Once upon a time, way way before Rockstar ever came you with the GTA series, there was a much younger video games industry. One that got a lot less attention and a lot less interference from pressure groups and lobbyists… These were times where gamers (and indeed game developers) were left alone to pursue their imagination uninhibited (well, mostly). Today I was reminded of this after discussing the upcoming artsy game Flower on Facebook with some friends, and 1 of them stated (as a positive remark) that we probably won’t see many games like it unless strong psychoactive drugs were suddenly to become legal.
This got me thinking, taking myself back down memory lane to the days of C64, Apple][, and Atari800XL. The truth is the majority of games evolved pretty much like today (mostly mainstream themes, and every hit game get sequels and imitators, the usual), but the sidelines, the margins, the "indy" scene if u will, produced many 
interesting games, and several of them, it might interest you to know, were based on pretty dark themes, including Hard Psychoactive Drugs, Sex, Murder, Evil and Adolph Hitler.)
I am not sure which was the 1st 'dark themed' game to appear, but I have tired to come up with a chronological grocery list. I'm sure it's full of holes, and I'd be happy for any reminders you might throw my way...
1985 brought us two such games that I can remember: Frankie Goes To Hollywood was the 1st one I remember having a dark side. It felt forbidden to play it, but so much fun all the while. And the second one was a text adventure game called Lucifer's Realm. I was really a young boy when I played them, so perhpas they would not seem as dark now. FGTH was all about doing drugs, sex and rock'n'roll in pursuit of faith and perfection (for real!). There was no real 'dark' atmosphere to the gameplay itself, but i guess that as a kid, the candid reproach to sex and drugs (syringe induced drugs!) and balancing them with love and religion as the 4 keys of perfection was dark and shocking! It was a real eye opener in every sense of the word.
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| Box cover for Frankie Goes to Hollywood | Lucifer's Realm |
Lucifer's Realm (we just called it Lucifer) was dark to begin with. Basically its a text adventure (with some still images, no animation) where u die n judged to an afterlife in hell. Surviving there is just a small part of the challenge. It turns out the baddest most evil soul in hell (you guessed it: it's Adolph Hitler) is concocting a plot to overthrow the prince of darkness himself (yep, they did it waaaay before Southpark with Satan & Sadaam), and he in return, offers a trip back to heaven as a prize for anyone who can foil Hitler's plan. It was hilarious and outrageous and dark and so much fun! As a young Jewish kid, the fact that it had a scary portrait of Hitler against a Swasstika right on the box drew me to it immediately. And the idea I played someone who was condemned to hell had a strange appeal of curiosity to it. The game didn't aspire me to become evil, but it certainly sparked in me a new way of looking and thinking about evil. Trying to understand what we call dark and evil, instead of just keeping it a tabooed, demonized, forbidden section of life - suddenly made more sense to me. For surely the more one understands evil, one is better equipped with the evil around him/her and more importantly, the evil inside him/her. Realizing that 'bad' is part of everything seems to me like an important part of growing up and computer games like this made me realize it.
Hmm... It seems I have a hole in my mind as I can't recall any Dark themed game since then until the mid 90s, almost 10 years later. There were horror and scary games, like the original Alone in the Dark, Phantasmagoria and the wonderful Veil of darkness, but no game that actually let you experience a dark mature theme. You were always put in shoes of goody two shoes. At least that's what I recall, I'd b happy to be corrected on that.
In 1995, Harlan Ellison and friends released an amazingly dark adventure (we're beyond the days of text and still images only - in 1995 we already had SCUMM). I remember the official distributor in Israel (it was Bug Multisystem back then) refused to import this title, as one of the splitted storylines you play (you play splitted story lines of several characters) revolves around a retired Nazzi (again - but hey, what can be darker than that, the spanish inquisition?) doctor who is forced to relieve the horrors of the war (at much larger impacts) by an evil Artificial Intelligence who makes for the game's wonderful Villain.
Anyways, 1997 brought the 1st GTA obviously, and the rest, as they say, is history. Except that GTA went for a specific criminal element concept (which later grew and grew), but the very same year gave birth to a game that was delaying for a while now. It was the original Fallout game. And talk about dark. Not just by concept, atmosphere & narrative, but also for the first bold attempt to make an open ended RPG that is still narrative-based. I won't go thru the whole game-philosophy mumbo jumboes (read The Escapist for that, they're the best), but lets just say that all RPGs before that that tried to be open-ended (as opposed to linear RPGs like Final Fantasy and Kigdom Hearts], would usually mean series of random events and encounters, 
which doesn’t leave the player with a sense of plot or story). I have tons to say about the original fallout and every following chapter, but again, this requires a post of its own or even a series of posts. I will say this to those of you who loved FO3 and are now a bit curious about Fallout’s origin and history. Try some power searches on the phrase “GURPS Fallout” and start digging. You will get a whiff of what us dorky gamers have been discussing passionately at random encounters wth one another in geeky computer stores back then.
I will wrap it up with the millenium – year 2000 is when American McGee released his own interpretation of the famous Lewis Carol novel. This was not just “a” dark game. It was a dark game on acid. The level design in this game was amazing. Everything had that “distorted acid” look to it. And Alice, little suicidal Alice who lives in an orphanage after being a survivor of a fire that killed her whole family. I still fantasize about buying one of those promotional larger than life Cheshire Cat they had back then. I bet u can find one on ebay…
Anywhoo, that’s enough darkness for one session, no? If you remeber other Dark themed games that I forgot to mention (remember, not looking for horror themed games but rather games that are dark in their nature, games that forces dark thoughts and feelings on the player, in order to interact with him)
Looking foreward to your comments on this,
Robot55
February 1st, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I would add Loom to this list. It’s not scary-dark perhaps, but it is rather gLOOMy
February 1st, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” first appeared in March 1967 in IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. It won the Hugo award for best short story in 1968, subsequently was reprinted in numerous anthologies and a collection by the same name….