The Failure of 'Dark' Fantasy

[Ryan Hughes]

One of my pet peeves in gaming is the trend towards what is often called 'dark' fantasy, meaning a fantasy setting with a strong visceral feel and often including or tackling subjects like sexuality, gore, murder, and even sometimes rape. I will admit, it is difficult to explain what turns me off about dark fantasy, so I hope we can explore the subject here a bit more.

I did not like Dragon Age: Origins --though that puts me in the minority here-- so my response to my friends when they told me about how bad they felt Dragon Age 2 was ran something like: "Well, considering how bad DA:O was, what did you expect?" Among the multitude of things I disliked about Origins was a scene at the beginning of the game, if you started with the Human Noble, like i did. You are asked to clear some rather large rats out of a pantry, and after, your character is splattered with enough blood to just be simply laughable. I turned the blood-effect off afterwards, but my misgivings about the game remained. Essentially, the game seemed to contain what it thought was 'dark' story elements in a way that would make it seem more mature to the player. This, as opposed to a more organic approach to its story and contents.

I have thought about getting the Witcher games on Steam and giving them a try, though I fear they may have much the same attitude as Dragon Age to their own content. Basically, if you add content in that is designed to shock or awe the player just for the that sake, then you have a long way to grow as an artist.

I suppose dark fantasy's main idea is to embrace 'realism,' but one interesting point is that the more qualified and educated a person is concerning Medieval culture, society, and literature, the less inclined they are to write "dark" fantasy. Tolkien was a professor of Medieval studies and literature and even fluently read and translated Medieval texts. Montey Python -Jerry Jones in particular- is tremendously well-versed in the subject. Jones even co-wrote a book detailing and offering theories on the death of Geoffry Chaucer. George R.R. Martin, on the other hand, has his degree in Journalism. So, much like modern military shooters, we see a trend towards "realism" from people that know very little about the reality of their subject.

I for one am weary of the way that fantasy -once a vibrant genre- is being treated lately in games and other mediums like literature. But, what are your thoughts?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I think it's only natural for fantasy to begin incorporating darker themes and creating a more realistic portrayal of a medieval setting. Remember, Tolkien was pretty much the architect of the fantasy genre as we currently know it, but he wrote his books in the 1930s and 40s, a time when not just fantasy, but most literature was written in a very "clean" way. I doubt that Tolkien wrote his books the way he did because he was trying to make them realistic, but rather because he was trying to make something that was entertaining and that would sell, and at the time fantasy sold mostly to children, and so he wrote in a way that wouldn't seem offensive to children. It's hard to write something grimdark when it's meant to be for children, especially in the 1930s.

Now that fantasy is more accepted by adults as being for adults authors like to include things that they perceive to be more adult in nature. In video games this can tend to get a little over the top, and does anything "adult" but I wouldn't say this is a failure of the fantasy genre as a whole, or a reason to say that "dark" fantasy doesn't work, it's basically a problem of an industry still trying to cater to children and adults at the same time, which waters tends to water down any adult elements in the work and makes them somewhat cartoony instead.

 

[endtherapture]

I did not like Dragon Age: Origins --though that puts me in the minority here-- so my response to my friends when they told me about how bad they felt Dragon Age 2 was ran something like: "Well, considering how bad DA:O was, what did you expect?" Among the multitude of things I disliked about Origins was a scene at the beginning of the game, if you started with the Human Noble, like i did. You are asked to clear some rather large rats out of a pantry, and after, your character is splattered with enough blood to just be simply laughable. I turned the blood-effect off afterwards, but my misgivings about the game remained. Essentially, the game seemed to contain what it thought was 'dark' story elements in a way that would make it seem more mature to the player. This, as opposed to a more organic approach to its story and contents.

I have thought about getting the Witcher games on Steam and giving them a try, though I fear they may have much the same attitude as Dragon Age to their own content. Basically, if you add content in that is designed to shock or awe the player just for the that sake, then you have a long way to grow as an artist.

The problem with DA:O was that in all cases there was an "optimal" path which you could save everyone with. There was no compromise or anything which made the tough moral decisions....not tough.

The Witcher games are a lot better in this respect. A lot of the brutality and darkness is very implied subject in many cases, and regarding the choices - the world is fucked either way you go, but you can make a little bit of difference to certain factions, albeit at the expense of another faction.

For example if you chose to save the young monarch of your homeland, the council of mages will get slaughtered. If you chose to save your lover, your friend will take a course of action resulting in his exile.

There's also a lot of subtext about rape and forced pregnancies/abortion, but it's all absolutely horrifying and not in a PG-13 manner. You'll feel very distressed but not in a cheap way.

Also there's the politics of it where there's many factions with different aims and goals and you're basically insignificant, a mere pawn in these factions plans. There's a whole series of essays writing about the socio- and geo- politics of it. TW2 is a very well written game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

One of my favourite stories is Dark Fantasy (Berserk), but the genre can be prone to indulgence. Just as cyber- or steampunk can go overboard with their concepts.

And actually I'd say Tolkien is the reason Fantasy has stagnated, or should I say, the fans of Tolkien. Dragon Age: Origins can feel painfully generic at times, because it goes so unashamedly for that Lord of the Rings setting. Fantasy needs to step away from the medieval setting all together.

 

[Ratty]

Go back and read some of the earliest, pre-Tolkien works in the modern fantasy genre, like "By This Axe I Rule!" from Robert E. Howard. Dark fantasy has been with us at least as long as the "once vibrant" lighter fantasies.

I think a lot of it in modern stuff specifically though, is as a deliberate push-back to the boring dualistic, black and white morality so common to high fantasy settings. Ideally the brutality and griminess of a fantasy world, along with its beauty, will be an extension or reflection of the individuals and societies which inhabit it. Just like the real world.

Also as Dirty Hipsters points out, the shift to darker tones is probably also a result of shifting target demographics and the resultant increase in authorial freedom. (Sorry I get a bit wordy when I'm tired.) But really it's a little silly for shit not to get wrecked and messy when you've got people fighting with swords, axes and hammers.

Also I suspect Tolkien would be the first to tell you he wasn't shooting for "realism" in his stories per se. More like trying to create a substantial (and Hobbit aside, more adult oriented/complex) fantasy world shaped around his own interests and influenced by childhood readings of George McDonald and perhaps some other similar authors.

 

[dyre]

Both the Dragon Age and Witcher series fall under the same broad category of "mature" fantasy, but the Witcher series (at least Witcher 2. Witcher 1's gameplay was too boring for me to get far into the story) does a much better job of it. The issue with Dragon Age isn't that it attempts to be mature fantasy; it's that it's a mediocrely-written attempt at mature fantasy (decent by video game standards, but fares poorly when compared to almost any other medium). Dragon Age (from what I remember) has lots of stuff involving racism and betrayal and what not....unfortunately, its world-building is not of sufficient quality to make all that bad stuff seem natural; as a result, the motives of the bad people often seem one-dimensional and forced. Furthermore, the hero is almost always given the option to ride in and save the day for everyone, which undermines the "mature" theme and makes the game closer to wish fulfillment.

In the Witcher 2, on the other hand, a lot more work went into the micro-level world building. Dragon Age puts a lot of work in the grand plot, but if you run into some minor supporting character, he'll probably be a poorly written, one-dimensional frothing racist or something like that. So when the one-dimensional frothing racist kicks an elf, you'll roll your eyes and think "clearly they wrote that guy in simply to kick that elf." And then you'll sweep in and save the elf. The Witcher 2 puts a great deal more work into the actual characters, their environments, and what drives them. It's hard to explain in words, but you'll find the motives of almost everyone in the game to be a lot more relatable, even if you disagree with them. Whereas Dragon Age just drops random assholes onto your path, in Witcher 2 when you run into an asshole you'll think "well, you suck, but having spent the last few hours in the town in which you spent your whole life, I can see how you developed into someone like that." Additionally, while your character is powerful and can shape events to a certain degree, he cannot simply save the day; playing the game, you get the feeling that you're merely one influential person trying to throw your weight behind a goal and hope that it's enough in the face of a whole world of influential people trying to do different things.

Regarding the "trend" you identified from a sample size of three people:
I'm not really sure why you took that cheap shot at RR Martin; imo he's merely decent, but ASOIAF clearly is NOT attempting to accurately recreate a medieval world. Rather, it's just a "deadly politics" story and set it in a generic medieval environment.

Oh by the way, Tolkien's work can be very tragic. Sure, the Hobbit and LoTR are generally light-hearted, but much the Silmarillion is quite the opposite. You may have noticed that while LoTR is more or less a typical hero's adventure, it hints at many tragic events before the events of the story; those are written in detail in the Silmarillion. IMO some of Tolkien's work is much darker than any of RR Martin's stuff, in which the general theme is more "hey, I wonder if that guy will--- oh, look, he died" than a legitimate tragedy involving characters that you actually care about.

PS: I agree that Dragon Age is full of cheap shocks that don't really create much of a response to the player ("yes, yes, more faceless victims that I'm supposed to feel bad for. Moving on..."). However, the Witcher 2 does a much better job at tugging at your emotions when it tries to. It had one scene that legitimately infuriated me, an emotional I had until then never felt in a game.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

I'd say that the problem with DA:O's darkness, to me, was that it felt like it was trying to be dark just for the sake of being "mature".

What makes the Witcher 2 a good game, in my opinion, is that the darkness is not so overbearing that it inhabits every facet of life in the witcher universe, plus not every choice is a "UBER GRITTY. SO REAL." type decision. It is possible to bring a little more good into the world as a witcher. Heck, what sets Geralt apart from most "dark" fantasy heroes is that he's honestly trying to do good. Hell, one of the most interesting aspects of Geralt is he never wants to choose between "lesser or greater evil", in his own words "evil is evil", and he outright refuses to be a part of it.

EDIT: And I'd like to say as much as I love the series... George R. R. Martin gets some facts about medieval life dead wrong. During the actual war of the roses, for which the current conflict in the series is loosely based on, both sides agreed to avoid burning villages to the ground and engaging in rape and pillaging on the mass scale we see in the series, if only because no one wanted to rule over ashes.

I am more inclined to play the game after hearing this. Though, I think Yahtzee made a point like that in his Witcher 2 review.

I think it's only natural for fantasy to begin incorporating darker themes and creating a more realistic portrayal of a medieval setting.

Maybe I did not make my point clear as to the inherent philosophical contradictions at work in Dark Fantasy.
1) The term Realistic Fantasy is clearly an oxymoron. 2) Realism -from a philosophical standpoint- is one of the only things in the universe that can never be actual reality. Thus realism -even at its best- is never a statement about reality but a statement about how a particular artist sees reality. Even a well-made documentary film contains a certain amount of distortion of reality, as the artist and producers bend the film to their own sense of 'realism.' When people say something is "realistic," they are really just saying that it conforms to their own preconceptions of what reality is. Fantasy in general became popular because it never had any pretense towards realism, but instead tried to relate truth to its audience through metaphor and storytelling rather than a somewhat dishonest pretense to reality. 3) Even ignoring the fact that it is rather absurd to speak of realism in a story with wizards and elves, these I have never read or played a dark fantasy story that was even slightly realistic. And I have studied medieval literature and history extensively, in fact, I can even read Middle English. Which is one of the reasons I say that those with actual knowledge of medieval society tend to stay away from dark fantasy.

Also there's the politics of it where there's many factions with different aims and goals and you're basically insignificant, a mere pawn in these factions plans. There's a whole series of essays writing about the socio- and geo- politics of it. TW2 is a very well written game.

That is one of the issues I have that may cause me to dislike Witcher. You are talking to a Suikoden fan, and as such my standards for political intrigue and broad commentary are very high.

Go back and read some of the earliest, pre-Tolkien works in the modern fantasy genre, like "By This Axe I Rule!" from Robert E. Howard. Dark fantasy has been with us at least as long as the "once vibrant" lighter fantasies.

I think a lot of it in modern stuff specifically though, is as a deliberate push-back to the boring dualistic, black and white morality so common to high fantasy settings. Ideally the brutality and dirtyness of a fantasy world, along with its beauty, will be an extension of the individuals and societies which inhabit it. Also as Dirty Hipsters points out, it's also a result of shifting target demographics and the resultant increase in authorial freedom. (Sorry I get a bit wordy when I'm tired.) But really it's a little silly for shit not to get wrecked and messy when you've got people fighting with swords, axes and hammers.

Also I suspect Tolkien would be the first to tell you he wasn't shooting for "realism" in his stories per se. More like trying to create a substantial (and Hobbit aside, more adult oriented/complex) fantasy world shaped around his own interests and influenced by childhood readings of George McDonald and perhaps some other similar authors.

I have. I wrote part of my undergrad thesis on MacDonald, and have read almost enough Arthurian literature to get my masters. The setting of a fantasy world is never an extension of the people inhabiting it -like dystopia- it is always a commentary on the current real world by the author. The point I was making is that I respect Tolkien for not having any pretext towards realism. Also, Tolkien was only introduced to MacDonald later past his childhood, by C.S. Lewis, who had happened to pick up a book of MacDonald's poetry while waiting for a train. It was mostly MacDonald's poems, and not his fairie stories, that inspired Tolkien and Lewis, primarily "My Two Geniuses" and his nature poems.

Howard himself is an oddity, and without getting too deep into him, he is an exception to most of the work laid out by MacDonald, as he seems to have been more allied with the blooming Dystopian movement and its -perhaps rightful- mistrust of society after WWI. This is something that Tolkien and Lewis knew quite well too, being WWI veterans. In fact, Lewis wrote a poem shortly after the war in which he called God a "Blackguard," and Tolkien was similarly traumatized by the events of the war. What makes Tolkien and Lewis so fascinating is that they saw and agreed with much of the more cynical social and political commentary of their day, but they still chose to believe in the basic, and perhaps morally 'simplistic,' notions that others like the dystopians were rejecting.

 

[Elfgore]

And actually I'd say Tolkien is the reason Fantasy has stagnated, or should I say, the fans of Tolkien. Dragon Age: Origins can feel painfully generic at times, because it goes so unashamedly for that Lord of the Rings setting. Fantasy needs to step away from the medieval setting all together.

This, so much this. It's almost become engraved in modern people's minds that fantasy is a medieval only setting. They can comprehend that there could easily be modern fantasy. Shadowrun has modern fantasy and it is awesome combining magic powers with guns.

A little more on topic. A problem with dark fantasy is, if the game is being dark for the sake of being dark, or the game is actually dark. Many people accuse The Witcher series as being dark for the sake of dark, while Dark Souls is actually dark. I really don't see the difference in the darkness level, but others may be able to elaborate.

 

[Ratty]

I have. I wrote part of my undergrad thesis on MacDonald, and have read almost enough Arthurian literature to get my masters.

Very impressive, and I respect your studies. But that doesn't mean you can make sweeping statements about every work in the genre such as:

The setting of a fantasy world is never an extension of the people inhabiting it -like dystopia- it is always a commentary on the current real world by the author.

I would disagree, a fantasy world can be both. Or neither, depending on how rigidly you choose to define "fantasy". But in my experience good stories usually have characters grow organically out of their environment in some way. Including in fantasy.

The point I was making is that I respect Tolkien for not having any pretext towards realism. Also, Tolkien was only introduced to MacDonald later past his childhood, by C.S. Lewis, who had happened to pick up a book of MacDonald's poetry while waiting for a train. It was mostly MacDonald's poems, and not his fairie stories, that inspired Tolkien and Lewis, primarily "My Two Geniuses" and his nature poems.

Interesting, I'd read that Tolkien had been acquainted with MacDonald's work in childhood but suppose I was misinformed.

Howard himself is an oddity, and without getting too deep into him, he is an exception to most of the work laid out by MacDonald, as he seems to have been more allied with the blooming Dystopian movement and its -perhaps rightful- mistrust of society after WWI. This is something that Tolkien and Lewis knew quite well too, being WWI veterans. In fact, Lewis wrote a poem shortly after the war in which he called God a "Blackguard," and Tolkien was similarly traumatized by the events of the war. What makes Tolkien and Lewis so fascinating is that they saw and agreed with much of the more cynical social and political commentary of their day, but they still chose to believe in the basic, and perhaps morally 'simplistic,' notions that others like the dystopians were rejecting.

I haven't studied this as deeply as you obviously, but it seems apparent to me that the moral dualism of Tolkien and Lewis has its roots in their religious convictions about the existence of an absolute good and evil. After recovering a bit from the shock of war, tales of heroic fantasy could serve as a wish fulfillment to see absolute good. And to see it triumph.

With people today more secularly-minded it's not surprising that they're more inclined towards gray morality, and see less and less merit in clean cut good vs. evil in fiction generally.

 

[Isra]

These two games are two very different approaches to fantasy. Witcher is rooted heavily in old European folklore, but with a hefty dose of more modern Tolkien thrown in. It's gritty, there is a lot of moral ambiguity but only amongst the bit players - the protagonist is clearly good intentioned and his main enemy is clearly evil, it's just everybody in-between who you're left wondering about. The magic is slightly more tame than most fantasy works, the setting is very down to earth and it feels much more medieval and wild. It's a little hard to categorize.

DA:O is straight up high fantasy. It's much more like D&D. Almost completely unambiguous morality - pretty much uses the lawful/neutral/chaotic + good/neutral/evil system. The game gives you plenty of moral choices for sure, but when you're evil you're evil, when you're good you're good, there's really no grey area or questions about what path you're taking. Big spells, gallant heroes, extreme racial profiling, nondescript hordes of purely evil enemies bent on the destruction of the whole world and only you to save it etc. Very much high fantasy.

Neither of these games is Dark Fantasy, which focuses on horror elements and extremely grey, ambiguous morality, things which neither of these games have in true spades.

I wouldn't judge them based off each other. They're completely different in almost every way that matters. Try Witcher out, I loved it, and I wasn't a big fan of DA:O.

 

[sanquin]

The Witcher 2 is much better in terms of it's "Dark Fantasy", compared to Dragon Age Origins. That being said, TW2 also has some 'dark for the sake of dark' in there. Luckily it's pretty sparse though. The only thing I had a problem with were some of the sex scenes.

Spoiler

Like when you have to find a flower to make a special potion out of it to resist the poison from the kraken-like beast. (Forgot the name) You just happen to fall into an old chamber from the ruins you're on top of. Then you have to fight another witcher guy. And then, out of the blue, instead of deciding to get on with your mission, Gerald decides to have sex with Trish. I mean...what? After the mission, sure. But right there in the ruin, while skinny dipping in a pool? That's just a sex scene for the sake of a sex scene, to make it more 'mature'.

 

[teh_Canape]

personally what annoys me the most is how they think "dark" and "mature" means misery porn
dark souls being the worst offender to me here
it's so "dark" it feels like abad grimdark fanfiction
like warhammer 40k but taking itself way more seriously

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ok so you aren't into dark fantasy, that's cool, you shouldn't have any problems avoiding it since the only examples I can think of are The Witcher and DA: Origins... everyone else just does the same old teen rated stuff.

 

[endtherapture]

Also there's the politics of it where there's many factions with different aims and goals and you're basically insignificant, a mere pawn in these factions plans. There's a whole series of essays writing about the socio- and geo- politics of it. TW2 is a very well written game.

That is one of the issues I have that may cause me to dislike Witcher. You are talking to a Suikoden fan, and as such my standards for political intrigue and broad commentary are very high.

What...you may dislike the game because it is well written and politically complex?

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Also there's the politics of it where there's many factions with different aims and goals and you're basically insignificant, a mere pawn in these factions plans. There's a whole series of essays writing about the socio- and geo- politics of it. TW2 is a very well written game.

That is one of the issues I have that may cause me to dislike Witcher. You are talking to a Suikoden fan, and as such my standards for political intrigue and broad commentary are very high.

What...you may dislike the game because it is well written and politically complex?

I think they're saying because Suikoden has ludicrously complicated political intrigue in a lot of them. The playable cast is usually around 108 character mark and has you play (at least in a few) as every side in a conflict to express how the right/wrong choice is dependent on what side you're standing on (example I'm thinking of, everyone's trying to follow in the footsteps of a nameless hero who it turned out wasn't anywhere near as mythic as his story made out). Basically, mileage may vary for everyone and he thinks Suikoden set a high precedent.

OT: DA:O's blood splatter thing works better when it's a dude with an axe fighting a load of guys at close range rather than some rats in a basement. Though it didn't always have optimal outcomes, the Dwarves being a good example of a genuinely difficult moral choice because there isn't a right one. I think the point of Dark Fantasy is to say how actions have consequences and things don't always work out.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

What makes it harder to talk about 'Dark' fantasy and 'Dark' games in general is how different people perceive 'Dark' to mean different things.

I personally thought that The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is a 'dark fantasy' game,and a very good at that. So at some point I visited some Zelda-focused forums and joined a discussion saying that I'd like a new Zelda game being 'Dark'. And then someone else replied to my post saying that Twilight Princess was 'dark' because its colors were washed out and it features a race of people that have dark colored skin and live in a place called "Twilight" or something like that.

Another thing is people often say Skyrim is a dark game. But it has no darkness at all! I mean that everything is always illuminated,and even when its night you can see everything close and far away.

So,let's spend a moment to decide what we call 'dark' first.

Does the lack of vibrant colors make something dark ? I guess nope. Neither that is 100% realistic. Thing is in real life the vibrancy of colors outside depend on various things like how much cloudy the sky is,what is the position of the Sun in the sky,what is the temperature of light,what is the percentage of humidity in the atmosphere etc. The games that have washed out colors calling themselves 'realistic' (like BF3 for example) are like in their world the sky is always cloudy,its' winter,and time is always stuck between 10:00 and 14:00.

Does actual darkness in the environment makes a game dark ? Well you could say it might does. And pitch black darkness actually adds a thing into the atmosphere and feel of a game I think.

Does ridiculous gore make a game dark ? Well I think calling a gory game 'gory' is more appropriate. Mortal Kombat has tons of gore,but it wouldn't be the first game that comes to my mind when somebody asks me to tell a dark game.

Does introducing things that are harsh in real life in a game makes the game dark ? I also think it isn't right to call a game dark for having aspects that are disturbing in real life. Because that's too general,let alone the fact that this would mean that we also conceive the real world to be a 'dark' place,with a 'dark' reality.

For me,the first thing that crosses my mind when I'm told of dark fantasy is some kind of dark Evil. Perhaps some kind of a Demon wanting to do bad things,or a group of Vampires doing evil things. Because Darkness in real life folklore and legends have been associated with... evil things lurking in it. And 'fantasy' is all about legends,myths,folklore... you know,the kind of things that comes from the imagination. So really,the first connection my mind does when the words 'DARK' and 'FANTASY' comes together,is imaginative stories about darkness and what lies in it. Mares,Vampires,Witches,Demons,Ghosts,etc.

Now do I believe that 'dark fantasy' as I understand it has failed in video games ?
Well not completely. There are games that do it very well,but there are also games that say they are like that and I would expect them to present some things in a different way...
I think that the most usual problems is when some situations that are about being 'dark fantasy' while featuring things that would play the role of ingredients for that,miss providing the appropriate feeling and experience.
Darkness and its...things is supposed to make you scared.Afraid of it and them. Part of what makes things like the dark beings scary,is the fact that they usually lurk in... you guessed it,darkness. It's because of the way our sub-conscious works. In a pitch black environment your brain understands that there might be something there,but doesn't know what,and that makes you feel uncomfortable or stressed,because you can't be sure of what might be or not in there,in the darkness.
Darkness represents the fear of uncertainty.
The uncertainty of what might or not be there,and of what is going to happen next,is a feeling that is thrilling,and I think it should be or supposed to be what a 'dark' story you are told by someone,or watching in a movie,or participating at in a game,or in real life. If creatures of the dark are in plain sight,they are not so much horrifying after all...
And that's a mistake I meet on many 'Dark' games. The intensity of the experience of what the player should feel is watered down when a creature is in a bright environment,all out,visible. But if there were dark areas and the creatures had the AI to dynamically hide in the darkness and appear when they'd find it appropriate... That would be so much more intense!

 

[endtherapture]

snip

Good post. For me, dark means forboding and ominous. A town being beset upon by evil monsters such as vampires with slim hope of survival could be considered dark.

40K and Warhammer fantasy...whilst not mature, are quite dark what with the air of inevitable defeat around the Imperium and the entire existence of Chaos.

DA:O is suitably dark for me. It's about a country beset by political strife and a dark army intent on genocide. That's pretty dark. The sky is often dark and a strange miasma hangs over all of Ferelden. It's got atmosphere. That's dark.

However mature is different.

TW2 is mature and dark because of it's approach to sex and relationships and it's intricate political plot, as well as a forboding sense of "everything is fucked" at the end of the game.

DA:O is dark and tries to be mature. Same with DA2. Both are sort of dark, DA2 less so, but neither is mature.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

snip

Good post. For me, dark means forboding and ominous. A town being beset upon by evil monsters such as vampires with slim hope of survival could be considered dark.

40K and Warhammer fantasy...whilst not mature, are quite dark what with the air of inevitable defeat around the Imperium and the entire existence of Chaos.

DA:O is suitably dark for me. It's about a country beset by political strife and a dark army intent on genocide. That's pretty dark. The sky is often dark and a strange miasma hangs over all of Ferelden. It's got atmosphere. That's dark.

However mature is different.

TW2 is mature and dark because of it's approach to sex and relationships and it's intricate political plot, as well as a forboding sense of "everything is fucked" at the end of the game.

DA:O is dark and tries to be mature. Same with DA2. Both are sort of dark, DA2 less so, but neither is mature.

Interesting point, there is a difference between dark and mature and I think the thing missing is nuance. Dark things as we tend to classify them just seem to have their subject matter thrown in without much care while mature things insert them into the world and have the character affected in appropriate ways: the difference between a random almost fetishsitic rape scene (yes, it is possible to fethisize rape) and an equivalent scene that is more serious or at least tasteful and has a long extended period explaining how it affects the person. The issue though is that video game writing has not gotten to the level of movies, books, or other comparable medium; the majority of game writers still are too blunt or lack the nuance for subjects like this.

The question then becomes "what will it take for the majority of writers to become more nuanced and capable of doing mature subjects without throwing them in without abandon". My theory is that they need education in more classical literature and for writing and programing teams to work closer together to prevent discordant moments.