10 Video Games Way Darker Than Originally Advertised

What initially seemed like a fun horror romp actually turned out to be something a lot sadder when it was revealed that the whole thing was a metaphor for the child protagonist’s neglectful mother.

Initial trailers made it look like a pretty standard adventure horror: through the kid’s eyes we see a loving home, a treasured teddy bear and then, as it turns to night, an unfamiliar dark nightmare world.

Cavorting through dreams as a two year old child? Interesting! People were excited!

When the full game came out, it wasn’t too far from what was advertised. We still got our teddy bear sidekick and our nightmare traipsing, it was just that the ‘loving mother’ aspect became a bit more complicated.

Revealed in clues throughout the game, as well as one depressing yet hopeful final act, we see that the protagonist’s mother isn’t the textbook figure we expected from our first glimpses of her.

We can deduce that the child’s parents are fairly recently divorced and that the mother has one hell of a drinking problem. The monster all along has been his mum in her drunken rages, and his only salvation comes at the end of the game when he’s finally taken by the child protective services.

There are few things bleaker than child abuse, and this one really hit hard.