Editing Grimdark (section)

== Stuff considered Grimdark ==

[[File:Tyrus.jpg|400px|thumb|A world where the only way to beat grimdark is by introducing something even grimmer and darker]]
[[File:The_grimdarkian_by_ironshrinemaiden_d1i73bl.jpg|400px|thumb|[https://www.deviantart.com/ironshrinemaiden/art/The-Grimdarkian-91030161| The Grimdarkian, by IronShrineMaiden]]]
===/tg/===
* '''''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''''' (Naturally, coined the term).
* '''''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]''''', <strike>but less than you'd think. It's a lot closer to nobledark</strike> until the world [[Derp|was]] [[Bullshit|actually]] [[End Times|destroyed]]. Now, [[Age of Sigmar]] continues it and is slightly better, in so much that it is unlikely to be destroyed, though [[Warhammer Meta-Setting|that may imply an even worse eternal stalemate]].
* '''[[Grimdark Songwriting]]'''
* '''''[[Dark Sun]]'''''
* '''''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'''''
* '''''[[CthulhuTech]]'''''
* '''''[[Don't Rest Your Head]]'''''
* Playing mortals in '''''[[Exalted]]'''''
* '''''[[FATAL]]''''': FATAL jumps into the grimdark pool with both feet and goes so deep it winds up mired in the worst kind of edgy grimderp. 
* '''''[[Kingdom Death]]'''''. Makes 40k's setting seem pleasant and cheerful.
* '''''[[Midnight]]''''' setting for D&D.
* '''''[[Paranoia]]''''' (though used for parodying 1984).
* '''''[[Pokemon Tabletop Adventures]]''''' (optionally).
* '''''[[RIFTS]]'''''
* '''''Fragged Cyberpunk''''': A prequel to the more optimistic Fragged Empire. Fragged Cyberpunk focuses on the twilight years of humanity as Habsburgian levels of genetic erosion and degradation leave it only a few centuries of life, while the powers that be, that could cure it do not bother and instead focus their efforts on terraforming hospitable worlds for their new, engineered super species. All the while herding humans into cramped cities on dead planets that are effectively concentration/death camps for what remains of mankind.
* '''''[[Shadowrun]]'''''. While not the worst in the grimdark department, Shadowrun definitely has its moments (the Renraku Archology Shutdown being a prime example); for instance the oppressive megacorporations reducing people to an identification number, with people not having one ([[Derp|for... reasons]]) don't exist legally.
* '''''SLA Industries'''''. Imagine if the Emperor was not only still walking around, but was a callous businessman with a permanent skeleton face and no bling armor. Imagine a civilization that exists almost entirely to strip mine itself in the name of consumerism, with snuff television being the primary source of entertainment and anyone trying to do business not on SLA's pay roll being branded a "Soft Company" to be exterminated. Oh, and truly horrid aliens that were thought extinct centuries ago are now making a comeback AND occult fuckery of varying flavors is manifesting in increasing amounts in Mort City, SLA's capital.
*'''''[http://www.synthiciderpg.com/ Synthicide]'''''. "When robots are gods, killing humans is fair game." In the deep darkness of the far, post-mutagen virus future, Human life is worthless (Murder and theft against them and each other is entirely legal), murder of sentient bots (Who are given free-range to torment humans with impunity after being let go from service to the major faction that makes them), however is one of the greatest offenses, and one the PC's are bound to commit at some point in their careers. Also, everything has a black and white color pallete.
* '''''[[Unhallowed Metropolis]]''''', a game representing probably the outer limits of how Grimdark you can go without sliding into Grimderp.
* '''''[[World of Darkness]]''''', with special mention going to [[Wraith: The Oblivion]], a game so bleak it's rumored to have actually caused fits of chronic depression in players.

===Vidya===
* '''''Armored Warfare'''''. Terrorist/ultra-nationalist/anarchists with tanks, corporations that rule and enslave large portions of the world and the rest of the world might as well be a wasteland, as far as we know.
* '''''Barotrauma''''' : Inspired by Space Station 13, centered on a submarine crew in the underground oceans of Europa. Crew members are expendable, you're ''always'' outgunned, the submarine is almost [[Death World|constantly under attack by massive sea creatures]], and most missions are much more likely to end in disaster than success. Also, you explode as soon as you step outside the sub. The setting isn't much better, since contact with Earth has been lost, some dudes started [[Genestealer Cult|worshipping a parasite]] (or [[Harlequins|clowns]]), and a recent spike in Jovian radiation threatens to kill everyone if they don't go into the untamed depths.
* '''''[[Battletech]]''''' about half the time. On a good day, mercenaries fight proxy wars and follow the Geneva convention to keep damage and body counts low, ComStar keeps everyone in line, and "bombed back to the stone age" actually means "your spaceships blew up and you enjoy a comfortable 1990s era lifestyle." On bad days, the Crusader Clans storm in and break everything, the Word of Blake jihad starts nuking everyone they don't like, and all FTL communication breaks plunging the galaxy into a new dark age, erasing centuries of political and technological progress. On the day-to-day, most of humanity is under the control of various flavors of feudalists which routinely fight for each other for power and influence.
* '''''BioShock'''''. A supposed utopian city based on capitalist freedom devolves and collapses due to their founders deep dedication to his personal ethics making him unable to stop his rivals schemes and a civil war caused by a highly profitable and addictive substance called ADAM, which comes from a species of sea slugs. Said substance is most reliably cultivated by putting those sea slugs in little girls' bellies and said little girls have to be guarded by what are called [[Space Marines|Big Daddies]], whose [[Gene-seed|creation]] makes turning humans into Space Marines look like a mundane medical procedure.
* '''''Bet On Soldier/Iron Storm''''': WW1 got extended by 80 years, leading to a world where war is everything (including a televised past time), peace is considered a horrifically dissident ideal and there is a shadowy cabal behind the scenes plotting to make the war last forever. We're pretty sure the creators are Warhammer fans since one of the DLC bosses is an Inquisijanny stamping out heresies (read: you infected with the vampire curse).
* '''''Bloodborne''''' or the love child of Dark Souls (gameplay) and Lovecraftian mythology (its main inspiration for setting and theme). Another masterpiece from FROM software and Hidetaka Miyazaki. TLDR, the game is a mix of elritch horrors, omnipotent creatures which are fundementally gods and Dark Souls, though this time there is no fire to link, only FEAR.
* '''''[[Cyberpunk 2077]]''''': Unchecked pollution and warfare have devastated much of the planet while megacorporations have acquired so much unchecked power that they've reduced their governments to toothless puppets.  You're either a tiny cog in a corporate machine that can casually destroy you if you step out of line or they need a patsy, a disposable prole who has to be armed to the teeth just to take your kid to school, or a criminal living on the edge.
* '''''Dark Seed''''', Grimdark to the core! the first game is about the main character being fucked in the head. HR Giger's artwork helps too.
* '''''Dark Souls'''''. The entire ''world'' is ''dying''. Specifically, most of the population is undead, you die constantly, and you have to fight enemies larger and filthier than you are, [[Heresy|including a naked *** with a spider vagina]]. Also, [[Extra Heresy|FAKE TITS]]. Stuck in an infinite loop where a hero constantly saves the world, and everything goes back to normal before hitting another grimdark cycle every thousand years. Compare with nobledark and check your mileage.
* '''''[[Darkest Dungeon]]'''''. Your ancestor awakened some kind of God that is pretty much Cthulhu's brother and sent you a letter before killing himself, asking you to mop up the huge mess he created. Enjoy sending parties of 4 adventurers ranging from badass lepers to sickle-wielding jesters to their deaths in cultist-infested ruins, sewers filled with mutated cannibalistic pigmen, sea caverns serving as anthropomorphic sea creatures and forests corrupted by evil. And I'm not going to talk about the Darkest Dungeon itself. Also, have fun dealing with those bandits that are raiding the Hamlet for which you spent a fuckton of resources in upgrades.
* '''''Dead by Daylight''''': The Entity, an eternal and unkillable eldritch abomination from another dimension, traps people in its pocket realm to be hunted and killed over and over and over and over (and over) by its collection of serial killers, sociopaths, and monsters so that it can feed on their terror, agony, and hope. There is no escape and every death chips away a little more of a survivor's soul until they deteriorate into a wraith with no memory of its former life, doomed to wander the Entity's pocket dimension forever.
* '''''Dead Space'''''. A group of humans discovered a device of unknown origin called a '''Marker''' and it turned them into undead alien monsters. In the sequel, it was revealed Markers were created by a long extinct alien species, and the Markers continue to infect other intelligent species, to the point the corpses of their entire civilizations have been turned into a [[Atropus|bunch of giant undead moons capable of telepathically mindfucking people from across the galaxy]]. 
*'''''Destiny''''': While the game itself is Noble Bright/Neutral, the lore is definitively Grim Dark. Entire civilisations were destroyed by the Darkness, Brainiac style. Humanity is reduced to one big city on Earth, literally under a the protection of a paracausal entity, the Traveller, that actively help you AND your enemies. Through experimentation that would make [[Fabius Bile]] proud, millions of humans were transform into robot to fight a secret and seemingly endless war against temporal machines. At one point, you and your kind, the Guardians, were hunted down to serve as batteries, and the carcasses of your companions, the Ghosts, which give you your "immortality", were used as currency. And I did not talk about the Hive and their gods.
* '''''Dishonored''''' - Grimdark, and steampunk. Only in the "kill fucking everyone" ending though.
* '''''[[Doom]]'''''. Demons from Hell have overrun Mars and Earth. You are the lone space marine capable of anything. Somewhat of a subversive case of grimdark: it's not you who is afraid of demons, [[awesome|it's the demons who are afraid of you]]. Commence with the [[Rip and Tear]].
* '''''Drakengard''''' and its related franchise: '''''Nier'''''. Basically, the "god" in this setting is a massive dick so he infects humans with zombie aids out of boredom and watch them kill each other for the [[lulz]]. You play Caim, a mute [[rip and tear|zombie slaughter enthusiast]] who teams up with a blind pedophile priest, a baby eating elf witch, and a ageless shota. The true ending for the game involves Cain and his dragon transporting the queen of the Lovecraftian Watchers to a greyscale version of Tokyo (Yes, the Tokyo of our world) and engages it in a rhythm-based battle of song. After defeating it, the queen disintegrates into particles that start turning the entire population into salt statues, while Caim and his dragon [[fail|get shot down by fighter jets.]]
** '''''Nier''''' takes place 1462 years into the future. After countless grimdark conflicts involving child soldiers, human experiments and more resource shortages, a scientist decided to separate the rest of the survivors' souls (gestalt) from their bodies, hoping they could outlast a mind rape pandemic. But of course all these attempts are futile failures because Nier, our "hero" ended up killing the only thing that could save humankind, dooming them all to extinction.
*** Finally we have '''''Nier: Automata''''', 8480 years later, where androids were created by the last human survivors. But the humans that escaped to the moon turn out to be long dead. When the rest of androids find out, they proceed to kill themselves in a batshit frenzy. To make this even more painful and tragic, the androids have the human concepts of pain and emotions programmed to them, making their death even more painful.
* '''''Elden Ring''''', aka [[meme|Dark Souls 2: Electric Boogalooo]]. The titular metaphysical object responsible for the previous prosperity of the world has been shattered, the demigods are in an eternal stalemate, the world is overrun with monsters and disease, and you are called upon to decide the fate of the Lands Between. A magnum opus of a collaboration between FROMsoft, Miyazaki, and George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. Like the other Soulsborne (would it be Soulsborne''ring'' now?) games, be prepared to die. A lot.
* '''''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'''''
* '''''Factorio'''''. You're a lone human, aliens want to kill you, everything you do makes smog, and your goal is to cover the world in industry, concrete, machines, and gun turrets. The world isn't dead when you arrive, but you're damn well going to kill it yourself or die trying.
* '''''Grim Dawn'''''. A farming game about a never-ending struggle between humans and multiple otherworldly powers. 
* '''''Hellgate London'''''
* '''''I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream'''''. Just the title itself should give you a clue as to how horrific the game is. (The video game is terrifying, especially with its endings, and the short story it is based on is even more horrifying).  Humanity has been wiped out except for five people, who trapped inside a complex controlled by a misanthropic, reality-warping supercomputer keeping them alive to torture them and has altered their minds and/or bodies in cruelly ironic ways.
* '''''LISA the RPG.'''''
* '''''Lobotomy Corp/Library of Ruina AKA Project Moon's setting'''''. To summarize its setting, think of it as Shadowrun with less gun, more melee combat, and subtle rants on corporate dystopias. Also has a bit of philosophies and studies on human behavior, personalities and emotions. Read more on their lore wiki.
* '''''Madness Combat'''''. No regret, no remorse, no reason, only [[Khorne|madness]].
* '''''Mass Effect'''''. While its universe is hardly grimdark overall, the Reapers and what happens to "harvested" individuals are some of the sickest forms of grimdark possible. During the Reaper War, trillions of people across the galaxy were vaporized, crushed, dissolved slowly and/or violently converted into cyber zombies or brainwashed slaves. And that's just the latest Reaper War. The Reapers have committed so much galactic genocide that they've turned it into a regularly scheduled event and made the entire galaxy their farm/laboratory.  
** There is also the genophage, a bioweapon deployed against the Krogan race to halt the Krogan Rebellions. This bioweapon was basically a massive, permanent genetic Fetus Deletus that dramatically lowered Krogan birthrates and caused a lot of stillbirths (literal "piles of children that never lived" - actual in-game quote).  If that wasn't bad enough, they live on a death-world and have a warlike culture, so this puts them at risk of extinction.  And if THAT wasn't bad enough, they've still been suffering under the Genophage '''over a thousand years after the Krogan Rebellions ended''', and every prior attempt to overcome the Genophage was unsuccessful or sabotaged.
* '''''Path of Exile'''''. The game's setting is basically a documentary on the corruption of [[Roman Empire]].
* '''''Portal''''' once you get past the memes
* '''''Postal'''''. Not the sequels, which play the violence for laughs and topical humor, or the crap Uwe Boll movie, just the first game and it's remake (''Postal Redux''). Once you get past all the shock and outrage of being a forefather of the [[Satanic Panic|"Ban Violent Video Games"]] movement, you'll realize that this game is genuinely fucked up with its imagery and the protagonist is a mentally unwell individual.
* The '''''Prototype''''' games. New York City is infected with a virus created by a generically-unethical corporation called GenTek that mutates people into mutant zombies and/or fucking huge deformed beasts. A secret division called Blackwatch is sent to brutally contain the virus, except it turns out they originally created the virus as a way to purge minorities. This may sound like Resident Evil but the resemblance ends here because you play as Alex Mercer (Prototype 1) and James Heller (Prototype 2), both of them infected by a strain of the virus and became superhumans who can shapeshift and gain someone's memories by consuming them (read violently absorbing them into their bodies) and can grow weapons like claws or a blade arm.
* '''''[[Space Station 13]]''''' : Space paranoia simulator set in a dystopian future where capitalism and unforgiving bureaucracy rules the universe, your life is expandable, and the media is controlled; your only choice is working until you die, or getting killed by either rival corporate operatives, space wizards, cultists, deathsquads or spies posing as your co-workers.
* '''''Total War: Attila'''''. Unlike the previous Total War titles, which were about your faction's rise to power from small backwater city/tribe/country into a mighty empire able to boss around its neighbors into doing your bidding, this one is about the decline of your faction as you desperately try to survive the onslaught of the Huns, who's sole purpose in the game is to worship Tengri by burning, pillaging, and raping their way through the known world. Particularly if you are the Romans. Winning is defined by being the last guy standing who gets to clean up the rubble and dead bodies, trying to rebuild their world after Attila destroyed it. Seriously, even the music sounds depressing and foreboding as fuck.
* '''''[[XCOM]]''''' (The remake and the original, as a parody of the G.I. Joe Badass stereotype, you're on the back foot from the word go, struggling with funding, and even your gods in human form, some of whom make certain chapters of Astartes weep, can get fucked over by Sectoids!)

===Animation and Comics===
* '''''[[Adventure Time]]''''''s backstory.
* The first two seasons of '''''Animals of Farthing Wood''''', a animated series for kids ''infamous'' for having graphic depictions of violence and a death rate of major characters on par with Game of Thrones. Notable deaths in the series include but are not limited to: the pheasants, a couple who die at a farm in an extremely cruel manner; three baby mice who are all killed onscreen by a shrike, a bird infamous for impaling its prey; and the hedgehogs. While trying to cross a road, have to fight not to curl up into a ball... but eventually, the husband goes crazy, unable to stop himself from curling up, and his wife elects to stay with him, leading to both their deaths when a lorry runs them over.
* '''''Akame ga Kill''''': The world is run by a corrupt fascist empire, crime is rampant, nobles torture, rape, and eat commoners for fun, and the heroes are a ragtag team of assassins and terrorists who frequently get fucked over and/or die horribly as they try to bring the empire down.  
* '''''Armored Trooper Votoms''''', an old-school mech anime. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Mankind has been at war for so long that even the computers created to direct strategy don't know what the goal is]]. War isn't glorious either, most of the first arc is about a squad that goes rogue and raids their own side's armory to find some loot. While the mech designs aren't pretty or fancy, they are more industrial and utilitarian than many contemporaries, being repurposed exo-suits. The main character is a [[Perpetual]] done right, through a mix of natural regeneration abilities, skills and nigh supernatural luck; unlike, you know, [[Vulkan]], who was just handed something that should have probably belong to all Primarchs just so that he could make [[Horus|some]] [[Sanguinius|people]] [[Ferrus Manus|jealous]].  
[[File:Digimon_Tamers_Nope_Nope_Nope!.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[RIP AND TEAR|It was going to be a kids show they said. It was going to be as whimsical as Pokemon they said...]]]]
* '''''Attack on Titan'''''. You cannot win, ever. And if you do, you've probably lost all your friends, who've been eaten by giant freaky Mutants, who don't even need food. Yeeeah.
* '''''Ava's Demon'''''. A planet is destroyed by Silent Scavengers, which are Tyranids and Necrons mixed together, then the main character ends up impaled when they crash land, her soul going to turn into space dust until she agrees to help the demon who's been possessing her since she was born to get revenge on TITAN, who can at best be described as the God-Emperor if he were every negative stereotype about the Imperium taken to the extreme and then some. 
* '''''[[Blame!]]'''''
* '''''[[Berserk]]'''''
* '''''Devilman'''''. Especially CRYBABY
* '''''[[Digimon: Digital Adventures|Digimon Tamers]]'''''. (Digimon as a franchise is noted to be surprisingly dark and adult for a kids anime in the 'Mon' genre, but Digimon Tamers is exceptionally depressing even by the series standard. Children attempting suicide, child abuse, attempted murder on a child, multiple on-screen deaths of major characters, torture, psychological mind rape on a young girl, PTSD on said young girl, eldritch abominations, horror and psychological horror. You think Tamers would have a happy ending? Lolnope, Tamers has a bittersweet ending in which the main kids lose their Digimon partners <u>''for ever''</u>. This is what happens when you allow a guy notorious in psychological horror anime to do a kids show. There is a reason why Tamers is considered the Neon Genesis Evangelion for kids.) Unsurprisingly, the writer has written Cthulhu Mythos short stories.
** '''''Digimon Adventure Tri''''' (aimed towards adult fans of the series) takes Tamers up a notch in just plain creepiness. Deaths, assisted suicide, infanticide of Digimon babies, psychological damage, grief-induced madness, corruption, attempted genocide, racial supremacy, racism, immense property damage with collateral damage and attempted rape from the series' former mentor and teacher becoming a creepy sexual predator molesting one of the main characters and choking another one to near death (Both female by the way). Digimon doesn't fuck around.
* '''''Dorohedoro'''''. The entire setting is a massive slum, with horrible pollution, mass poverty, and human body parts polluting the waterways. Your options for living are being a normal human, living in poverty and treated like toys, lab rats, and livestock by the various magic users. Or being a [[psyker|magic user]], and either be lynched by the terrified normies or captured by other magic users and boiled down to make drugs. And if you're a magic user, regardless of how good you are when you die you're [[Warp|guaranteed to be sent to hell to be tortured by devils for all eternity]] ([[Daemon Prince|unless you become a devil yourself]]). Or being a devil, and worry about being [[Tzeentch|screwed over by your boss for shits and giggles]] or eaten by Store, who is implied to be an angel and treats devils the same way devils treat mortals. Or being said boss, [[Necron|and dick around with people for all eternity because you're absolutely bored with existence]], can't die, and are horribly lonely since you can't form a meaningful bond with anyone else. 
* '''''Dragon Ball Z: History of Trunks'''''. Could just be expanded to Trunks' timeline in general. Dragon Ball has always been known as a sort of noble bright anime, but ''this'', damn. Everyone is either dead, dying, or living in fear of two walking machines of pure evil. And then when Trunks does actually take care of his enemies, another more powerful one shows up and just sends everything back to the way it was. Even the parody of this movie is oddly depressing.
* Most good 'Real Robot' anime/video games. Further discussion will result in [[skub]].
* '''''Elfen Lied'''''. Where the next step of the evolution of mankind is a group of schizophrenic homicidal mutant girls with invisible tentacle hands and a hair-trigger temper who will either kill you in the worst way possible or [[Genestealer|infect you with their gene to increase their numbers]].
* '''''Emergence aka Metamorphosis'''''. 177013. So retardedly bad people fan-fic'd a happier end and even threatened the artist to make it all a movie set in the end.
* '''''Everything is Fine'''''. A horror webtoon about a seemingly perfect society where everyone wears giant cat masks with cutesy expressions, have to pretend that everything is fine at all times and be perfectly moral, upstanding citizens... or watch their kids commit suicide in real-time. In other words, it's a horrific dystopia taking the image of a perfect suburb where you are made to ignore everything that is going wrong, or those you love most kill themselves horribly, then you get kicked to the curb as a broken shell of a human being, forgotten and ignored.
* '''''Full Metal Alchemist''''': At first glance, the world has a nice noblebright candy-coating, but morphs into 1984 the more you watch/read. The world starts out all fine and dandy (despite being a fascist military dictatorship (the head of state is literally called the [[nazi|Führer]])), and then it morphs into a world where the main country (Amestris) is at constant war with almost all its neighbors, commits genocides left and right, and murders anyone who finds out the dark truth.
* '''''The Goon''''' comic series by Eric Powell (because circus hillbillies, werewolves with midget hand phobias, and the Zombie Priest are the least of it all).
* '''''GANTZ'''''
* '''''[[Goblin Slayer]]'''''. Pretty much [[Berserk]] if it was set in a Dungeons and Dragons world.
* '''''Grave of the Fireflies'''''.  The plot of film is "A pair WW2 of orphans from a high ranking officer in the brutal Japanese military freeloads off on his aunt's goodwill then refuses to sell his mother's clothes and piano and sets off on his own without a plan, only for him and his sister to starve to death." The movie is taken by 99% of the viewers overseas as showing how innocent the Japanese were, but the Japanese see it as an allegory about the leaders of Japan (the older brother) disregarding the suffering of their own people (his little sister), telling them childish propaganda that they are doing really well in war, and then obliging the childish tantrums of the populace enabled by such propaganda. '''This is an allegory of Japan,''' when shit hit the fan, told people to press on and declared everyone must sacrifice their life for the one true living god that is Emperor Hirohito. 
** Even in this period millions of people did what work they could find to feed themselves despite the war time inflation brought on by the wars they started, yet the protagonist would not "deign" menial labor because he was the son of a rich, high ranking Naval officer. ''Starvation was NOT rampant in Japan, but the protagonist (Japan)'s arrogant laziness and subsequent death was an allegory of making his bed and sleeping in it.'' Note how while it wasn’t easy, they WEREN'T starving when they were under their “evil” aunt's care. 
*** For instance, the day the battleship Yamato sank in 1945, it was scheduled to serve the men aboard canned beef, canned red bean rice, and sweet bean porridge for dessert.
** This movie was based on a book by Akiyuki Nosaka who lived through WW2 as a boy. He admittedly regretted killing his toddler of a little sister by hungrily stealing food from her and dashing her head against the ground and giving her concussions when she would cry about it. The novel was to be his penance of sorts. 
*** This is still absolutely nothing compared to what the Japanese were doing to other colonies though, '''it was rather 2 million Vietnamese that were butchered to rob and feed Japanese,''' just between October of 1944 to August of 1945 alone. Not counting all the families traumatized or permanently crippled via malnutrition. Thankfully the war ended with an Allied victory that put a quick end to this, Japan surrendered because of USSR's August push through Manchuria and was poised to land on Japan proper (Japan did not surrender because of American nukes which they themselves were busy making unlike the Nazis who didn't bother. Japanese high command got casualty reports like that everyday at the end of the war, they were only afraid of being split in two like Germany did in May. Japan also sent only foreign slaves to clean up the radiation and killed them afterwards to hide their war crimes.) In Korea people were dying from intestinal bleeding from eating boiled tree barks too rough for the human body as a regular prolonged diet because anyone who touched the crops were beaten or executed, because food was robbed and taken to Japan. In Korea particular, due to proximity, the nation’s hills were rendered barren dirt hills for all the trees were cut down to make desperate turpentine oil that was going to be a makeshift fuel source for ships and planes, sent to Japan once the Southeast Asian territories and their oil fields were liberated by Allies. The dead cannot speak and the [[grimdark|living can whine louder about the troubles they faced,]] that's why so many killings happened at the end of the war to hide war crimes.
*** Director Takahata Isao himself said this is '''NOT an anti-war anime,''' but an allegory of idealists bringing people death. Also note he is a rare kind in modern Japan who accuses the Japanese government for all the sins of WW2, and used to fight the riot police who were quelling anti-imperialists like him. Note that Japan is a place where saying Japan was at fault can get one shot dead. Mayor Motoshima of Nagasaki in 1990 got shot in the heart for accusing his government of starting the wars that got his city nuked. Mayor Itoh got shot in the heart for saying the same in 2007. There's just no way ordinary criminals could get their hands on a gun in a country with really tight gun control laws, [[Assassin|unless...]]
* '''''[[Hellsing]]'''''... just all of Hellsing... Though it can easily slide into grimderp. (A little girl seeing her mother killed while hiding in a closet? Yeah, that's intense. In a moment of desperation, shove a rod into the guy's eyeball, only for him to not be mortally wounded? That's pretty unfortunate. Said guy deciding to fuck the corpse as his smashed eyeball hangs from the socket? That's just silly.)
**'''''Drifters''''', by the same author. The protagonists are a bunch of [[murderhobo|kill-happy murderhoboes]] drawn from various psychos from all throughout history into [[Isekai|a generic fantasy world]] who have decided to [[Great Crusade|save the world by conquering it, one country at a time]]. One of the major powers of the setting turns out to have been founded by ''Adolph friggin' Hitler''. Even Joan of Arc, who IRL was noted for being a pacifist, is warped into a bloodthirsty psycho. The [[BBEG]], who wants to kill all humans (and is noted to be a step up from his subordinates, who want to kill [[Necron|everything]]) is all but outright stated to be ''Jesus''.
* '''''Hunter x Hunter'''''. What if 40k was a Shonen manga?
* The '''Kerberos''' trilogy, but special mentions to '''Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade'''. A series of films that basically gave birth to Killzone singlehandedly (Seriously, look at the comparisons between the Helghast and the film's Protect Gear, [[Original character, do not steal|it is ''blatant'']]). Set in an alternate-history where Japan was occupied by Germany rather than America at the end of WW2. In Jin-Roh, the nation is constantly in social turmoil with left-wing communist terrorist guerillas using children as bomb couriers against two police force of Japan: the normal-looking police force (Backed by the Japanese KGB/CIA hybrid) and the <u>'''ORIGINAL'''</u> Helghasts called the Kerberos Panzer Cops. Jin-Roh is a political thriller film that largely talks about the problems of the "Good guy, bad guy" dichotomy and how juvenile it is for stories to portray these things in real life. All of the films have a downer ending, so if you are looking for a happy ending, you're gonna get dissapointed. Despite what [[/pol/|some people]] [[SJW|may argue,]] the Kerberos trilogy is a condemnation of all extremist ideas and actions. Its a Mamoru Oshii film of Ghost in the Shell fame, what do you fucking expect.
*'''''The Incredible Hulk'''''. Most Marvel heroes have a network of friends they can rely on, Hulk does not. Most Marvel heroes can say they are not reguarly hunted down by the military, Hulk does not. Most Marvel heroes are accepted enough in polite society that they can buy supplies and keep down a job, Hulk does not. Most Marvel heroes have the bliss of not knowing what it's like to have their father murder their mother in front of them as a child and angrily demand to lie in court what happened, Hulk does not. Did we mention he was slapped by his dad as a newborn? Most Marvel heroes are unaware how painful it is to have their head torn off and have their body explode, Hulk does not. Most Marvel heroes are unaware of what it's like to lose <s>three</s> (two, Betty eventually came back as Red She Hulk) love interests by violent deaths, Hulk does not. Most Marvel heroes that die were mourned by the public, not for Hulk. Most Marvel heroes are not pawns of Satan forced to be pushed back into life thus unable to rest in peace, Hulk does not. No wonder Hulk wants to be left alone since '62.
* '''''Magical Girl Site'''''. So grimdark it makes Meguca look Noblebright. So much fucking dread, suicide, blood, and sexual assault.
* '''''Made in Abyss'''''. A death world disguised as a cute loli adventure featuring on-screen death and mutilation, child labor, and philosophical exploration of just how far humanity can go before completely losing it.
* '''''Muv-Luv''''' Often compared to 40k in how bleak and brutal the series is.
* '''''Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'''''. A manga/anime film made by Hayao Miyazaki, yes you heard us right. The man who was the main founder of Studio Ghibli and gave us childhood gems such as Totoro, Spirited Away and Ponyo, gave us a Science-Fantasy Epic of the brutality of war. Nausicaa, especially the manga, does not shy away from human slavery, biological WMDS, genocides, nuclear holocaust, a gratuitous amount of inferred and overt infanticides, inquisitorial purging and the likes. 
* '''''Neon Genesis Evangelion''''' (Especially End).
* '''''Now and Then, Here and There'''''. The setting takes place in an alternate world, ''10 billion years'' into the future where the [[Xeelee Sequence|sun is about to go into a red giant]] and whatever scraps of humanity are fighting each other for the last remaining sources of water. Expect a lot of child soldiers, child abuse, child torture, child rape and ethnic cleansing to a scarily realistic degree. This is a post-post-apocalyptic world that is designed to break the viewers. It is an anime darker than 40k despite the 'happy' ending due the sheer levels of nihilism and unforgiving horrors of human depravity. 
* '''''[[Isekai|Re:Zero]]'''''
* '''''The Promised Neverland'''''. An anime/manga about a bunch of cute children raised in a nice orphanage, that is really a farm set up by demons who raise the children as food. A handful girls get to survive until adulthood by getting selected to act as mothers to children, but they are still prisoners who can't leave the farm. If they are unlucky they will have to watch over their own children until the day they are killed.
** The world outside the farms is even worse. A thousand years ago the world was divided between humans and demons. Demons used to hunt humans until the two sides made a truce where the world was divided in two halves to keep peace and humans were handed over to the demons to farm as food and the wealthy family of humans who made the deal are out to kill the escaped children to uphold it. Demons actually need to eat humans or they degenerate into mindless animals that attack everything in sight, except of the demon nobility thanks to them consuming blood that removed the need. And they still insist on hoarding the best quality human meat for themselves while leaving the commoners to feed on meat from humans raised on factory farms where the humans are force fed until they die. 
* '''''Puella Magi Madoka Magica'''''. Being Meguca is suffering.
* '''''Uzumaki'''''. Basically a Lovecraftian horror manga where a seaside town gets [[rape]]d by spirals. Not as weird as it sounds. Or maybe it is as weird as it sounds but not as bad. Also has enough body horror to put most [[Chaos Spawn]] to shame.
** Come to think of it, pretty much anything by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junji_Ito Junji Ito.] Except ''Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu''.
* '''''Wanted''''': The villains won the war against the heroes and completely erased them from reality. Crime is not only rampant but is actually part of the law, enforced by the Fraternity (Justice League for bad guys), and the only way to even have the closest thing to a 'safe and happy life' is by murdering your next door neighbor out of paranoia. Furthermore, as the world is cut up into sections and ruled by different supervillains, you will most likely be born in a country ruled by either a psychotic bastard who shoots children for shits and giggles, a Lex Luthor archetype who hungers for more unrestrained power, a literal Nazi from the future who wants another Holocaust, or a megalomaniac and sociopathic Chinese emperor who makes Mao Zedong like a chump or a completely immortal 'President-for-Life' Mugabe expy that will probably rule for eternity.

===Literature===
* '''''[[1984]]'''''
* '''''All Quiet on the Western Front''''' Of all the wars humanity's ever fought, World War I was one of the most grimdark. The writer, who himself served in the war, thought that the war destroyed his whole generation whether or not they survived the trenches. The book follows a group of German boys who eagerly enlist as soon as they turn eighteen, only to be met with the worst kinds of horrors World War I could bring. Even if they survive the battles, they are broken by the horrors of industrialized trench warfare. By the end of the novel they are all dead and the field report simply states "all quiet on the western front".
* '''''Cormac McCarthy''''' is an American writer whose most famous works are considered some of the darkest novels ever written, due to the near casual way violence is depicted and the rather bleak outlook it takes on humanity's place in the world. Notables include:
** '''''Blood Meridian''''' a book following the exploits of the Glanton Gang, a real-life group of scalpers in the 19th Century. Kids die left and right, lawlessness runs rampant, sickfuckery abounds, it's... brutal.
** '''''No Country for Old Men,''''' also adapted as a film, covers the rising violence of the drug war on the US-Mexico border. Or simply suggests things have always been that bad and there's no way for good men to stop it.
** '''''The Road''''', along with the film, can be summarized as follows - the biosphere is dead with no hope of reviving it. A man and his son now traverse the dying, bleak landscape along a road, without any remnant of human civilization left, only able to depend on each other. Seriously, this setting is bleak in ways Warhammer 40k can only have nightmares about.
* '''''Clive Barker''''' in general. His works include The Hellbound Heart (which was turned into the Hellraiser movie franchise), Rawhead Rex where an ancient god of male sex eats kids, the Midnight Meat Train where an ancient cult feeds people to an underground society of monsters so New York isn't destroyed, and... let's just say there's a reason he's basically a BDSM enthusiast given way too much handle.
* Everything from '''''[[H.P. Lovecraft]]''''' and the '''''Cthulhu Mythos''''', though this can vary when you add in later Mythos writers like August Derleth. To explain: 95% of everything Lovecraft ever wrote is grimdark as shit; his is an amoral, uncaring, and inhumanly vast cosmos infested with hyper-advanced aliens, unspeakable extradimensional horrors, mad gods who control the threads of reality, and all kinds of eldritch monsters, all of whom see humanity as nothing more than primitive apes to be experimented on, played with, eaten, or exterminated. Even when his protagonists "win", they usually wind up dying, going insane, or going insane and then dying. Should they somehow escape unscathed, they still tend to be left with the knowledge that all they've managed to do is temporarily delay the plans of whatever horrible entity they crossed paths with. These stories were strongly influenced by Lovecraft's personality and worldview; he was an introverted, pessimistic atheist/racist/traditionalist who believed that humanity was a tiny, impermanent speck in a vast and uncaring universe. Mythos writers who don't share his worldview, like Derleth, have tried to impose a more conventional "good vs. evil" structure on Lovecraft's universe, which has the knock-on effect of making things less grimdark. Others have cranked the grimdark knob to 11 and ripped it off, either in reaction to the former or because it's how they like to write. Which of these, if either, is the correct approach remains [[skub|a matter of debate among Lovecraft fans]]. 
*'''''Mistborn''''': A trilogy of books by Brandon Sanderson (at least the First Era). The stories themselves rarely meet the criteria of grimdark, but hoooo boy the background setting and villains sure do. About a thousand years ago, a hero rose up to stop a mysterious enemy… and failed. Now, volcanoes spew ash down on the land, choking all but the most hardy plants. The brightest color is yellow, and flowers are an alien idea. Modern fauna include ectoplasmic monsters composed of the skeletons of other creatures and… that’s mostly it. The rest is dead. 95% of the population are slaves, and it’s a revolutionary idea to consider that they may be able to think. The nobility rule mostly because the immortal Lord Ruler gave their ancestors powers, and some of them still have some today (the titular Mistborn). The only way to trigger these powers is through trauma, and so even among the good portion of the population, all children are nearly beaten to death to see if they have these powers. Usually, they don’t. The villains also deserve a dishonorable mention, as the average one is a pedophiliac, slave owning rapist. Even the “good guys,” are only good by comparison. Variously, they are rebels who know full well there is no hope, a thief who could and would kill anything that contradicts him, and an optimistic young man who is eventually forged into a warmongering emperor. Oh, and the only way to “save the day” involves killing a minimum 1/16th of the planetary population.
* '''''Grimm's Fairy Tales''''' ("Hansel and Gretel", for example).
* The first two '''''Hyperion''''' books.
* '''''Metro'''''. Both the books and games, but mostly in the books, where the last known humans are hiding in underground subway tunnels, and when not trying to finish each other off are fighting endless hordes of [[mutant]]s [[/b/|and other, much worse things]]. Also, if you're one of the stalkers, the few brave ones that head to the surface to [[Blood Ravens|loot anything they can find]], you risk [[Tyranid|being eaten by flying daemons]]. Hell, it even has the same "abandon all hope" vibe in the intro, just like 40k. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Note as the books go on the grimdarkness does tone down by showing the areas outside of the city to be in much better living conditions and other metros.(though not all the books are written by the same author). 
* Noir in general, from Raymond Chandler's novels to games like This is the Police.
* [[Post Apocalyptic]] stuff in general tends to default to Grimdark.
* World Devastators in '''''[[Star Wars]]'''''. Seriously, if you read about them without knowing that they are from Star Wars, you could easily mistake them for something from 40k. And we're not talking about Star Wars Legacy and the genocide of the Mon Calamari.
** All of '''Steven Baxter's works''' arguably qualify. '''''Evolution''''' can be summed up as "humanity almost overcame its flaws, fixed the damage it did to Earth, and ushered in a [[noblebright]] future, and it might have worked, but [[Rocks_fall,_everyone_dies|just then a supervolcano erupted, wiped out human civilization, and everyone died]]. The end. There's even a chapter in the middle of the book outright stating it. Also that humans [[Imperium|are nothing but vicious bastards who rape, kill, and destroy everything they touch]] and have been ever since our ancestors were rats under the feet of dinosaurs, but other animals aren't much better.
* '''''[[SCP Foundation]]''''' universe as a whole is borderline grimdark, as many aspects of the Foundation are mixed between absurd comedy, derp, and pure grimdark. At its very worst, the SCP Foundation has things that make the [[Daemonculaba]] look nice by comparison. Above all: [[Inquisition|Secure. Contain. Protect.]] 
* '''''Shakespeare's tragedies''''', especially ''Macbeth'' and ''Hamlet''.
* '''''Shin Sekai Yori''''' also known as From the New World is a novel by Yusuke Nishi (also has an anime adaptation). Basically it's a dystopian story with people using magic to run their society instead of machines in a world that has deliberately regressed to the medieval level. Every child who doesn't manifest magical abilities by a certain age is killed, and all existing non-magical humans have been genetically engineered into a slave-race of mole-people so long ago they've forgotten their origins. The magical people are instead engineered to commit unwilling suicide should they use their powers to harm another human (mole people are fair game, though), and those of them who are too strong and can't manage to control themselves become Lovecraftian abominations.
* '''''The Slenderman Mythos''''' (HE ALWAYS WATCHES).
* '''''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''''' AKA Game of Thrones: Good guys screw up monumentally or never win, the only people who get ahead are amorally manipulative assholes and everyone is going to be massacred and enslaved by the evil ice elf necromancers in the end. And if they somehow survive, then another war for the Iron Throne will happen after the winner gets their revenge-boner satisfied and later, their kids would need to clean up the wankstains.
* Most of '''Stephen King's''' works. As the joke goes, some people say that Stephen King's works are so fucked up they should come with a content warning. The reply is that they ''do'' have a content warning, they have the words "written by Stephen King" on the front.
* '''Peter Watts'''. Brutal neuropunk sci-fi horror, as bleak as H. P. Lovecraft but with a list of scientific citations at the end to let you know just how realistic it really is. Hits you with a world-ending catastrophe and then manages to make it a thousand times worse -- an alien invasion DURING a hard-takeoff singularity, for example. Sociopathy and post-human augments abound. [http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm Also, the books are free!]
* The majority of the '''Tragedy''' genre of stories.
* '''''[[The Witcher]]'''''. Racism, genocides, dozens of monsters that want to eat your face whenever you enter a random forest. Or cave. Or ruins. The video game adaptation even features a medieval Hitler running the [[Inquisition|Witch Hunters]], a fanatical order of [[Black Templars|racist scumbags dedicated to wiping out both mages and non-humans]] in the name of the Eternal Fire. Meanwhile, the neighboring empire starts a series of wars against northern kingdoms (where the series takes place), in which both sides descend into scorched earth warfare, all the while backstabbing their allies and generally being a colossal wall of dicks to the point that close to 70% of civilian population in war-zones died from raiding, famine and occasional outbreaks of extradimensional plagues. To add insult to injury, the whole world is doomed due to the (slowly) encroaching Ice Age, and the only person that could save it took two glances at this shitshow and decided to fuck off to a parallel universe and let them all die, ''because it would be a mercy''. (To be fair, though, she comes back, if only to save her adoptive mother and father from said Ice Age, as she still maintains her 'fuck the rest of humanity' attitude.
* '''''World War Z''''' (the book). After zombies overran most of the world, many people had it so bad that they simply lost the will to live. Fighting in the Paris Catacombs with weaker weapons that wouldn't cause a cave-in due to hazardous gasses everywhere. Russian soldiers rioting over unfair treatment and enforced secrecy ordered under pain of death to kill one in ten of their own squadmates - with rocks - to teach them the price of freedom and democracy. Which they then happily traded away. The survival of the human race hinged on governments following a plan including elements of eugenics and leaving settlements of people behind as zombie bait. People resorted to cannibalism to survive in Canada. North Korea entirely vanished without a trace. Pakistan and Iran nuked each other. After the war officially ended, there are still loose zombies wandering around, Russia has started a breeding program to deal with severe underpopulation, several species are extinct, and diseases thought to be wiped out are coming back en masse. 
* Anything from the '''''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'''''.

===Films and TV===
* '''''Alien''''' (as in the biomechanical, parasitic, acid-blooded brainchild of Ridley Scott and the late H.R. Giger). Bonus points when you realize it's pretty much an allegory of the human fear of unwanted pregnancy, with sexual role reversal thrown in.
* The aftermath of '''''Avengers: Infinity War'''''. After the [[Rubric Marines|battledust]] settles, no one really wins at the end of the movie. Even the villain, who got what he wanted, was badly injured and the victory was very costly.
* '''''Children of Men''''': A future where humans are no longer fertile and going extinct, and then someone finds a pregnant woman and nearly everyone in the world fights over her.
* '''''Come and See''''' A World War II movie which instead of focusing on big battles focuses on Nazi death squads in the Byelorussian SSR. Do we even need to say more?
* '''''Eastenders''''', Especially at Christmas.
* '''''End of War'''''
* '''''Event Horizon''''': Humans accidentally punch a hole into hell while inventing FTL travel and immediately get mindfucked into committing an [[Slaanesh|orgy of torturerapemurder]]. 40K fans have embraced it as an unofficial prequel to the series because you don't need to change a damn thing about it to make it fit into the grimdarkness of the far future.  
* The first two '''''Hellraiser''''' movies
* '''''The Day After''''', and its much worse British counterpart, '''''Threads'''''.
* '''''Lord Of War'''''. The worst is that it's based on real events.
* '''''The Matrix'''''
* '''''Power Rangers RPM''''' plays with this trope, being what is effectively ''Terminator'' meets ''Mad Max'' "for kids." It is still Power Rangers, and does still have its fair share of comic relief, but this is also the season where a young girl is brainwashed into becoming a child soldier for Skynet and HAL 9000's demented love child, while also having her humanity stripped away and replaced with cold metal. That's not even starting to mention the fact that most of the planet is wiped out, with billions dying over the course of what seems like a few weeks.
* ''''' Requiem for a Dream'''''
* '''''Romero's "Dead" series''''', especially the later entries. ''Night'' is grim for the heroes, even if the overall story ends somewhat happily with the zombies taken care of. On the other hand, ''Dawn'' and ''Day'' are much darker, with zombies overrunning society, and though both end on positive notes, the journey there is a grim fight for survival. Most of the heroes die in ''Dawn'' (all of them if you count the depressing alternate cut), and in ''Day'' most of the characters, even the heroes, are hateful, unhinged, and/or just plain crazy.
* Saw: [[Cegorach|I just wanna play a game.]]
* '''''Shisha no Teikoku''''', the Empire of Corpses. Steampunk, Grimdark, Zombies, Cross-References and Conspiracies everywhere. It has even become possible to resurrect the dead, giving them their soul and intelligence back, but only 2 characters profit from it in the end, while everyone else stays a slave.
* '''''Soylent Green''''': Inspiration for 40K’s Soylens Viridiens. Humanity's running out of food due to overpopulation and catastrophic environmental collapse and someone decides to solve the problem by mulching the poor into corpse-starch.  And it gets even darker when it is revealed that this is only delaying the inevitable extinction of humanity as the environmental collapse is irreversible.
* '''''Tetsuo: The Iron Man''''' A cult Japanese horror film about an ordinary man who accidently kills and becomes possessed by a man with a fetish for sticking pieces of metal into his body and slowly and painfully transforms into a horrifying scrap metal monster, ending with the two of them decide to turn the entire world into metal.