Top 10 Most Violent Video Games
#10 - Phantasmagoria (1995)
Kicking off our list is the game about an author in a demonic mansion, which was banned down under in Australia and refused by American retailers, despite it’s development by the maker of the family friendly “King’s Quest” series! A cinematic interactive point and click game, it focuses on psychological horror but features a decent amount graphics gore, and even rape. While not as graphic as modern games, it was a trailblazer of violence and featured an actual actor, making it all the more disturbing to the uninitiated.
#9 - “Dead Space” Series (2008-)
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Next up is the modern horror franchise that’s been banned in Germany, China and Japan. Here for having you play an engineer stranded in space and surrounded by Necromorphs, grotesque monstrosities that can only be killed through wanton dismemberme nt. Yes, the main gameplay gimmick is revolves around chopping your enemies to bits, and that’s only if they don’t get their claws on you first.
#8 - “The Darkness” Series (2007-)
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Based on a comic book series of the same name, in the Darkness you play a mob assassin who possesses the power of an ancient demon. Clad with two snake-like tendril appendages, you don’t just shoot foes, but also use tendrils rip them to shreds and feast on human hearts in order to health gain and upgrades. Modern graphics bring the horrified looks on your victims’ faces to life with disturbing clarity.
#7 - “God of War” Series (2005-)
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This is the series that brings every figure and creature from Greek mythology to life, only to have you rips their shrieking heads off of their shoulders. Kratos, the ghost of Sparta, uses his signature blades of chaos and his own bear hands to rewrite Greek mythology in a bath of bodily fluids and vital organs. While other games can claim similar content, everything in God of War is made to look like it really hurts and squirts.
#6 - “Soldier of Fortune” Series (2000-)
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Ok, so some games let you blow dudes heads off, but a game that lets you blow half of a dude’s head off? This I gotta see. Built on the Quake II engine, it features the GHOUL damage model engine, which to allowed you to dismember enemies with startling precision for the fist time in a first person shooter. Solider of Fortune was definitely one of the earlier examples of how much was too much when it came to how realistic your game could be, perhaps best proven by the fact that shooters today rarely have this much gore, despite another 10 years of technological development.
#5 - MadWorld (2009)
This game is like polo, but with chainsaws. A magnet of controversy that’s also banned in Germany, it ended up exclusive to the Nintendo Wii of all consoles. A third person action game, it’s centered on Jack, a contestant in a deadly reality game show called “Death Watch”. Stylized in black and white, the red blood really pops as you mercilessly impale and shred through your opponents. Wow, that blood is vibrant.
#4 - “Manhunt” Series (2003-)
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A stealth-based nihilistic psychological horror game, “Manhunt” was, as you can guess, banned in the several countries. Developed by Rockstar Games, this is a third-person stealth horror series with levels referred to as "scenes". Here, players must progress through increasingly violent stages by killing targets with gruesome and realistic executions, and are then graded for their level of brutality. Throw in the fact that you use impromptu weapons like plastic bags and shards of glass, and Manhunt pretty much plays like a serial killer training video.
#3 - “Carmageddon” Series (1997- 2000)
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This is quite literally the video game equivalent of “Death Race 2000”. Carmageddon is a vehicular combat series it has players races against each other, with the main gimmick being that you gain extra points for killing pedestrians. Races are won by either completing the course like a normal racing game, or by brutally killing everyone on that’s on wheels and on foot.
#2 - Postal Series (1997-)
Next up is the one of a kind franchise that insists that it’s only as violent as you are. Your only real objective in Postal is to complete the everyday items on your to do list, like get milk and go to the post office, but it presents you with some rather horrific options along the way. For example, you can visit the offices of a videogame publisher where people are staging an anti violence protest outside. You can then douse the protesters with gasoline and urinate on their sizzling bodies. We wish we were joking.
#1 - “Mortal Kombat” Series (1992-)
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Dismembering its way to the top of our list is the fantasy fighting franchise that popularized the term “Fatality”. First developed with digitized sprites based on actors, as opposed to animated cartoon graphics, here, combatants literally beat each other to death with their bare hands. As over the top as the combat is, it’s the unbelievably cruel finishing moves that actually hurt to watch. There’s a good chance that Mortal Kombat was the first game your parents told you that you weren’t allowed to play.
Agree with our list? Which video game cranked up the violence to levels you had trouble stomaching? For more gruesome top 10s, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com
