In the world of gaming, some titles go to great lengths to craft immersive and realistic combat experiences, diving deep into the visceral and gruesome aspects of violence. They aim to make players truly feel the impact of every punch, kick, or weapon strike, delivering authenticity to their virtual battles. From intense swordfights to gritty fistfights, these games prioritize realism, offering players a profound sense of weight and consequence with each action.
Games With Most Creative and Brutal actions:
Visceral Realism:
When gamers pick up a new explosive shooter or fighting game promising gritty realism and heart-stopping action, they expect to experience something bone-snappingly gruesome. However, it’s not often that players genuinely feel the punch, kick, or bullet wound that developers painstakingly seek to recreate. Given that gunshot wounds, cracked ribs, and punctured organs are fairly gruesome experiences, not to mention inconvenient for gamers when they happen to their characters, most developers strive to strike a balance between brutal combat and user-friendliness. But some games defy this norm and push the boundaries to deliver scenes of immersive and shudder-inducing violence.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance:
In most games, sword fights are won with a few taps of a button, but not in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. This game intentionally makes melee combat fraught with sluggish blocks and weak stabs, especially in the early levels when players assume the role of a lazy peasant who can barely win a sword fight with a bush. The first-person perspective adds chaos to the clashes. As players build up Henry’s experience, they discover that fighting blade-to-blade becomes more fluid, but the fights always retain the feel of clashing metal and artful stabs, especially when facing multiple opponents and exploiting enemy AI.
The Last Of Us: Part 2:
If there’s one thing The Last Of Us: Part 2 excels at, it’s putting the player right in the middle of a fistfight and making them feel every single blow. Whether it’s the sound effects as a fist connects with another human’s cheek or the way pick-up weapons shatter upon impact, every detail adds up to convey how it actually feels to squirm and thrash around in a fight for survival. What The Last Of Us 2 really excels at, or perhaps a bit too well, is highlighting that violence in the game doesn’t start and end cleanly in moment-to-moment encounters; it can quickly spiral out of control like a forest fire of bloodshed, guilt, and misplaced pride.
Bushido Blade:
Hailing from the PS1 era, Bushido Blade showed the world what a fighting game with close-to-realistic weapons (considering sharpness, length, and weight) could look like. Instead of relying on combo strings, players are expected to demonstrate extreme bursts of focus, learning to anticipate their opponent’s movements frame-by-frame by observing their stance and weapon swing. Matches in Bushido are fast-paced and tense, and mastering the art of countering or blocking strikes is essential. Failing to block even a single swipe can put the player out of the game, or at best, break a bone, disabling certain stances. Health bars are absent, and players know when they’re done by the viscera displayed on-screen. When the blade strikes, players are treated to a splatter of pixelated bloodshed.
Overgrowth:
While a game featuring anthropomorphic bunnies and humanoid critters may not scream “immersive realism,” the developers behind Overgrowth poured a lot of love into crafting one of the most hard-hitting martial arts action games on the market. Thanks to its realistic physics engine, Overgrowth brings a sense of weight and momentum to each blow or weapon launch. Wolfire Games, the developers behind Overgrowth, aimed to make gameplay “as cool as possible” rather than overly difficult. While they succeeded in creating an airtight action fighter, the game has received criticism for being somewhat sparse outside combat gameplay.
Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic:
While Arkane Studio’s Dishonored series showcased some slice-and-dice greatness, their early entry, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, truly delivers action with a kick. Despite containing fantastical elements and a magical arsenal, the best way to play is dirty, primarily by booting enemies, especially orcs, into walls, crates, or off cliffs for maximum satisfaction. While it might not boast the grittiest combat in gaming, it undoubtedly feels the weightiest and most satisfying. It emphasizes the importance of the environment in a real-life fight, where executing flawless parries or fancy move sets isn’t everything. Sometimes, landing a good kick in the right place is enough to turn the tide of battle.
Dwarf Fortress:
In terms of graphics, Dwarf Fortress may not be visually impressive for those seeking exploding bits or hacked-off body parts, even with the overhaul in the 2022 Steam release. However, when it comes to realism, Dwarf Fortress boasts one of the goriest and most intricate combat and damage systems ever coded. While most games involving violence might be content with featuring a severed limb mechanic or ailment system, Dwarf Fortress goes much deeper. It calculates each entity’s fingers, toes, muscle, fat, and skin layers when they get sliced, smashed, or burned. In battle, dwarves can have their fingers bitten off, kidneys injured, or skulls fractured, leading to long-term, even lifetime, effects.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:
The world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is harsh and unforgiving, offering no second chances for mistakes. This applies both to the environment and the inhabitants of the Zone. Combat is lethal, with one or two hits enough to end it all. To make matters worse, without access to bandages, players can slowly bleed out on the battlefield. Ranged combat can be just as bloody as melee. Unlike many games where firearms feel like pea-shooters, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series makes players genuinely fear for their lives when shots start flying. To survive, strategic thinking and avoiding the enemy’s line of sight are crucial.
Hellish Quart:
Hellish Quart places significant emphasis on realistic physics and move sets. Cuts and stab wounds become visible after every connection. While precision and quick reflexes are essential for survival, characters can easily stray into a poorly timed swipe, resulting in the loss of a hand, an eye, or even their life. One-hit kills are common, especially when well-placed, such as a backstab or a tight lunge. When combatants go down, they react realistically, cringing and nursing their seeping wounds or missing limbs. These animations of unmatched realism allow players to truly immerse themselves in the agony of the defeated or bask in the savage pride of the victor. In conclusion, these games stand as prime examples of the dedication developers have shown in creating the most realistic and brutal combat experiences in the gaming world. They leave players not only engaged but also physically feeling the weight of each action, offering a level of immersion and authenticity that few can match.