Games Where You Make Everything Worse

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I’ve noticed something really interesting in games lately – it’s not always about being the hero! Sometimes, as a player, you actually end up making things worse, even if you’re trying to do the right thing. It’s not that you’re a villain, exactly, but your choices can have unintended consequences, hurting people or damaging the world around you. It’s cool to see games where you can mess things up just by being clumsy or making bad decisions, even when your heart is in the right place!

The most compelling disaster scenarios in games happen when players can choose between being good or bad, or when their choices unintentionally cause problems, even if they’re trying to do the right thing. These games often present a world where doing good is difficult, forcing players to make tough sacrifices and compromises, or suggesting that a truly happy ending isn’t possible.

Pathologic 2

Every Choice Creates A New Disaster

Details:

  • Sacrifices are a necessity
  • The entire town can die if decisions are poor

Pathologic 2 focuses on difficult choices where saving something always means losing something else. The game doesn’t offer easy wins; every decision you make helps one group while harming another, and these choices have lasting consequences, often resulting in death.

The game’s characters remember when you ignore them, and the story changes to show the consequences of your mistakes instead of glossing over them. This is frustrating because the game doesn’t tell you how to fix things. Even if you try to do the right thing, it can easily cause other problems, making the game feel like a constant, overwhelming battle to stay on top of everything – a battle you’re likely to lose.

Disco Elysium

Failure Is Inevitable

Details:

  • Words dictate the fate of many
  • Large canonical impacts from single dialogue options

Disco Elysium brilliantly shows how a game can change dramatically based on your choices and how you treat other characters. What you say in conversations can influence politics and personal connections, and making bad decisions can ruin both, closing off entire storylines and ending important relationships.

Instead of punishing mistakes, the game embraces them as part of the story. Whether it’s emotional struggles or difficult habits, these setbacks change the narrative and how other characters react. Failure isn’t a dead end; it’s what drives the story forward, pushing players to try and make things right, even though they rarely succeed.

Shadow of the Colossus

Heroism Disguising A Darker Truth

Details:

  • Victories make the world quieter and bleaker
  • Irreversible damage

Initially, Shadow of the Colossus seems like a straightforward mission: defeat massive giants to rescue a loved one. However, as you win each battle, the game world becomes increasingly silent, bleak, and disturbing. The environment feels more desolate, and the protagonist’s physical condition worsens, vividly demonstrating the real-time consequences of his actions.

The game doesn’t directly tell you you’re making things worse, but the unsettling atmosphere constantly hints at it. The deeper you go, the more the enemies seem less like villains and more like protectors of something hidden. Ultimately, the story’s strength comes from the realization – often too late – that achieving your goals has permanently harmed the world.

Tyranny

Committing Atrocities On A Large Scale

Details:

  • Trade-offs for every decision
  • Pursuing selfish ambitions

In Tyranny, you play as someone in power in a world already falling apart. But trying to fix things only makes them worse. Supporting different groups means enabling terrible acts, and even trying to be kind can backfire, leading to more suffering down the line. It’s a game where every decision you make has difficult consequences.

The story focuses on difficult choices and the consequences that come with them. There isn’t a way to achieve a perfect outcome – only different paths that lead to varying degrees of negative results. The world actively responds to the player’s actions; regions change and beliefs crumble based on how morally questionable their choices are.

Spec Ops: The Line

Obdedience Is The Real Crime

Details:

  • Constant escalating violence
  • No victors in war

Unlike most shooter games where you simply defeat enemies, Spec Ops: The Line suggests that moving forward is the real issue. While you’re trying to restore order, the game makes each victory feel like a failure, with violence increasing and the situation worsening with every step you take. The more you succeed, the more devastating the consequences become.

This game challenges the traditional hero fantasy by showing players the real cost of blindly following orders. The story makes you directly responsible for everything you do, making it hard to tell right from wrong. Even trying to do the right thing often makes things worse. Ultimately, the game reveals that the biggest problems aren’t caused by evil actions, but by simply obeying without thinking.

InFAMOUS

Saving Lives At What Cost

Details:

  • Destruction is a certainty
  • Death comes even in good playthroughs

In the game FAMOUS, your decisions have a clear and lasting negative impact on the world around you, no matter if you play as a ruthless villain or someone trying to be a good person. Choosing the evil path makes people fear you and transforms peaceful neighborhoods into dangerous areas, and even when you try to do something heroic, it often results in unintended harm and the death of innocent bystanders.

The game’s morality system isn’t just a side feature; it fundamentally shapes how the world sees you. Players can strive to be heroes, rescuing people and cleaning up the city, but this path is rarely simple. Even with good intentions, actions often have messy, violent consequences that impact everyone around, not just enemies. How characters react and the overall feel of the city change based on your choices, reinforcing that every decision has a cost – even when you’re trying to do the right thing.

Prototype

Strength Comes From Carnage

Details:

  • Killing becomes necessary
  • Always secondary harm caused

Prototype boldly puts players in the role of the villain. As you become more powerful as Alex Mercer, the city around you falls apart, transforming from a lively urban center into a ruined landscape. The military reacts with increasing force, people disappear, and the environment becomes a war zone—all consequences of your actions, demonstrating the game’s willingness to explore a dark and destructive path.

As a fan, what really struck me about the story is how it shows power slowly corrupting everything. It feels like gaining strength always leads to darkness and loneliness. And it’s not just a feeling – the gameplay shows it too! You’re constantly taking over enemies and tearing things down, and there’s absolutely no way for anyone to break free from that cycle, no matter what they do. It’s a really bleak, but compelling, idea.

The Last of Us Part 2

The Cost Of Relentless Vengeance

Details:

  • Bloodshed with seemingly no end
  • Closure is never guaranteed

As a huge fan of The Last of Us, Part 2 really hit me hard. It’s a game built around this endless cycle of revenge – one violent act just leads to another, and it feels like it never stops. What’s so impactful is seeing how chasing justice completely destroys relationships and leaves Ellie feeling lost, like she can’t ever really go back to who she was. The first game showed Ellie as this resilient, clever survivor, but in Part 2, she transforms into someone consumed by vengeance. It’s heartbreaking to watch her prioritize getting revenge over the people she loves, and she just seems… lost in her own rage.

The narrative doesn’t reward the player’s choices, instead making them confront the consequences from various viewpoints. By the conclusion, almost everyone is deeply scarred, and the world feels bleak, even if the player wished they could have made different decisions. There are no happy endings; just as things seem to calm down, another tragedy occurs, usually a death, shattering any hope for peace.

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2026-01-20 06:06