What is the grimdark-est grimdark rpg?

[KeighnMcDeath]

Fucking gay bear x vampire is damn grim and dark and nightmare inducing just by the description.

 

[luj1]

dark sun is as grimdark as it gets

lol

 

[goregasm]

Anyone played Beast: The False Prophet?

Not sure if it's an rpg, or grimdark, but it sure looks grim and....dark. Graphically at least.

Edit: just saw the small review here, not an rpg

 

[Harthwain]

Anyone played Beast: The False Prophet?

Not sure if it's an rpg, or grimdark, but it sure looks grim and....dark. Graphically at least.

Edit: just saw the small review here, not an rpg

It depends a lot on whether you count tactical games with RPG elements as actual RPGs (the OP apparently does).

King Arthur: Knight's Tale and Battle Brothers fall under that category. Also, Mordheim: City of the Damned.

 

[9ted6]

Grimdark games are typically the ones that slap you in the ending with a summary of how nothing you just did mattered and the kingdom or world you're in is doomed anyway

pillows of eternity!

Sawyer grimly tips his dark fedora.

 

[Reinhardt]

Battle Brothers

nigga, bb is not grimdark. good guys win almost every time, even on ironman, after some accumulated knowledge.

 

[Borelli]

Blood Omen Legacy of Kain

Soul reaver tops it in the grimdark department probably.

I disagree, while Soul Reaver 1 post apo setting makes it grim, at the end of day you have a good reason to be vengeful and spend most of the game killing.

In Blood Omen 1 you are anti hero at best and villain at worst, no one is trustworthy, good guys lose, and you make the world a shittier place.

 

[Serus]

Battle Brothers

nigga, bb is not grimdark. good guys win almost every time, even on ironman, after some accumulated knowledge.

Whether you win or not in particular battles is of no concern for a game being grimdark or not. What counts is that you can't change the world for better, it remains shit no matter how successful you are. In vast majority computer RPGs (or CRPG-ish like BB) the player is supposed to win in the end. Including most games mentioned in this thread.
In early versions of Battle Brother, iirc, settlements being destroyed permanently was the default. It meant that the situation can only get worse with time - very grimdarkly. The world is portrayed facing constant, unending, threat of undead, greenskins, civil and religious wars. There are slavers, dark cults, bros end dead or maimed all the time, etc...
However the mentioned permanent destruction is now an option that nobody plays with and the world is not THAT dark or grim, even if it can be seen as doomed like, say, Warhammer/40K.
I'd classify Battle Brothers as just "dark" but not over the top "grimdark". One can claim it is the best type of "darkness".

 

[Serus]

dark sun is as grimdark as it gets

lol

Dark Sun pnp RPG setting could be, perhaps, called grimdark. It seems to be really oppressive, brutal and hopeless. I'm not sure about the computer game(s) though. I didn't play much the first one but it seemed to me... too colorful, sunny (i know, it's a desert world, it doesn't have to be literally dark). Even the fact that you start as slave on an arena doesn't change it.
Since i only played a few hours (of 1st game) I might be very wrong.

 

[Reinhardt]

permanent destruction is now an option that nobody plays with

i do...

 

[OneManArmyGames]

Dark Sun pnp RPG could be perhaps called grimdark but i'm not sure about the computer games.

Indeed Shattered Lands is far from Grimdark. As much as I like the game, the main plot is the cliched heroic plucky underdog uniting the rebel factions against the evil army, ultimately defeating it (difficulty spike notwithstanding ).

 

[Serus]

permanent destruction is now an option that nobody plays with

i do...

Therefore you must be nobody. It means you do not exist and are only a figment of my imagination. Logic! Talk about grimdark.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

What is the grimdark-est grimdark rpg?

My life would definitely qualify.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Dark Sun pnp RPG setting could be, perhaps, called grimdark. It seems to be really oppressive, brutal and hopeless. I'm not sure about the computer game(s) though. I didn't play much the first one but it seemed to me... too colorful, sunny (i know, it's a desert world, it doesn't have to be literally dark). Even the fact that you start as slave on an arena doesn't change it.
Since i only played a few hours (of 1st game) I might be very wrong.

Correct about the games, as for the setting, it's a fantasy version of a post-apocalyptic setting. The entire region (which is de facto the entire world) consists of a bunch of city-states ruled by tyrannical, immortal sorcerer-kings, while the landscape is mostly environmentally devastated. However, the very first adventure (which is also the plot of the first novel) has the sorcerer-king of Tyr overthrown and killed, and this and various other events of the adventure modules and novels would be integrated into the second version of the Dark Sun box set, fundamentally altering the setting and rendering it far less "grimdark".

 

[Lhynn]

I dont know man, I always thought Paranoia had the worst timeline.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I dont know man, I always thought Paranoia had the worst timeline.

That kinda talk is treason bruv. Could get a fella killed.

 

[n0wh3r3]

Warhammer is not that grimdark IMO, yes, lot of people dying but there are still heroes doing heroic stuff.

that's the point. without any glimmer of hope there can be no true darkness.

Yah, what shall we call the darkdark game then?

Where's no hope?

boring pointless shit?

An office job....

i remember side stories in another eden. genocide, cannibalism - lots of sick shit. and most depressing was story about corporate wage slave...

but again - mandatory glimmer of hope! one day company mascot doll starts talking to him and he sees the light at the end of the tonnel

what game is this?

 

[Reinhardt]

Warhammer is not that grimdark IMO, yes, lot of people dying but there are still heroes doing heroic stuff.

that's the point. without any glimmer of hope there can be no true darkness.

Yah, what shall we call the darkdark game then?

Where's no hope?

boring pointless shit?

An office job....

i remember side stories in another eden. genocide, cannibalism - lots of sick shit. and most depressing was story about corporate wage slave...

but again - mandatory glimmer of hope! one day company mascot doll starts talking to him and he sees the light at the end of the tonnel

what game is this?

another eden

 

[Terenty]

I'd say Demon Souls has one of the bleakest settings, Tower of Latria and Valley of Defilement are textbook grimdark

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Tower of Latria from Demon's Souls also happens to be the best set of levels in the entire Souls series.

 

[PsihoKekec]

I hate those tentacle head guards, always had to tiptoe around so I could stab them in the back (love the stab in the back animation though).

 

[n0wh3r3]

Not the grim-darkest but I'd say Lawless Lands and other Corrosive Studios games are pretty grim-dark and not well known rpg maker games. Not bad games though.

 

[Arbiter]

Doom RPG.