Stop posting about Elysium! I'm tired of seeing it! My friends on TikTok send me memes, on Discord it's fucking memes! I was in a server, right? And all of the channels are just Elysium stuff. I showed my empty hands to my girlfriend and I said, "Hey, babe, help me find my gun!" Haha, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, ding-ding-ding! I fucking looked at a trashcan and I said, "boutta go full hobocop!" I looked at my reflection, I think of an expression and I go, "smile? more like an expression of pain" Aaaaaaargh!
I did play hellblade, but I personally wasn't a huge fan of the story. Its kinda hard to put yourself in a characters shoes if they start out mad, rather than descending into it.
BioShock. I've only played the original and thought it was pretty good.
If you don't mind visual novel type games then 9 Hours, 9 Person, 9 Doors is another good one. There's another two games in the series too (Virtues Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma). Another one is Paranormasight. Recently played it and it's a short play, about 10 hours.
I actually played all the Bishock and Zero Escape games, I liked them for the most part except for Bioshock 2 and ZTD. not exactly the types of games I'm looking for but I'll take a look at Paranormasight, thanks.
You kinda hit the peak of bad vibes with drakengard and signalis. I can't think of any games even near to the levels of pure hopelessness.
Amnesia and penumbra are fun, especially the new amnesia the bunker. Cryostasis is a very unique experience. The sinking city is fun if quite light hearted in its approach, personally feel that's quite an underrated game.
Omori might be something to look into. Fromsoftware games generally have quite a despair ridden vibe, my personal favourite being kingsfield 4 because the music SMACKS
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has that going on. It's a PS2 game, but emulating it should be pretty easy on a modern PC. It's definitely got a decent into madness vibe in the story/plot, can't say more without spoiling it. It's an arcade fighter jet game, with some great levels.
I was about to recommend the Fatal Frame games if you're looking for classic survival horror recommendations but on second thought they don't really fit your parameters about descending into madness. They're more about exploring haunted Japanese manors and villages with the protagonists themselves being mostly blank and static.
If you decide to check the series out, I would recommend you grab iso files of the first three PS2 games and play them on your nightly build of PCSX2. While 4 and 5 have been made available on all modern platforms, I don't think either of them really showcases the series at its best. 5 is just a huge mess all around and while 4 is more in line with the PS2 trilogy, it's still frustratingly railroady and trivially easy.
Shin Megami Tensei, especially 1 and 3 (I have not played V. II is great too, but the tone is different) & the first three/four (2 has two parts) Persona games (yes, really - 1 & 2 don't have the social sim aspects and 3's story is dark, even if a bit of a slow burn).
The first Bioshock game.
Deus Ex (The first one. Human Revolution is also pretty good)
Half-Life 1 (or Black Mesa, the remake)
Bonus:
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. It's both dark in tone and really cheesy at the same time, good stuff.
Maybe I should replay it but as far as I remember the Eusan nation felt more like a fascist colonial regime, with an apartheid element regarding the replikas. It did use some imagery reminiscent of vintage communist propaganda, but I dont think that's damning on its own.
I could be misremembering though it has been a few years.
The developers are German and the government in game uses a flag that's almost exactly like the DDR flag.
I get it, the gameplay was good and they did a good job with the atmosphere/art, but I just felt annoyed when I finished cause the anticommunism felt constant, including the conclusion. Also weird vibes from making almost all characters anime lesbians when both creators are men.
well, if you want fucked vibes and good story, i have to recommend STASIS: bone totem, or its predecessor, STASIS for somehow even more fucked vibes (you don't have to play the first one to enjoy the second one), both are pretty great value for their content, if you want to pick em up legally
You should play STALKER Call of Pripyat AKA the greatest game of all time. You can even play it for free because the standalone mod Anomaly doesn't require owning the 3 base games which it contains. Also check out Gothic I and Gothic II AKA the best RPG games ever made