10 Action Games That Start as Simple Adventures but Become Incredibly Dark at the End

It’s difficult to stay on top of things in the action genre. FPS games and other action-focused adventures have gone through a lot of changes over the past couple of decades. Franchises like Call of Duty and Halo have helped prove that sometimes, the storytelling of games focused on shooting isn’t as simple as they might appear at first.

Personally, I’ve been stunned by story decisions in action games almost as frequently as I have JRPG games. That comes down to games drawing players in with what looks like familiar themes and ideas before tearing the carpet out from under you. These games are some of the best examples of action games with dark twists and turns.

10 God Of War (2018)

Setting Off Ragnarök Isn’t A Happy Ending

Nobody will try and argue that the God of War franchise is known for happy endings. Still, this new take on the beloved series had a father and son dynamic, an adventurous feel, and I didn’t expect it to turn incredibly dark. However, the game progresses to show that Atreus is actually Loki, the Norse God of Mischief, usually portrayed as a villain in Norse Mythology.

If that wasn’t bad enough, this game batters players with dark twists and foreboding in the third act. Kratos sees a mural of himself dying in the arms of Atreus, they are warned by Mimir that killing Baldr has set off the Fimbulwinter which will be followed by Ragnarök. This dark event is already a terrifying idea, but worse still, Atreus has a vision of Thor confronting him and his father at the conclusion of Ragnarök. I remember feeling truly blindsided by how a father/son adventure through Norse Mythology had managed to build such a legacy of darkness in so short a time when I played this game.

9 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II

The Dark Twist You Never Dreamed of Seeing

Call of Duty games had already gained a reputation around their stories by the sixth overall entry. After the initial dark twist where Makarov killed the player character in an early mission and started a war with America by framing them, players thought they had a grip on what was happening.

That was already the darkest twist in the history of the series, where the mission No Russian was almost banned completely. However, General Shepherd’s later betrayal of Task Force 141 is the twist that sticks with me today. The way players hated Makarov was nothing compared to how much they desired Shepherd’s death, changing the expected third act of the game into something much darker, and remaining perhaps my favourite Call of Duty campaign so far.

8 Subnautica

Blue Oceans Replaced by Lava Dragons

To be fair, Subnautica doesn’t necessarily fit all the criteria to be considered a true action game. However, it’s one of my favourite games of all time, and I can confidently say it gets the heart racing more than any action sequence. The player is dropped in the water on an oceanic planet and must survive on scraps and resources gathered, while trying to avoid dangerous areas.

Inevitably, these dangerous areas are where the player must go as the game progresses. From slightly frightening open areas of water, the player must head to dark pits and caverns, dangerously near huge leviathan class creatures, and eventually to the Lava Zone. This deadly fire pit filled with huge Sea Dragons that shoot fireballs at you isn’t the relaxed resource gathering game you remember from early on. While the story gets darker and then ends on a happier note, nothing will ever help you recover from seeing your first Sea Dragon. Especially if it destroys your Cyclops immediately like it did to me, setting my game back hours!

7 Spec Ops: The Line

Where’d This Psychological Thriller Come From?

There are many games now that feature huge story twists in the third act. There weren’t nearly as many in 2012, and when I first played Spec Ops: The Line back then, it wasn’t the kind of game that made it feel like there was anything more ahead than simple third-person shooter action in Dubai with a Delta Force team. However, the third act changes the context of the whole game and makes it much darker.

When the player discovers that Colonel Konrad, the man we thought to be the villain, has been dead for weeks, it blew my mind. The player character, Walker, has been imagining the orders he has been receiving from Konrad. His mind broke over guilt from the civilian massacre which he caused, not Konrad. A deeply unsettling psychological twist, this made the rebooted Spec Ops series feel like a much less fun and breezy action franchise.

6 Cyberpunk 2077

There Are No Happy Endings in Night City

This is a little bit of cheating, as characters openly say there’s no happy endings in the titular Night City several times. But the flashy look, the futuristic style, maybe even the Grand Theft Auto comparisons, made it easy to believe there could be a brighter future in Cyberpunk 2077 than there ended up being.

Except for one. It is possible for V to end up with everything in a particularly positive ending. But one out of six doesn’t feel like great odds of winding up that way. Other endings and paths include selling your soul to Arasaka to survive, returning to Night City knowing you will die shortly, or giving your body over to Johnny Silverhand so he can live on in it. Of course, there’s also the one where V commits suicide, giving a bleak array of options to choose from in a story that started out seeming a lot more bright and fun than it’s likely to end up. As somebody who hasn’t gone back to get a better ending than being left as a nobody and having to start over, you’ll forgive me if I still think of this as a game that turns dark.

A Twist That Feels Even Darker Now

I’ve added this not just because MSG is a franchise filled with twists, but also because I recently replayed Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty recently. At the time, the reveals like Snake not even being the protagonist of the game hit hard. But the biggest one of all comes during the conclusion, when Colonel Campbell is revealed to have been an AI program the whole time.

Originally, I thought this was a great twist. In the face of AI today, this felt much darker on replay. The Metal Gear series had already established itself as darker than some action games at the time, but this took things to another level and the themes of control and modern tech rising over humanity continues to become ever more terrifying.

4 Far Cry 5

The Villain Was Right All Along

The Far Cry games aren’t particularly known for their happy endings, but Far Cry 5 took things to the darkest place imaginable. If the player chooses to walk away during the final mission, it is implied that they kill their friends due to brainwashing. However, even darker than that, the canon ending to the game results in the player staying to fight Joseph. The game seems to give the player victory before nuclear bombs suddenly detonate, effectively ending civilisation.

This ending was as dark as things get, and it only gets worse when Far Cry: New Dawn revealed that the player character from Far Cry 5 is a servant to Joseph in the post-apocalyptic reality that follows Far Cry 5. I felt almost ill replaying the Far Cry 5 ending with this additional knowledge, knowing that the story ends in the most horrific ways no matter what choice is made.

3 The Last Of Us Part II

The Most Traumatizing Death in Gaming

This one really goes without saying. The Last Of Us wasn’t an easy, breezy game. It was dark to begin with. That didn’t stop the sequel from being able to take things to the next level with Joel’s death. Seeing Abby, a player the character takes control of throughout the game, beating Joel to death while Ellie was forced to watch was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. In fact, it was so horrible that, despite loving the first season of the television show, it took me a year to come around to watching the second season, knowing this was coming.

Worse still is the darkness this penetrates the rest of the game with. Ellie goes out for revenge, following the same kind of path that led Abby to killing Joel in the first place. The player is controlling both sides of this conflict and learning how nobody wins in revenge in the harshest and saddest way possible.

2 BioShock

“Would You Kindly” Ruined Me

If I’m being honest, BioShock was definitely a game that felt like it had twists in it early on. My first time playing this game was a little late, but I managed to never have the enormous twists spoiled for me. This includes the infamous “Would You Kindly” moment where Jack is revealed to be a sleeper agent. But more than that, the twist around the multiple endings being dependent on whether you chose to harvest the souls of the Little Sisters throughout the game, a twist which forced me to play the whole game again right way in order to rectify the guilt I was left with.

BioShock is known for twists and turns, but none of the other games, arguably no other game in history, has shaken players that badly with a final act. The dark nature of it and the idea that you could be punished for mistakes made which you had no idea were even mistakes, makes for the most heart-breaking of twists.

1 Halo: Combat Evolved

You Thought You Understood The Threat

The first Halo game set the tone for genius storytelling throughout the series. Master Chief landing on the Halo ring and seeking to take out the aliens named the Covenant was enough of a story for most players to accept in 2001. However, there was far more to come, when the humans suddenly unleash the Flood, a devastating alien force which instantly turned the game into a horror action masterpiece instead of the simple sci-fi adventure fans had experienced up to that point.

My first time playing Halo was very clear because of the spine-tingling first level facing off with the Flood. As if that wasn’t dark enough, the game goes on to reveal that Master Chief was nearly tricked into activating the Halo, which would have destroyed all life in several galaxies to try and cut the Flood off from any life, its primary food source. The twists in this first game made for a heavy finale, and one of the most memorable FPS campaigns over twenty years later.