10 Video Games Way Freakier Than You Thought
9. Pikmin
To the casual observer - that is, people who've never actually played it - the Pikmin franchise is just another totally adorbs Nintendo IP where you control a fleet of cute little creatures. This is to totally ignore the game's alarmingly ominous lore.
For starters, those bright colours bely the fact that the Pikmin series is a post-apocalyptic one, taking place on the remnants of the Earth-like planet PNF-404, which despite featuring so many Earth-like objects and characteristics, doesn't appear to count a single human being among its population.
Extraterrestrial protagonist Captain Olimar commands hordes of Pikmin, often resulting in their deaths, in order to collect enough spaceship parts to return home before his life support systems fail.
As if that wasn't a grim enough setup, the various creatures which roam the planet are often skin-crawlingly offputting, perhaps none more so than the "kill it with fire"-worthy final boss of the first game, The Emperor Bulblax.
Simply, the first game in particular is absolutely soaked in existential dread, for Olimar, the Pikmin, and humanity itself. Did anyone expect any of that after taking a fleeting glance at the spritely, inviting gameplay?