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u/bigretardbaby Sep 17 '26
Darkness was actually really good.
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u/LukissxD PC Master Race Sep 17 '26
Prototype was also great
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u/tapeforpacking Sep 18 '26
I spent a ridiculous amount of hours just fucking around in this game. It always felt a bit ahead of its time to me.
Also I didnt learn that Activision made the game until a while later. They make the better cod games too so it makes sense I guess.
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u/Seeker-N7 i7-13700K | RTX 5070Ti | 32Gb 6400Mhz DDR5 Sep 18 '26
Activision doesn't make CoD games, they aren't the devs.
They're the publisher and they publish all CoD games
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u/Kowalski91 Sep 18 '26
All games in this picture are very good and deserve another game in the franchise.
The Darkness was one of the games in needed to import and I fucking loved it. Great story and atmosphere.
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u/bigretardbaby Sep 18 '26
Like. The darkness screams that it's cringe and edgy but I never got the vibe it took itself serious. I honestly never tried manhunt either and I wish I had as a kid.
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u/blackhoodie88 Sep 18 '26
I was a big fan of the comic series (Witchblade/DarknessAngelus) but never bothered to play Darkness, the comic writing style is the same, it never took itself seriously. Honestly I didn't even know that Darkness had multiple games. I thought Witchblade got all the attention while Darkness not so much.
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u/daywall Sep 17 '26
I just played darkness 2 and I had such a great time!
I miss this linear games.
But i dont think 3 is ever coming...
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u/Wsswaas Sep 17 '26
Its been around 20 years now and still remamber Jenny, I watched a whole movie with her ,,,one of the most uniquely intimate and immersive moments in video game history for me
the one I watched was to kill a mockingbird
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u/No_Rise942 Sep 17 '26
Darkness 1 had a better story, 2 had better gameplay BUT you were so overpowered, it was just like murder simulator lol. 1 was definitely more difficult and grounded.
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u/SpaceJesus67 Sep 17 '26
Absolutely loved playing it on the PS3 as a kid. Playing through No Man's Land scared the hell out of me.
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u/FishHammer Sep 17 '26
Publicly traded publishers
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u/rmorrin Sep 17 '26
Yup! All games must be "safe" now and be bland as shit. It's one the reasons indie games have been exploding lately
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u/PermissionSoggy891 Sep 17 '26
Thing is barely any indie games have truly "edgy" themes. Almost all the big ones are safe "wholesome reddit chungus" type games. You don't see ANY indie games coming out that are themed like Manhunt or Prototype.
I, obviously, do not speak for EVERY indie game ever released, just the vast majority that I see.
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u/Discorhy Sep 17 '26
Fear & Hunger, Ultrakill, Cruelty Squad, Faith, Scorn... the edgy indie games exist, you're just letting Steam's cozy algorithms feed you wholesome stuff.
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u/super_starfox 7800X3D | 64GB DDR5 | RTX 5070 16GB | Buncha drives Sep 17 '26
Scorn is a lovely little trek into the headspace of Beksiński/Giger, for those unaware. Even if you don't play the game, the art is worth a peek.
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u/kulingames Ryzen 5 3600, RX580, 16GB DDR4 Sep 17 '26
Cruelty squad is more of a schizophrenia simulator rather than edgy
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u/LeonSigmaKennedy Sep 17 '26
If you look at the actual themes and writing, it's 100% edgy
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u/Daniel-Mclovin Sep 17 '26
It’s edgy, you literally sell organs on a stock market
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u/Duncan_PhD Sep 17 '26
Yeah but it’s better to just pretend that in the year of our lord 2026, where we have more access to games than ever, that none of them are edgy.
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u/StupidSexyEuphoberia Sep 17 '26
But I wanna complain that back in the day it was better, so I have an explanation for not feeling any joy anymore...
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u/rmorrin Sep 17 '26
It's less about them being edgey and more having the freedom to not be locked down into the "safe" formula
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u/ChurchillianGrooves Sep 17 '26
Not on the gore side given graphics limitations but Rogue Trader has some really edgy decisions you can make
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u/Common-Pepper-9677 Sep 17 '26
The fuck is Reddit Chungus 😭
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u/CoyeK GTX 1080TI | I7-7700K | 16GB DDR4 RAM | 4.5TB Storage Sep 17 '26
Ready Player One
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u/waifu_tactical_force Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
The current indie game dev community is to a large extent a hugbox and leaning very heavily towards "cozy" content right now
Though there is value in that and I think it's fully legitimate, if we truly believe games to be art there's obviously value in artists who explore transgression and pushing boundaries, same as is true with painters like Francis Bacon etc. I've been trying to balance the two with my own game
I do think a lot of the edgy stuff from the 1990s like Postal, a game about being a mass shooter is also simply not a fun escapist fantasy in the current climate. I'd argue the same is increasingly true of CoD-style jingoist shooters. It's simply too real in 2026
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u/PermissionSoggy891 Sep 17 '26
I don't have a "problem" with cozy type games, but from my perspective here's the thing: indie games as a medium allow for a far greater degree of self-expression and artistic direction that you cannot get with a AAA game.
Shit like Manhunt or Postal obviously couldn't get AAA funding today, they're too violent and "disturbing" to recoup their budgets. Indie is PERFECT for a games like these. Combine that with platforms like Steam or itch.io which take a very "hands off" approach in terms of gore or dark themes, it's a PERFECT environment for some TRULY disgusting, brutal games.
I'd damn well argue that Postal is still a fun escapist fantasy to this day, same with Grand Theft Auto, we even did get an indie Postal spiritual successor a while back called Hatred.
I think the reason why indie games don't explore dark themes or delve into gory, realistic violence is because a lot of indie game traffic comes from places like reddit, which are naturally opposed to graphic violence (like you said, for some folks its "too real"), indie devs don't wanna dump a ton of time or effort into something that A. won't sell a ton of copies or, even worse, B. generate a ton of unnecessary controversy from weirdos who cannot separate a fictional story from real life (exactly what happened with Hatred, by the way)
And with the growing nostalgia waves for classic CoD, I wouldn't be shocked if that was the "next frontier" for indie shooters, just as how they've been occupying the boomer shooter space for the last few years to encapsulate that late 90s/early 2000s PC shooter nostalgia.
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u/Oilswell Sep 17 '26
3 of the four games in this image were made by publicly traded publishers.
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u/NK1337 Sep 17 '26
Shhhhh, you’re supposed to be smarmy and complain about the new generation or something
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u/Brickeshaw Sep 18 '26
Things in the game industry have change just a little bit (and by little bit I mean a fucking lot) in the past 15 to 20 years. Top commenter is correct.
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u/Box_v2 Sep 17 '26
The idea that they were publishing games in the 2010s out of the good of their heart and not so they could also make a profit is hilarious. Do you not think they were trying to make money when they published these games as well?
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u/gloku_ Sep 17 '26
I’m pretty sure all of the companies that made these games were publicly traded at the time. Even if they weren’t, sometimes tastes in games change. Survival, realism, and world building seem to be popular right now. Just sheer shock value is pointless and won’t make a game good. There are still “edgy” games, that being said.
The Halloween game that just came out is pretty edgy. Baldur’s Gate 3 has some pretty edgy stuff in it. Carrion came out in 2020. That game was pretty edgy. There’s a game called Butcher’s Creek that came out last year that was kind of an homage to Manhunt.
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u/that_too_ Sep 17 '26
Plenty of edgy games out there, just have to look past the front page of Steam.
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u/P-l-Staker PC Master Race Sep 17 '26
Here's a fun fact though: GTA used to be one such game.
Still is, arguably.
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u/TrillDough Sep 17 '26
Literally every game listed here was developed/published by a publicly traded company.
R* = T2
Infamous and Prototype are published under Sony
Darkness is Starbreeze, a publicly traded Swedish company that’s on the US Nasdaq.It has nothing to do with the stock market and everything to do with companies recognizing that culture has become fragile and lame so they don’t want to offend people and get divested from.
EVERY one of these games was made by companies that were already investable but people didn’t get their panties scrunched up by games with grit.
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u/coolwali 🐧 | 6 core Intel Core i5 3.0GHZ | AMD Radeon Pro 570X Sep 17 '26
There’s another angle. People nowadays are quicker to hate on edgy stuff at first glance rather than give it a fair shake. Look at Watch Dogs 1 or Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. For all these games’ flaws, you cannot say they weren’t edgy and committed to their premises (as opposed to something like the modern MW CODs that are more skin deep in their edginess) but players had a more visceral negative reaction to them.
For better or worse, an actually edgy game requires the game to commit to their premise. But more modern audiences aren’t as into that kind of “sincerity”.
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u/Ryukishin187 Sep 17 '26
they still exist they just aren't mainstream
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u/Aberbekleckernicht 3070Ti | 5700x | B550-HDV (lol) Sep 17 '26
GTA was public enemy #1 periodically when I was a kid. I remember my dad kicking a kid out of our house cause he had GTA on the PSP. That was the edgiest thing on the market to me.
Now I am an adult and it seems pretty pedestrian and normal. I think this is another one of those situations where you feel like things have changed, and they have, but not as much as you have changed.
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u/EaterOfPenguins Sep 17 '26
Agreed. "Edgy" implies "subversive" which these games could have been seen as at release, but they wouldn't be today.
In the time since these games came out, Game of Thrones came and went as a massive cultural sensation and common water cooler topic, and it is more explicit in every regard than at least 3 of these games (Manhunt is the exception and that was edgy for its own sake, and I don't think we're missing much by not having another game like it). GOT wasn't even necessarily the catalyst, but it shows how things have changed. We had many more games with morality and karma systems that let players be evil or have total freedom, and the "edgy" notion of not being a traditional "good guy" all the time became a pretty tired and arguably boring trope. It certainly was no longer shocking.
Further, some of what used to be edgy is now just "adult" or "mature" so antiheroes and violence in the vein of Prototype seems more silly than edgy now. Plenty of games are at least as violent or explicit as these, they just don't seem like they were written by a 14 year old goth kid in 2004, so they don't feel cut from the same exact cloth.
Baldurs Gate 3 won all the awards, sold a bazillion copies, and if you choose to play it a certain way, more sex, violence, and moral depravity than most of the games in the OP.
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u/VadersFiesta Sep 18 '26
Ironic. I finally convinced my mom to let me rent GTA in middle school. Got my dad to play it and he loved it. "No Honey, there's a story and missions and if you DO kill too many people the cops kill you and you lose all your stuff!"
He has all the PS2 games (even the Stories ports) and even finished GTA V before me.
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u/ameensj Sep 17 '26
could you list a few?
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u/MrTorgue7 Sep 17 '26
Look Outside comes to mind. Welcome to Elderfield also came out recently and it looks super dark (but really cool).
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u/biophazer242 Sep 17 '26
Elderfield is weird and strange but in a sort of cute way. When I went to my farm it said some of my crops have wandered away. They literally looked like the spiderhead from The Thing and were roaming around the farm and I had to catch them. :)
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u/uneenviedechier Sep 17 '26
We have a very different definition of what makes an edgy game I guess
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u/Omega-Envych Sep 17 '26
Fear and Hunger isn't Edgy?
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u/theredwoman95 Sep 17 '26
I'd add Outlast to that too - not many first person games will show you the protagonist nearly getting graphically castrated, let alone all the frequent nudity (which frankly shouldn't be edgy) and, if I remember right, sexual violence.
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u/YankingYerPizzle Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
(which frankly shouldn't be edgy)
Fellow curves fan I see
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u/Armandeluz Sep 17 '26
This game is 10 years old now, but newer than the manhunt on the post.
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u/panterason Sep 17 '26
dont know if it counts but coffin of andy and leyley
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u/Nyarlathotechno Sep 17 '26
Ahh yes the infamous incest game
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u/hesapmakinesi Glorious EndeavourOS Sep 17 '26
AFAIK incest is one of the endings that made it infamous.
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u/Other_Bother1172 9700X | 9060 XT 16GB | 32GB DDR5 Sep 17 '26
The incest game?
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u/Powerful-Ground-9687 Sep 17 '26
There are a ton of indie horror games out there, a lot of them go to some pretty dark places
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u/KICKASSKC 5800x, 32gb 3600mhz ddr4, 6700xt, 34" 3440x1440p, + a Steam Deck Sep 17 '26
Atomic Heart is pretty edgy, and debatably mainstream. The dialogue is garbage, but it was for edgy games ~2009 anyways lol Its honestly apart of the charm.
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u/AeLilBoy 5800X | RTX 3050 | 32GB RAM Sep 17 '26
Can you recommend some brother ?
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u/lalakingmalibog AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | 32GB DDR4 | freshest clothes | hottest dudes Sep 17 '26
Hello Kitty Island Adventure
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u/KAMlGOYE Sep 17 '26
It's not super edgy but there are topics and lines of dialogues in Blood of Dawnwalker I definitely was not expecting to see in 2026
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u/-Lamiel- 7800x3D | 5070ti Sep 17 '26
Man what I wouldn't give to have a Prototype 3
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u/YellowFogLights Sep 17 '26
I miss that franchise, even if the second game pooed all over Alex’s character development
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u/Tormidal Ryzen 9 7900X / RTX 4080 / 64GB DDR5 Sep 17 '26
I think the unfortunate part is that Prototype 1 did too much subtle story telling on "Mercer" and its character development, and 2 made a mistake by not covering the comics that took place between the game, and made the timeline seem really short.
The character development makes a lot sense otherwise.
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u/Arlak_The_Recluse Sep 18 '26
I'm going from memory here so pardon if I've got something wrong
The comics also didn't make sense. Alex literally sees someone's memories when he consumes them. Given how many people he's consumed, he's experienced literally dozens of hundreds or thousands of breakups.
It made zero sense for him to try to destroy humanity over a breakup. The end of the first game literally has him getting nuked to protect random people even though he knows how bad things are. The character of Alex in Prototype 2 just doesn't make any sense.
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u/Tormidal Ryzen 9 7900X / RTX 4080 / 64GB DDR5 Sep 18 '26
Calling it a breakup is fairly reductionist imo; she robbed him and then tried to kill him.
In fairness to Mercer(spoiler alerts for a 20 year old game), not only did "Mercer" learn he was just a virus that took on Mercer's identity, but even after saving New York, the government was still hunting him. In The Anchor spent most of his time trying to be a good person only to realize every time that humans are selfish and don't care. The chick betraying him was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
Personally, I feel the comics were an attempt to make the character shift work but it was clearly an afterthought. I had more issues with how comical every character was in 2 than anything else.
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u/noeLifenorlove Sep 18 '26
Nope, comics between the two games make alex out to be a thanos esque whine baby like he is in 2.
The world governments rejected his offer for peace so hes butthurt.
Irl this is what would happen if someone with symbiote powers existed imo.
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u/Imagine_TryingYT 9800X3D | RTX 5070 | 32GB DDR5 Sep 17 '26
Honestly prototype 2 for all its flaws was still a really fucking fun game. Infact checking meta critic, its scores are literally single digits worse than the first game.
The franchise died because it was released at a bad time, had a massive marketing budget and failed to meet sales goals to recoup costs. So Activision gutted the company.
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u/I_Am_Conjoined Sep 17 '26
Same here. The original game is still getting mysterious updates on Steam, and I keep hoping this means someone is at least looking into whether a threequel would be worth it
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u/kitsunekyo Sep 17 '26
infamous was hands down the best superpower game ever. god do i miss this game
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u/StormKiller1 7800x3d 9070xt 32gb 6000mhz cl30 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 21 '26
It runs beautifully emulated on pc btw. Video yt(not me)
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u/Camulus GTX 4060 Ryzen 7 5800 Sep 17 '26
60fps? Cause on PS3 it ran like shit.
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u/elaborateBlackjack Sep 17 '26
RPCS3 has had giant steps this year alone, it's honestly super impressive.. Hell even PS3 emulation on android is looking pretty plausible right now.
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u/Camulus GTX 4060 Ryzen 7 5800 Sep 17 '26
I’ll definitely have to check it out. Now to think of some ps3 gems to play.
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u/Cuboidhamson Sep 17 '26
Armored core 4 and 4: For Answer work really well on rpcs3 and people have even gotten multiplayer working as well as a bunch of mods.
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u/Shrekdidnothingwrong r5 2600 gtx 1070 Sep 17 '26
Since when?? When I checked like 4 months ago it didn't even go past menu :OOO
HOLY FUCK IT'S TRUE, LOVE YOU
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u/TheRealStandard Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
I'm lost, the RPCS3 wiki says it still has issues with audio, visuals and fps. And posts from past couple months confirm those issues are still happening. Like you can technically run it at 60FPS 4k but with tons of frame drops, visual bugs and audio disappearing.
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u/ameensj Sep 17 '26
infamous and prototype were just perfection
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u/Solembumm3 Sep 17 '26
Force Unleashed, Prototype, Dishonored, Sekiro - all the power fantasy ones.
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u/alQamar Sep 17 '26
Sekiro is a power fantasy to you? Are you playing it as one of the bosses?
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u/Solembumm3 Sep 17 '26
It's a game with hack-and-slash protagonist with op as hell dodge fighting still mostly souls-style opposition with some rare exceptions.
Also, put Wolf's sheer path of destruction in terms of one day story into scale. Of course you are playing as boss.
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u/Leather-Rice5025 Sep 17 '26
Child me was obsessed with Force Unleashed. I really felt like an unstoppable force
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u/UpperLexicon Sep 17 '26
I was pretty partial to Crackdown
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u/DrShitbird Sep 17 '26
I remember getting crackdown just to get the Halo 3 beta and falling in love with it
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u/GhormanFront Sep 17 '26
That game was just pure stupid fun, it's a shame nothing since has quite managed to capture that
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u/kinkyonthe_loki69 Sep 17 '26
I agree but was it really that edgy? Manhunt seems like only correct one here...
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u/RoyYaboy Sep 17 '26
They gave me nightmares so my mom sent a letter to all publishers to please stop
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u/Qweedo420 GNU/Linux Sep 17 '26
They were big in the late 2000s, when everything needed to have a dark counterpart (Shadow Lugia, emo Spiderman, antiform Sora, etc) and all songs were dark and sad (Evanescence, Linkin Park, Paramore), but it disappeared as a trend over time
The last edgy game is probably Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, and even then, you could see that it didn't take itself seriously
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u/BioDefault 4080 FE / 9800X3D / 1TB NVME / 5TB WD Black Sep 17 '26
Gale of Darkness is so good.
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u/ComradeJohnS Sep 17 '26
when does it get good? my wife and are trying to like it, but we’re still bumbling around unaware of where to go, no shadow purity chamber yet.
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u/LatentEggplant Sep 18 '26
As a long-time defender, it's good mostly for the vibe, unique aspect of pokemon acquisition (blatant theft), being almost solely double battles if you're into that thing (I am), and the absolute banger of a soundtrack. Shadow Lugia is also very cool, and the game marks Bonsly's first ever appearance.
...however, the level design at certain points is somewhere between "lacking" and "absolute dogshit," so I can more than understand how you may be bouncing off it. Also the other commenter is very right, a walkthrough will save you from future headaches.
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u/HolidayPineapple9316 Sep 17 '26
Im old enough nowadays to look back and see different phases of culture
When i was 5-10 years younger, i wasnt old enough to be able to see it at the time
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u/SpireofHell Sep 17 '26
At some point it dawned on me how bizarre it was that Linkin Park and Evanescence were truly mainstream. Sure, people might get bullied less for wearing black, but back then you heard 'Numb' on the radio. That was crazy.
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u/dreamer3kx Sep 17 '26
I don’t recall infamous being edgy but I would love to see another.
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u/TrustworthyKahmunrah Sep 17 '26
Bro you could make your character evil and he'd start shooting red lightning. It was awesome and extremely edgy.
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u/stefanomusilli Sep 17 '26
That was the worst part of the game, they gave you absolutely no narrative reason to make evil choices
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u/TotallyBrandNewName Sep 17 '26
On the second son yeah they didnt but in the first 2 games you had somewhat good reasons to be evil
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u/rascalrhett11 Sep 18 '26
Some of the earlier ones maybe, "food for everyone" vs "keep all the food for yourself" is stupid but some of the later ones like choosing your girlfriend vs 10 doctors, not so easy.
And while some of the choices were dumb, gameplay wise it was harder to be good because you had to be careful not to kill civilians and you got a lot more good points for nonlethal takedown. If you were evil you could just go crazy on those mfs lashing out with your whole kit and throwing crazy ass lightning bombs everywhere.
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u/Greppim Sep 17 '26
I mean, it was a stylized dark setting.
Everything looks like shit, reapers are insane, then you get to trashy beings.
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u/asterothe1905 Sep 17 '26
Too much of a risk financially to develop at this age.
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u/TheMightyDab Sep 17 '26
RIP any hope of an Alice 3
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u/Ekra_Fleetfoot Ryzen R5 3600 3.6GHz, EVGA GTX 1660 Super 6GB, 32GB DDR4 3200 Sep 17 '26
I think that ship sailed when American McGee moved to China and declared himself expat.
Still think he should've full-sent it and renamed himself Chinese McGee.
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u/KaioKen Sep 17 '26
He did start making a new game called Dreadfuland a while back, it's a spiritual successor to the Alice games.
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u/New_Cockroach_505 Sep 17 '26
What risk? None of these games would be edgy by today’s standards.
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u/RaltarArianrhod Sep 17 '26
What is the qualifier for being "edgy" because, of those games shown in the screenshot, I would argue only Manhunt fits as "edgy."
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u/AstronautFlimsy Sep 17 '26
I have actually thought about this a lot, and I think it stems from the fact that the key ingredient in edginess is that it takes itself seriously. Meanwhile, in recent years, audiences seem to have developed some sort of cultural fear of or discomfort around sincerity. So now edginess is "cringe".
I mostly blame Marvel's MCU writers, and the trend they started of character's frequently undercutting the tone of the scenes they're in by making quippy remarks.
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u/JulianSyv RTX 5080 / R7 9800X3D / 32GB 6000MHZ CL30 Sep 17 '26
100%
I hate when people blame it on shit like "woke" when i feel like it's just people being afraid of taking their own stories seriously. It's bad writing.
It's the reason why i despise the new star wars trillogy, but love Andor. Andor took itself seriously, and even though i know it's "space opera" i still get invested in the characters.
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u/AstronautFlimsy Sep 17 '26
Yeah I have noticed that with a lot of the stuff that gets labelled woke too. I think there often is an overlap between this sort of insincere writing and the content of the media in question exploring intersectional "woke" themes and whatnot, but usually if you really dig in to what people dislike about it, it's actually the writing that's the problem more so than the themes. People just focus on the wrong thing sometimes.
As you say many writers seem afraid of taking their own stories seriously now. And I think "afraid" is definitely the word for it, because it's almost like they're trying to sidestep their responsibility as writers by being like "well we're not taking it seriously anyway." Whereas if they really do commit to taking it seriously, they run the risk of completely embarrassing themselves if they get it wrong. Which I understand is probably terrifying. But that's a risk worth taking, if you take that risk and succeed that's usually where you end up with some of the best stories.
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u/Raininstone Sep 17 '26
I had a few friends who refused to see the Joker movie because they didn't like the edginess of it and types of people who tend to like the joker. I remember saying at the time when the movie was well reviewed if that changed their minds, nope. They were just put off as being seen as "complicit" in the edginess, they really cared as not being seen as edgy themselves just by watching a movie...
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u/GNA2021 Sep 17 '26
I loved that movie. So dark and a great exploration into the human mind. I didn’t think it was slow paced or anything and everyone I know hated it because it was boring and there was no action. Character development in my opinion is what makes good movies. And of course a good setting 😅
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u/JaesopPop 7900X | 9070XT | 32GB 6000 Sep 17 '26
Manhunt was an outlier when it came out. The rest of these aren’t that far there.
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u/xSnowLeopardx i7-13700KF | 32 GB DDR5 5600MHz | RTX 3070 Sep 17 '26
Prototype games were sooo much fun
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u/SaturnCITS Sep 17 '26
I don't usually play that genre of game, but prototype was extremely fun. Standout for the "GTA with X" genre.
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u/DoktahDoktah Sep 17 '26
They gave up knowing Shadow the Hedgehog for Gamecube was the cap for edgy games.
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u/Tjd3211 PC Master Race Sep 17 '26
"Where's that d*mn fourth chaos emerald"
"Like taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me"
(I intentionally censored damn because I think it's funny)
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u/ambyguo Sep 17 '26
Control Resonant looks very promising
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u/Researchgrant Sep 17 '26
Yes! Hopefully we can get this comment higher, because it comes out this month and looks like it will scratch that edgy itch.
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u/Tuques PC Master Race Sep 17 '26
Shareholders became the priority over the product.
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u/MayContainGluten Sep 17 '26
Gotta go the Indy route if you want your edge.
Ain't no major studio pumping a lotta cash into something that could deliberately alienate a chunk of it's potential audience.
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u/prune_juice_warrior Sep 17 '26
Yep. Video games have gotten so expensive that many major releases have to be the video game equivalent of a "four quadrents" movie, which means that it'll probably appeal to nobody in particular.
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u/Hate_Manifestation Sep 17 '26
what do you mean by "edgy"? dark and bleak? edgy humour? or strictly "of a time", and could be called "tasteless" more than edgy? there are lots of games like that being released/have been released reasonably recently. High on Life comes to mind, but its presentation isn't so much like "brooding dark power fantasy with irreverent and uncontrolled violence" so much as it's just edgy humour with some gross stuff wrapped in a very fun platformer.
I was talking to a friend of mine about Manhunt just yesterday, and it doesn't really fit with the rest of the games in that picture.. it was pretty brutal. it kinda fits into the same milieu as the original Postal.
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u/SorryNotReallySorry5 i9 14900k | 5070ti | 32GB DDR5 6400MHz | 1080p Sep 17 '26
Side tangent: God, The Darkness games were so fun. I still feel upset that it ended with 2.
It was edgy, it was reverse horror, and it made you feel powerful.
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Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
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u/Alavaster Sep 17 '26
Blood of the Dawnwalker is one of the top games right now and that one is plenty edgy
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u/NeoTheShadow R9 5900X | RTX 3060 Ti | 32GB Sep 17 '26
Nothing, you can still play them. And more are still coming out.
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u/-HeyImBroccoli- Sep 17 '26
Give anything for another Prototype
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u/Ardalok Sep 17 '26
Humanity desperately needs a soft reboot of the first game, complete with reworked combat and stealth that meet modern (in a good way) standards.
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u/Stridentplatform8541 Sep 18 '26
Manhunt is the only edgy game I see on this list. The rest is tame compared to the grimdark shit we get all the time. 40K and 40K knockoffs are everywhere now.
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u/MrdnBrd19 Sep 17 '26
Y'all will deride AAA studios then ignore the literal mountain of indie games made to fit your bill because you want the AAA experience.
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u/FemJay0902 Sep 17 '26
The edginess of the early 2010s got replaced with the whimsical go-lucky festival vibes of modern games. Just compare the tones of Watch_Dogs 1 and 2 or The Crew and The Crew 2
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u/DarkSparder Sep 17 '26
To all the people saying, they don't develop these kinds of games... when are they releasing the next call of duty? I would argue there are still tons of games with an edgy protagonist.
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u/phatballlzzz Sep 17 '26
Infamous was so fucking good man. Still holding out for a remaster of 1 & 2
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u/Extension-Policy-139 Sep 17 '26
Manhunt 2 happened, the controversy section is longer than the game's synopsis on the Wiki. that's and "hot coffe "
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u/krossfire42 Sep 18 '26
Prince of Persia Warrior Within is edgiest edgelord game I've ever played, and I loved every second of it.
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u/Dummy_Kruger Sep 18 '26
Manhunt is really the only edgy game you posted. The other 3 are pretty normal. Especially infamous. That's a kids game
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u/LinoliuMKnifE Sep 17 '26
I’m pretty sure I’d only consider Manhunt the only “edgy” game of these 4.
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u/Rasgarius Sep 17 '26
I wish to play somwthing new like Prototype. Flying Elbow a Tank? Hell Yeah im in!
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u/LKRTM1874 7800X3D | 4070 Super | 64GB Sep 17 '26
Hatred came out and made edgy games cringe. Well, more cringe.
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u/Alt_SWR Sep 17 '26
I honestly think the biggest problem is that a lot of "edgey" games just... aren't good. They mistake shock value for edginess. That's not to say there's no good ones but most are meh at best.
That's probably why we've seen a decline in them the past decade or so. Truthfully that could just be my bias showing tho cause I'm not the biggest fan of anything edgey lol.
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u/mephist_oh Sep 17 '26
The Darkness was a fantastic game. Still is, in fact.
Can also remember being so happy that i randomly found out that i could watch Sonny Chibas 'The Street Fighter' on a tiny TV in-game.
Blew my mind at the time.
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u/Comfortable_Horse277 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
games cost so much to make now that you need to find a broader audience to sell as many copies as possible.
edit: look towards indie games. Especially from publishers like Devolver Digital.
Boot up Carrion.
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u/realonez 9800X3D | RTX 5090 | 128GB DDR5 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival
Blight: Survival
Halloween: The Game
Crisol: Theater of Idols
Mortal Shell II
Reanimal
Pathologic 3
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u/blaze92x45 Sep 17 '26
Same reason why a lot of games are samey now... games cost money and investors are notoriously risk averse.
A game with edgy themes and characters is going to scare investors that it wont sell well. Couple this with anti gamer activists acting as consultants and you have the modern game industry.
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u/HenryKushinger 9800X3D | 4070 Ti | Bazzite | 64 GB RAM | 14 TB of SSD space Sep 17 '26
They fell out of favor because people got tired of edgy for edgy's sake
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