Misdirection is an artform many creators take an exceptional amount of time to master. It results in a sea of shock and awe in movies as the rug is pulled out from under the audience. But when it comes to video games, it can have a stunning and even a disturbing reaction as players peel back layers of the experience in a more interactive medium.
There are tons of games out there that disarm the player with their charming graphics or simple designs, then there are those that are more subtly sinister in the background. Either way, many titles are far, far darker than they appear.
Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight is dark in the sense that a Tim Burton movie is dark, relying more on the strange and unusual rather than outright horrific imagery. That being said, it's a Metroidvania with a cute, insect-inspired art style, but a grim and gothic storyline set in the dark recesses of Hollownest.
The designs might be reminiscent of The Nightmare Before Christmas, but the lore and the environmental storytelling are as dark and mysterious as an Edgar Allan Poe story. While it might not be exactly nightmare-inducing, it's incredibly atmospheric and gloomy.
I Am Setsuna
Taking heavy influence from '90s JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, I Am Setsuna is a gorgeous yet somber adventure through a snowy landscape. In the game, the player leads a party of adventurers as they escort the titular Setsuna to the Last Lands where she will be made into a human sacrifice to protect her people from monstrous threats. To say the plot is anything but tragic would be an outright lie.
Behind its anime-inspired facade and enjoyable combat system, I Am Setsuna is a tale of woe that's guaranteed to tug at a few heartstrings. It's a game that lures the player in with its nostalgia and design, but ultimately leaves their heart and soul in pieces on the floor.
Super Mario Bros.
Nearly everyone who has ever played a video game is at least vaguely familiar with the Super Mario games. But as timeless as Nintendo's breakout title is, there's a dark secret behind the 8-bit wonder of the Mushroom Kingdom in the original NES title.
If someone were to label Mario as a mass murderer, they'd be given some strange looks. However, in the original manual for Super Mario Bros., it's revealed that Mario isn't just stomping on Goombas and Koopas. The manual reads "The Mushroom People were turned into mere stones, bricks, and even field horsehair plants..." That means that every block Mario breaks is actually a defenseless citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom.
The Pokémon Series
It's true that Pokémon is easily one of the best-selling and most popular gaming franchises of all time and its fandom is one of the most vocal in the gaming community. But behind all the cute and cuddly monsters scurrying about in the tall grass, there's a sinister world of pet fighting that children have been exposed to for decades.
If the Pokémon were exchanged for real animals like dogs or roosters, the trainers would be looking at some serious charges for engaging in a bloodsport. And players have been engaged in it for over 122 titles.
Cave Story
It might look like a cute retro-styled Metroidvania, but Cave Story takes a headlong dive into some dark, depressing, and heartbreaking material. It might have a few notes of whimsy scattered throughout its world of robots, mad scientists, and rabbit people, but it's all a facade hiding genetic experimentation, torture, and death that would make up a sci-fi dystopian novel if placed anywhere else.
Even if the player manages to meet the objectives and unlock the "Good" ending, they will still be left with a bittersweet tale by the time the credits roll. Sometimes the player just can't save them all.
Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion
A false sense of security is a great way to build up a scare, regardless of the medium. Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion is an unusual horror game, but one that plays with the player's expectations in an almost sadistic way. The cutesy cartoony art style might look harmless at first, but there are worse things than cardboard ghosts in this haunted house.
The deeper the player goes into the bowels of the manor, the more unsettling and nightmarish the monsters become. With 13 specimens ranging from ghosts to flesh-eating monsters, explorers will have to really be on their toes unless they want to become yet another horror-related fatality.
Undertale
The very definition of a cult favorite, Undertale is a game that doesn't exactly tell the player everything on their first run. It follows similar RPG mechanics to something like Earthbound and features several winks and nods to the RPG genre as a whole, but it's the story and secret morality system that truly twists things around.
The game is known for its cast of monster characters that the player encounters, but how they handle each encounter is up to them. While it's highly preferred simply to make friends with each critter and creature Frisk comes across, there is always the less-than-friendly option to rip and tear through a genocide mode. That being said, every action has a consequence.
Braid
Braid is a nifty little indie darling that takes tropes and mechanics from platform games like Super Mario Bros. and gives them a different spin. It's also an example of how the protagonist isn't always the hero. While it might play like a typical side-scrolling platformer with a quirky time mechanic, there's a more disturbing narrative at play.
What begins as a tale of a hero, a princess, and a monster soon turns into one of obsession, kidnapping, and abuse. Interpretations range from an abusive relationship to the creation of the atomic bomb, but there is certainly more than this puzzle-platformer is telling.
Minecraft
At first, Minecraft is a charming, delightful, and addictive experience that millions of players continuously enjoy on a regular basis. However, the further someone gets in the game's survival mode, the less charming and delightful this blocky landscape becomes, Especially when the player is overrun by creepers, zombies, and other monsters, or maybe digs just a little bit too deep.
While it's technically true that the game is only as difficult as the player makes it, there's something not-so-friendly beneath the surface in its main mode. Players are encouraged to create massive Minecraft builds, but there's always someone or something out there who wants to destroy it all in one fell swoop.
Cuphead
Anything that has a deal with the devil involved has to have at least some measurement of darkness to it. Cuphead and Mugman might inhabit a kooky and colorful cartoon world, but a devilish plot after losing at the Devil's Casino soon takes away a few shades from the game's bright and peppy palate.
Similar to the golden-age cartoons that inspired it, there's an inherently dark undertone surrounding the otherwise cartoony designs. While bouncy and silly characters are all par for the course, the themes of gambling, alcohol, and shady deals are motifs that never leave the game, no matter how many bright and sunny levels there are.