10 Great Video Games That Are Ugly On Purpose

5. Cruelty Squad

Cruelty Squad is, more than most games on this list, a title that absolutely won't be for everyone, and that's primarily because its visual style is so unabashedly repulsive. This isn't a game you'd ever want to play hungover, that's for sure.

An acid-dipped riff on classic stealth-action games like Hitman, Cruelty Squad casts players in the role of an assassin tasked with carrying out various assignments.

The big difference? You're a biologically augmented assassin residing in what the developer describes as a "sewage infused garbage world." No lies detected.

The various sandbox levels and all the UI elements are willfully hideous in what's both a throwback to underground FPS games of decades past, and something of a response to the "realism" sought by modern military shooters.

The blocky, low-polygon graphics and nauseatingly garish textures are tailor-made to induce as much discomfort in the player as possible, evoking the vibe that this is something you probably shouldn't be playing.

Yet underneath its purposefully gross aesthetic is a genuinely riveting, refreshingly straight-forward tactical shooter unencumbered by the excessive, overbaked mechanics of modern FPS games.