2. Gears of War
If you thought life was bleak in some of these video game universes, then you havent experienced Gears of War. The inhabitants of the planet Sera have been through a lot in their lives. Firstly they had to cope with the 79-year long Pendulum Wars, a battle between the two major superpowers on the planet for energy resources, which resulted in millions of lives being lost and the general landscape of the planet being damaged by the weapons used. Then, an alien race known as the Locust appear and start another intense war with humanity, which began with Emergence Day, an event which resulted in a quarter of the total human populating dying on that very first day. Billions of people killed in a single day - thats pretty grim. The survivors of Emergence Day then have to live in fear of constant attack from this new enemy, with their only protection the soldiers of the COG organisation, who are fighting just to stay alive for the majority of the war. Food resources are scarce and living conditions are poor. Then just when it couldn't get worse, another threat appears in the form of the Lambent, creatures mutated from humans and Locust by the Ilmusion energy source. So as the normal guy, all youve known your entire life, and all your parents and their parents have known, is violence and war.