The saddest, bleakest, most miserable games on PC

Typically it is good simply to wallow, and these glass-half-empty video games are the proper excuse to embrace the disappointment. Whether or not you are coldly nuking half the planet in a hopeless warfare, or battering manifestations of your individual guilt with a plank of wooden in an deserted vacation resort, these video games are notable for being actually, deeply grim. Overlook hope. Let’s get darkish.

DEFCON

(Picture credit score: Introversion)

A Chilly Battle nightmare wherein warring superpowers hurl nuclear missiles at one another till completely everyone seems to be useless. We’re used to seeing nuclear devastation up shut and private in videogames, however this reveals the opposite facet: the eerie silence of the warfare room as world leaders orchestrate the overall destruction of the planet. Often you will hear a girl softly weeping within the background, which is quietly one of many darkest issues I’ve ever encountered in a videogame. —Andy Kelly

Cart Life

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(Picture credit score: Hofmeier)

A powerfully bleak life sim, Cart Life encompasses a trio of struggling avenue distributors as they attempt to juggle their lives and jobs. Every day is spent doing monotonous work for few rewards. Time and funds should be managed, however there’s by no means sufficient of both. There are addictions to feed, too, like cigarettes and occasional. One other expense. They’re all lonely and drained and trapped in a sisyphean cycle, with the day by day grind maintaining their hopes out of attain. It’s stuffed with quiet tragedies and greedy at little moments, like petting a cat or having a pleasant dialog, to get via the day. —Fraser Brown

Darkish Souls

(Picture credit score: FromSoftware)

Rekindle the flames of fires lengthy burned out. Beforehand dominated by dragons, you traipse via a world in smash as you battle frightful entities and acquire their valuable souls. Darkish Souls’ lore is convoluted at the very best of instances, however it’s tough to not marvel at Lordran, a setting steeped in such historic sorrow. Firelink Shrine will at all times really feel like residence, serving as a comforting beacon in a world now absent of hope. Protect an Age of Hearth or usher within the looming darkness. —Emma Matthews

Papers, Please

(Picture credit score: Lucas Pope)

Work thankless shifts at a grim border crossing, ruining individuals’s lives with chilly forms, and generally getting them killed within the course of—together with your self and your complete household in case you step out of line. A spectacularly bleak recreation with an oppressive ambiance, the place any glimmer of hope is routinely snuffed out. —Andy Kelly

Max Payne

(Picture credit score: Treatment)

A New York cop returns residence to seek out his spouse and toddler daughter murdered by a junkie, and embarks on a quest of bloody vengeance. Max Payne’s tongue-in-cheek movie noir pastiche is humorous and self-aware, however there’s an simple undercurrent of disappointment to every part—notably the part the place Max has to navigate a maze of blood in a black void, accompanied by the sound of his useless child crying. —Andy Kelly

What Stays Of Edith Finch

(Picture credit score: Large Sparrow)

As you hint the lives and disturbing deaths that rupture the troubled family of What Stays of Edith Finch, just a little piece of you stays with them. It’s a haunting anthology that’s restlessly ingenious: it performs with perspective ingeniously to thrust you shut to every member of the family to relive, and perceive, their tragic last moments. —Harry Shepherd

Life Is Unusual

(Picture credit score: Sq. Enix)

It seems you’re by no means too previous to get swept up in teen drama. And tornadoes. Regardless of the time journey conceit and the apocalyptic storm, Life is Unusual is absolutely about awkward teen friendships, tragic intestine punches and being compelled to make horrible choices. No matter decisions you make, you’ll inevitably find yourself an emotional wreck by the tip. It’s received large Telltale vibes, however with extra grounded characters and, for essentially the most half, acquainted issues, every part hits quite a bit tougher. —Fraser Brown

Kane & Lynch 2: Canine Days

(Picture credit score: IO Interactive)

A pair of hateful, immoral criminals stampede via the streets of Shanghai in an finally pointless killing spree. It is a deeply cynical, misanthropic recreation with completely no coronary heart—however that is the purpose. It’s a brazen, ghoulish murder-fest that’s as twisted and amoral as its heroes, and has no pretensions in any other case. It is bizarre enjoying a recreation the place the protagonists haven’t any redeeming qualities in anyway, and actually, I might like to see extra of that in videogames. —Andy Kelly

This Battle Of Mine

(Picture credit score: 11 bit studios)

A harrowing survival sim the place you play as a bunch of civilians struggling to remain alive in a metropolis gripped by army intervention. This Battle of Mine is a sobering depiction of warfare exhibiting the devastating affect on its most weak group. It is an limitless wrestle for meals, medication and provides, and with The Little Ones growth introducing kids into the sport, This Battle of Mine takes its story to an excellent darker place. —Rachel Watts

Pricey Esther

(Picture credit score: TheChineseCompany)

Not sufficient videogames are set on bleak, barren Hebridean islands. This primary-person narrative recreation, which arguably kickstarted the strolling sim style, completely captures the gray, wind-battered atmosphere of the Scottish isles, utilizing it to weave a darkish and enigmatic story. The narration is randomised each time you play, however whichever order you hear the story in, the ending is at all times a gutpunch. —Andy Kelly

Frostpunk

(Picture credit score: 11 Bit Studios)

Congratulations, you’ve been tasked with rebuilding the final metropolis on Earth within the bitterly chilly winter apocalypse. This metropolis administration sim is targeted solely on survival and it is your job to rebuild London earlier than the tough chilly erases the final of humanity. Introduce youngster labour legal guidelines, drive employees to eat sawdust, or create a brutal totalitarian society—do every part you possibly can to maintain the looming generator going. Frostpunk turns you right into a monster. —Rachel Watts

The Strolling Useless: Season One

(Picture credit score: Telltale Video games)

“Lee, do not go”. Set towards wistful violin, these high-pitched, terrified phrases by no means fairly left me. The power and emotional depth of the connection between a convicted assassin and just a little orphan, plunged in maturity lengthy earlier than her time, ensures that season one in every of The Strolling Useless: The Sport stays the very best within the sequence. Regardless of technical glitches and dodgy animations right here and there, its finale left an indelible mark on Clementine for the remainder of her life, and mine. —Harry Shepherd