- 06/07/2025
Truly unsettling
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00:00One of the greatest things about video games is the sheer amount of detail a meticulous
00:04developer can cram into their game.
00:06Whether expanding the wider lore, fleshing out the supporting characters, or just flat
00:11out including details intended to make players feel like absolute garbage.
00:16These ten video games are largely fantastic in their own rights, all dared to include
00:20secret truths which, if discovered, would undeniably change how you felt about each game.
00:26Whether guilting the player for their actions throughout, introducing some low-key horrific
00:30worldbuilding which changed everything, or simply offering up some deeply devastating subplots,
00:36these games all delivered unsettling home shrewds most players would probably rather be blissfully
00:42ignorant about.
00:43Though these reveals weren't easily missed by the vast majority of players, they nevertheless
00:47recontextualise each game, their story, their characters, and their gameplay, in ways likely
00:53to make you feel at least a little bad.
00:56Of course the players themselves aren't always to blame, but at the same time these disturbing
01:01revelations should give them pause to consider the consequences of their actions.
01:06I'm just for WhatCulture, here are ten horrifying video game truths you never noticed.
01:11Number 10.
01:12Malice had to watch you kill all the other colossi, Shadow of the Colossus.
01:17Shadow of the Colossus ends with the devastating reveal that you've killed sixteen innocent colossi,
01:23finding their own business, in turn accidentally releasing the malevolent supernatural entity,
01:28Dormen.
01:29But the game accidentally twists the knife further, as players battle the game's final
01:33colossus, Malice, a giant skyscraper-sized humanoid.
01:37The boss is hidden away in a secret area of the Forbidden Land, which can't be accessed
01:41until the prior fifteen colossi have been beaten, a valley which looks out over the land
01:46where you've spent your time throughout the game.
01:49And while atop Malice, observant players might notice that all fifteen of the Pillars of
01:54Light, which mark the area where you've killed a colossus, are visible in the sky, suggesting
01:59that poor Malice had to watch as each of his fifteen siblings were felled by you.
02:04As if this game wasn't heartbreaking enough already.
02:07Number 9.
02:08The man you save in Saint Denis gets hanged a few days later.
02:11Red Dead Redemption 2.
02:13One of Red Dead Redemption 2's most memorable random encounters allows players to discover
02:17a badly wounded stranger lying in the road near Saint Denis.
02:22And if they take him to Dr. Barnes, he'll end up having his arm amputated in order to
02:26save his life.
02:27As much as that seems like a pretty decent outcome for a guy who seemed to be on death's
02:31door when you stumbled across him, if you travel through Saint Denis a few days later, you'll
02:36find a grim follow-up to the man's story.
02:39As it turns out, he's been strung up at the gallows for murdering a woman who, get this,
02:44ridiculed his disfigurement.
02:46As the man is hanged for his crime, you're left upon to the virtue, or lack thereof, of
02:52helping a wounded stranger in the harsh, unforgiving landscape of the Old West.
02:57Nobody does side content quite like Rockstar, eh?
02:59Number 8.
03:00Some of the enemy soldiers were forcibly conscripted.
03:03Call of Duty World at War.
03:05Call of Duty World at War may not be among the FPS series' best or most memorable entries,
03:11beyond introducing the wildly popular Zombies mode, but it does feature one of its most low-key
03:16disturbing story beats.
03:18The game's campaign takes place during World War II, and its sixth mission, Burn Em Out,
03:23sees players hurled into the Pacific theater as Allied soldier Private Miller, who takes part
03:28in an offensive against the Imperial Japanese Army.
03:32During this level, you'll end up getting access to the devastating M2 flamethrower, causing
03:37any afflicted Japanese soldiers to scream variants of fire and hot in Japanese.
03:42But some players notice that some of the immolated soldiers are actually screaming out in an Indonesian
03:47tongue, seemingly implying that they're actually Heiho soldiers, auxiliary members of the Indonesian
03:53Army who were captured and forcibly conscripted to fight for the Japanese.
03:57As much as the Call of Duty games tend to be pretty flippant about the true, soul-crushing
04:02nature of war, this was an insanely depressing revelation, that some of the people you've
04:07been toasting weren't even committed to the damn cause.
04:107.
04:11The Red Zone's few remaining citizens are mostly suicidal.
04:15Prototype 2.
04:16Prototype 2's Red Zone is a region of New York City which had become totally ravaged by the
04:20blacklight virus, overrun by a colossal horde of the infected, while actual human beings
04:26are extremely few and far between.
04:28But if you explore the Red Zone's rooftops, you'll periodically come across scattered survivors,
04:33most of whom sadly take a suicidal leap from the roof the moment you move near them.
04:38Their situation is evidently hopeless enough that they've opted to punch their own ticket,
04:43rather than risk becoming one of the infected, though fast-thinking players can rescue them if they wish.
04:49Despite cementing the full emotional toll of the blacklight virus, these suicidal NPCs are
04:54easily missed even by those who've beaten the entire game.
04:586.
04:59The PS4 was never released in the game's world, The Last of Us Part 2.
05:03The Last of Us 2 is one of the bleakest video games ever made, and while a humanity-annihilating
05:08infection is certainly enough depression for one game, Naughty Dog's expert worldbuilding
05:13also hints at some subtler tragedies.
05:15For starters, players can find numerous PlayStation 3 consoles strewn around the world, typically
05:21with copies of Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2 Among Thieves and Jak and Daxter Collection.
05:26This might seem like nothing more than a couple of cute Easter eggs, until you remember that
05:30the Cordyceps fungus began to spread in September 2013, a whole two months before the PlayStation
05:374 was actually released.
05:39And we can safely assume the world was probably too busy fighting for survival for PlayStation exclusives
05:44like Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War and Marvel's Spider-Man to ever get made.
05:50Of course, video games are a total luxury at the best of times, let alone when a plague
05:54strikes the world, but it's nevertheless a quietly haunting detail that lets you know just how
05:59quickly Cordyceps brought everyone to their knees.
06:025.
06:03The train bomber can be seen two minutes before the bomb goes off.
06:07Deus Ex Mankind Divided Early on in Deus Ex Mankind Divided, protagonist
06:12Adam Jensen heads to Prague to meet up with Alex Vega, and the pair end up getting caught
06:17in a train station bombing.
06:19It's later revealed that the bomb was planted by augmented terrorist Ivan Burke, yet unbeknownst
06:24to players at this time, Ivan actually walks past Adam and Alex a mere two minutes before
06:30the bomb goes off in the level's opening cutscene.
06:33Beyond totally drawing attention to himself with his rather loud choice of clothing, Ivan
06:37also covers his face when walking past Adam, seemingly indicating he's got something to
06:42hide.
06:43If that's not enough, just as Ivan exits the screen, Adam says to Alex,
06:47I can only go after enemies I can see.
06:50Well, he was right there, Adam.
06:524.
06:53The police are even more racist than you think.
06:55Mafia 3
06:56It's no secret at all that one of Mafia 3's primary themes is racism.
07:01Casting plays in the role of black protagonist Lincoln Clay, who resides in the New Orleans-esque
07:07New Bordeaux, in the midst of the civil rights upheaval of the late 60s.
07:11Though anyone who's played the game will note how quick the police are to pull their guns
07:15on you if they suspect you're doing something untoward.
07:18Systemic racism within the police is also depicted in an altogether subtler fashion.
07:23For starters, police response times are actually coded to be different depending on the area
07:28of the game your crime takes place in.
07:30In an affluent, predominantly white area, the cops will swarm your location in record
07:35time.
07:36While in poorer, generally black neighborhoods, the fuzz will take a more casual approach to
07:40tracking you down.
07:42Worse still, the cops will respond more aggressively when crimes are committed against white people,
07:48whereas with black victims, they'll be a lot less enthusiastic to see justice done.
07:52The game as a whole depicts an enormous amount of racism, both casual and not committed against
07:58Lincoln.
07:59But some of the most egregious are also some of the most subtle.
08:023.
08:03Enemy Corpses Rot During Time Travel
08:06Titanfall 2
08:07Titanfall 2 boasts perhaps the most criminally underappreciated single-player FPS campaign
08:12of the entire generation, a short but ingeniously executed sci-fi action blast.
08:18The campaign's marquee level is unquestionably Effect and Cause, in which the player uses the
08:24time gauntlet to leap back and forth through time, making for some of the most creative
08:28combat and traversal the genre has ever seen, frankly.
08:32But the attention to detail respawn applied to the time hopping mechanic is such that killing
08:37an enemy soldier in the past and leaping back to the present will then show their body
08:41in a stage of decomposition due to the time passing between the two periods.
08:46Gross.
08:47It's a brilliant enough gimmick that it's a genuine shame Respawn only used it for
08:52a single mission, because it's easily nuanced enough to carry an entire video game on its
08:57own.
08:582.
08:59The waitress from the start of the game can be found in the morgue later, Batman Arkham
09:03Knight
09:04Batman Arkham Knight opens with an unforgettably brutal sequence set in a diner, where the player
09:09briefly controls police officer Owens, in a first-person view no less, who's served by
09:14a kindly waitress, Sharon, and informed by a fellow patron about a man smoking in the corner
09:19of the diner.
09:20As Owens goes to investigate, Scarecrow releases his fear toxin within the diner, leading to
09:26the infected patrons and staff members rabidly beating one another to death.
09:30The scene is so utterly chaotic that we're never quite sure who lived and who died, but
09:35those who played the game's Season of Infamy DLC and pay a visit to the Elliott Memorial
09:39Hospital will be able to take a look in the morgue and get some answers.
09:43Sadly, the corpses of both Sharon and the diner patron who spoke to Owens can be found in the
09:48morgue drawers, confirming they didn't survive Scarecrow's savage attack.
09:52They both seemed like nice, upstanding people, but in the case of the highly affable, attentive
09:58waitress Sharon, it was an especially painful revelation.
10:02Props to the game for making you care about a minor character's fate in such a short space
10:06of time.
10:071.
10:08Olly Bulb Only Attacks in Self-Defense Cuphead
10:12Cuphead revels in the fact that it's one of the most visually stunning video games of
10:16the prior generation.
10:18It's adorable vintage art style juxtaposed against the fact that it is a brutally difficult
10:23boss rush platformer.
10:25And while the game's high degree of challenge forces players into a hyper-aggressive mindset,
10:30there's actually a secret way to spare one of the game's more timid boss characters.
10:35During the opening battle against the Root Pack, the second of the three enemies is Olly
10:39Bulb, a sentient cherub-cheeked onion who most players will immediately take to putting
10:44a major hurting on, except the game's 1.2 update altered the fight, so that Olly actually
10:50has no beef with Cuphead at all and will only attack in self-defense.
10:55And so if you simply refuse to attack him, he'll smile at you and disappear back into
11:00the ground within 10 seconds.
11:02With Horace Radish, who was a concept character that didn't make it into the original launch
11:06version of the game, being tagged in as a replacement.
11:10Basically, you probably murdered that adorable onion for no reason at all.
11:13How bad do you feel?
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