder Scrolls|Tamriel]] has always had its fair share of bad spots, but after ''Oblivion'', it turns into this outright {{spoiler|as the lack of any apparent heir to the Empire has caused much of the continent to descend into anarchy and infighting. Daedric cultists have sparked a civil war in the Summerset Isles. Skyrim declares war on Morrowind. Black Marsh declares war on ''everyone''. Elseweyr cuts off all ties to everyone else and goes into seclusion. Morrowind itself has become little more than a barren wasteland due to the combination of the Ministry of Truth colliding with the province and Red Mountain erupting, and what's left is quickly conquered by Black Marsh. The tiny island of Solstheim becomes literally the last holdout for independent Dumner.}} Yeah, things aren't exactly looking well for the Empire right now.
** {{spoiler|Then along comes Skyrim, which takes place 200 years after Oblivion. The Empire's still intact as a new dynasty, the Medes, rose to take power. However, Summerset Isle, Elsweyr, and Valenwood have all fallen under the thumb of [[Those Wacky Nazis|the Thalmor]], a xenophobic extremist group of Altmer that seek the eradication of the Empire and the extinction of the human races altogether. The Great War, which was fought between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion, ended with massive atrocities committed by the Thalmor and both sides heavily damaged. The only real glimmer of hope is that the Empire is quickly trying to rebuild to retake territories lost to the Thalmor, but the civil war has thrown a huge spanner into those plans...}}
*** [[It Got Worse|And then the Dragons led by Alduin the World-Eater show up...]]
* [[No More Heroes|Santa Destroy]], as shown through Travis' map of the place. The Beach is full of toxic chemicals, there is an old weapons testing ground filled with killer scorpions, the people are actually ashamed to live in the town and all to happy to leave, the job employers send you tips for work at the assassination centre disguised as an advertising agency, and the fast food places are garbage. That's not even getting into the Ranked Assassins....
* [[Geneforge]]. Ah, Geneforge. Very much a [[Grey and Gray Morality|grey and gray]] world, but that doesn't stop everyone from trying to kill one another. The Awakened are easily the nicest faction in the first two games: they can be ruthless killers when they need to be, but are at least fighting for a world in which creations and humans can get along as equals. Guess what happens to them? By the third game, the two main sides are the Shapers and rebels. The former have an extreme case of [[Fantastic Racism
* [[Monday Night Combat]] takes place in one of these, though you couldn't tell by looking at it. Underneath the cartoony art style hide Presidents for Life, food dispensed from tubes, a life expectancy of 28, and ''[[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|churros]]''.
* ''[[
* ''[[Psychic Force]]'' has a world constantly ravaged in a war between Psychiccer and humans, creating an endless strife. However, what makes it crapsack is that the world will go out of its way to NOT give anyone with sympathetic qualities a happy ending. Happy endings goes to [[Complete Monster]], anyone else receive [[Downer Ending|Downer]] or [[Bittersweet Ending]]
* ''[[
* ''[[
** Hell, the original ''[[Drakengard]]'' universe counts itself. When a party made up of a murder-happy psychopathic mute, a cannibalistic elf woman, a pedophile, and a religiously racist old man [[Mission Control]] are meant to be the ''good guys'', you know you're in a [[Crapsack World]].
* [[
* ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' seems to make the world absolutely ruthless for anyone who is a survivor in the zombie apocalypse. Most of humanity is either dead, a cannon fodder zombie, or a special zombie with hideous deformities. Any survivors you do happen to meet will be paranoid of your immunities and will call a horde of zombies on you just to prove whether or not you are immune.
** The sequel makes it a whole lot worse where every rescue attempt ends in failure, forcing you to trek your way to your next rescue attempt and the military in the final campaign is bombing New Orleans to wipe out the zombies and they ask the survivors if they are carriers. It's shown on the graffiti on the walls that some people think carriers are dangerous to non infected people and the military decided to kill anyone they thought were carriers. Nick comments about this a few times and is greatly worried about their own fate.
** The Sacrifice comic reveals that carriers are people who are immune to changing into a zombie, but can still spread the virus to others unwittingly, which is what the survivors in both games have been doing! On top of this, when the military "saved" the survivors in Left 4 Dead 1, they only saved them to see if they can develop a cure for the virus and planned to kill them if they couldn't get a cure. The survivors barely manage to escape (with the help of a few soldiers who were wise enough to listen to them) and get on a train heading south as Bill explains his plan to get them to the Floria Keys, where they can live in peace without zombies (they can't swim) or the military trying to kill them. So in a nutshell, if you aren't a carrier, you will become an infected and if you are a carrier, the military will try to kill you. The world be fucked.
* ''Homefront''. The central story of the game takes place in 2027, after the American economy has fully collapsed, the Middle East is on fire, which causes gas prices to nearly hit twenty dollars a gallon and North and South Korea have joined forces and annexed Japan and a host of other nations. Also, a massive thermonuclear weapon has been detonated, shutting down America's electronic infrastructure and the Korean People's Army has seized the entire US west of the Mississippi River. Which is irrevocably toxic thanks to said thermonuclear weapon. And a variant of the bird flu is killing off citizens left and right.
* ''[[Rift]]'': So a bunch of [[Our Dragons Are Different|dragons]] ([[Eldritch Abomination|so to speak]]) are in the process of [[Futurama|ripping the world a new space-hole]] for their own crazy reasons. This ''[[Rashomon Style|could]]'' be because [[The Gods Must Be Lazy|the gods fucked up big-time]], or it could be because people were building [[Artifact of Doom|artifacts of doom]]. As if ''that'' weren't bad enough, either [[The Usual Adversaries|a bunch of crazed heretics or a bunch of delusional religious zealots]] are [[Sympathetic POV|trying to thwart your attempts to save the world]]. And to ice this cake, if you play Defiant, this is all a vast ''improvement'' on your [[The Bad Guys Win|starting]] [[The End of the World
* Earth's pollution in ''[[Run Saber]]'' has reached the breaking point, turning it into unhabitable for humans. And then appears a [[Mad Scientist]] with promises of cleansing it, only to end up exiling humanity into space colonies and filling it up with mutants and parasites under his total control. Most of the locales are abandoned ruins run over by monsters, and while the ending does end on a high note, it's still pretty much a barren Earth humanity is returning to. And that's assuming the good doctor did take care of pollution before enacting his master plan...
* [[Knights of the Old Republic]] 2 has the Republic basically shattered, with the protagonist being one of the last surviving Jedi in the galaxy, even though canonically the first game has the player saving the entire galaxy. Pretty much every planet visited by the PC is either a desolate wasteland or it has a corrupted government, where there's basically no authority to keep things in order. The only exception of this might be Telos, but then again {{spoiler|the Exile blows up its only fuel source. Guess what happens when a giant space station that acts as a city doesn't get its fuel. You can fix it later on though.}}If that wasn't enough, everywhere the player goes there's someone trying to kill him/her. There's actually very few places that get to be saved from impending doom.
** The new ''[[Star
* In ''[[Ultima V]]'' Britannia becomes this, which is saying a lot since this is the land that went through being terrorized by not one, but two evil sorcerers and their demon/computer/whatever creation. True, the monsters that once roamed the countryside are now mostly gone, appearing mostly at night or in the wilderness, but the new regime of Lord Blackthorn has taken a bit of a hardline on Britannia's philosophy of the Eight Laws of Virtue, making charity mandatory, punishing most infractions of justice with death, and even forcing dishonored people to commit suicide! Then there are the Shadowlords {{spoiler|the entities who corrupted Blackthorn to begin with}} whose presence is enough to turn an entire city violent and sadistic.
* Earth becomes this in ''[[Darksiders]]'' after suffering through a premature Apocalypse in the beginning of the game. Humanity itself has died off. The world is littered with the ruins of civilization. Sandworms patrol entire deserts created from human ashes. All while the forces of Heaven and Hell wage their meaningless war for supremacy.
* Termina, from [[The Legend of Zelda:
** But, as fitting for a game that resonates doom and despair in every way, it's not possible to save everybody in a single 3 day cycle.
* Unless [[Never Trust a Trailer|the trailers are lying]], the world of ''[[
{{quote|
''Free from fear of fate, gazing undaunted into the eye of death.'' }}
* Ah, ''[[
* [[
* Both worlds in [[Alice: Madness Returns]].
** One is the once-[[Ghibli Hills|beautiful]] Wonderland, slowly being corrupted by Alice's own psyche, and filling with [[Creepy Doll|Creppy dolls]] and [[The Corruption|ruin]], even without getting into level-specific features such as the dodo "misery-ium" in Hatter's Domain, the Ink Wasps' brutal oppression of the ants in the Oriental Grove level, and the [[Big Bad|Dollmaker's]] Workshop.
** The other, Alice's "real world" is a [[Grimdark]] [[Dickensian London]] where practically everyone has an agenda and/or one of the worst lives in existence, even without [[Psycho Psychologist|Angus]] [[Complete Monster|Bumby]] running around pimping orphans.
* It is quite possible to create one in [[Tropico]] by tearing down all buildings one could live in (besides your palace), let crime go mad, barely have enough food for your people, and pay them all a dollar for anything that isn't being in your military, and let the enviroment go to Hell. Of course, be prepared for rebellions and your international relations to go VERY sour.
** The island always starts out as a Hell hole. Tropico 3 states that "Tropico has just been declared a fourth world country."
* [[Earth 2150]]. The never-ending war between the [[The Empire|Eurasian Dynasty]] and the [[America Takes Over the World|United Civilized States]] comes to a head when the UCS' [[
* [[Total Annihilation]]. The name says it all.
* The [[
* The world of ''[[Dark Souls]]'' isn't a happy place at all. The [[Cosmic Keystone|flames]] that gave rise to life are going out leading to most places in the world to have endless nights. Mysterious brands called the "Dark Signs" are cursing humans with undeath (including the player character) whom are doomed to lose their humanity and become insane Hollowed monsters. The gods of the world are also suffering, except two {{spoiler|Gwynevere and Gwyndolin}}, and they either abandoned their people to their fate or care more about their own power and influence than about fixing the world. One god is a shadow of his former self after some of his power was stolen by a mere mortal, another lost her sanity when she tried to rekindle the flames and is now the source of all demons (oh yeah, demons prowl this world too), and another sacrificed himself to a horrible burning existence to keep the flames going just a little longer. There's also no guarantee that either choice you make at the end of the game will make the world a better place for anyone.
* Crisis City from [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] (more specifically the 2006 game of the same title) can be considered this as the entire city is on fire thanks to Iblis. This, in turn, causes Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat to turn to Mephiles and travel back to the past in an effort to save the future. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, this involves the killing of Sonic the Hedgehog himself.}}
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** Things only get worse in the [[Mass Effect 3|third game]] when the Reapers come knocking, especially on Earth. Then, {{spoiler|with the events of the ending, almost every place in the galaxy is going to become a Crapsack World, due to being cut off from every place else}}.
* The post-apocalyptic ''[[Caves of Qud]]'', featuring the usual irradiated wastes and ruins infested with mutants and [[Killer Robot|killer robots]]. Civilization? Small, isolated, and still in such a hole that ''purified water'' is precious enough to be used as currency. Hey, at least there are also lush jungle regions... filled not only with mutants (some of whom are heavily armed), but [[Everything Trying to Kill You|plants that want to shoot you, terrify you, bleed you dry, or rust all your equipment]].
* ''[[
* In the game [[Epic Mickey]], the Wasteland that the story takes place has a very depressing appearance when we first see it. It use to be beautiful until Mickey Mouse created the Shadow Blot and spilled thinner onto the world, causing the beautiful features to be swept away. There are pools of thinner (acid like chemical) surrounding certain areas and many areas are teaming with blot minions. Depending on the decisions the player makes, the Wasteland's depressing features can be minimal or dramatic. While it is true that for many structures, the player can use paint to make them look less gloomy, the sad features still exist beneath the paint.
* ''[[Doom]] II'': "Now you are the only Human left on the face of the planet. Cannibal mutations, carnivorous aliens, and evil spirits are your only neighbors…"
* If you're a human in the ''[[God of War (
* ''[[Escape Velocity|EV Nova]]'' to some extent, though it never quite loses a hopeful tone. [[The Federation]] is a police state thanks to the elected government having been suborned by one of its [[State Sec|intelligence agencies]], and has the Vell-os ([[Telepathic Spacemen|a psychic offshoot of humanity]]) enslaved to it. The Auroran Empire is a [[The Alliance|loose confederation]] of [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|warrior houses]] that [[Enemy Civil War|fight among themselves]] as often as they fight the Federation. The Polaris are xenophobic isolationists with a [[Higher
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[[Category:Crapsack World]]
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