10 Video Games With Little Hope For Humanity

10. Silent Hill 2

Hit video game franchises don't get more oppressively bleak than Silent Hill, which in its masterful second outing delivered perhaps gaming's ultimate meditation on the destructive power of depression and guilt.

There's not a single happy or outwardly redeemable character to be found in Silent Hill 2, a game that confronts themes as cheery as euthanasia, mental illness, trauma, sexual abuse, punishment, and suicide.

To say that the game encompasses many of the ugliest aspects of human nature is an understatement, the titular town's pervasive fog serving as a metaphor for the toxic miasma from which humanity itself cannot escape.

While Silent Hill 2 does at least have multiple endings that culminate in varying degrees of "happiness" - relatively speaking, anyway - the most commonly accepted canon ending sees protagonist James drowning himself in order to be reunited with his dead wife.

Though there's no 100% canon ending, this is one that members of the game's dev team have most often pointed to being so, which is about as hopeless an ending as imaginable.

Silent Hill 2 gains much of its power through its personal, existential themes: James isn't The One or a particularly remarkable person, but simply a man going through a hellish personal odyssey.

Anyone who's ever dealt with overpowering grief or guilt will find it discomfortingly relatable.