Since the 1980s Konami has produced major titles in hit franchises across numerous platforms. The company’s hit franchises have spanned genres, including sport with the long-standing Pro Evolution Soccer series, action adventure with the Castlevania series and stealth with the Metal Gear series.
Some of its biggest games have come from iconoclast game designers who have brought cinematic experiences through Konami titles. These cinematic, life-like depictions have raised the thought of what exactly it would be like to live in these imaginative Konami creations. Cinematic, atmospheric and at times outright horrific, some Konami games have brought worlds to life you simply would not want to live in. Below are some of the very worst.
Zelda: 6 Worst Worlds To Live In
Whilst The Legend of Zelda holds many fantasy elements that fans would love to live in, there exist some worlds where they’d want to stay away.
5 World of the Belmont Saga
Castlevania Series
Arriving in 1986 the initial Castlevania release was an effort to make players feel they were in a classic horror film. Set in 1691, the player takes the role of Simon Belmont who must vanquish Dracula in his castle, who resurrects every century, looking to rule the world. However, across this franchise, it’s pretty clear in this world that Dracula doesn’t play by his own rules.
The Dark Lord manages to resurrect quite a few times over the centuries and more frequently than every 100 years. Moreover, it doesn’t seem to matter how many times Dracula’s Castle is collapsed into rubble, it keeps returning rebuilt and often more impressive than its last incarnation.
Final Fantasy: 7 Worst Worlds To Live In
The Final Fantasy series is home to many beautiful worlds, but not all of them are good places to settle down in.
Some all-time classic video games have been produced by the Castlevania franchise. However, the story of the legendary Vampire Killer Whip and Count Dracula doesn’t seem to ever end as Dracula can never truly be slain.
4 Earth 2600s
Contra Franchise
Contra
- Released
- February 20, 1987
Konami’s rip-roaring run-and-gun series would burst onto the arcade scene in 1987. It would soon arrive on the NES and its box art promised everything genre fans needed to know: a Schwarzenegger lookalike and a Stallone lookalike up against Alien lookalikes.
From the Arcade right up to the Sega Genesis entry, players were granted side-scrolling gameplay of ferocity seldom found elsewhere. This being said, the world of Contra is hardly one would ever wish to find themselves. In the first entry, earth in the distant future is under threat from the Red Falcon Organization, threatening to wipe out humanity from their base near New Zealand.
It’s revealed Red Falcon is under the control of Alien forces and over the next entries, the Aliens declare full-blown war repeatedly returning to destroying humanity, typically leaving the surroundings rubble and ruin.
3 Neo Kobe City
Snatcher
Snatcher
- Platform(s)
- Sega CD , Sega Saturn , TurboGrafx-CD , PS1 , PC
- Released
- November 26, 1988
Hideo Kojima’s first foray into cinematic storytelling would be a cyberpunk classic. Snatcher gives the player a graphic adventure experience with their actions and choices dictated through choices on text menus below static images. While commented as a derivative of Blade Runner in particular, in this game’s futuristic world humanoid robots named Snatchers have been murdering humans and replacing them in everyday life.
The player takes the role of Gillian Seed, a man who has lost his memory and joins JUNKER an anti-Snatcher agency in the hope of uncovering his past. Full of deception, mystery, government cover-up and murder, the world of Snatcher makes for a brilliant video game experience, but not a world one would wish to live in.
2 Alternative Cold War Timeline
Metal Gear Series
Never has a video game franchise of mainstream success taken on board and raised grander philosophical questions than the Metal Gear Series. Its first 1987 release amid the Cold War would deal with the exploitation of soldiers by governments with the concept of Big Boss’ “Outer Heaven”. Yet as the series progressed into 3D, the themes would only keep developing and the resulting world is set in an alternative timeline you wouldn’t wish to live in.
Metal Gear Solid tells a story of genetic engineering so out of control entire armies are created through cloning. Its sequels, give chillingly prescient tales of AI’s latent dangers, hyperreality and the existential threat of privatized militaries. Metal Gear Solid 2’s story, in particular, has gone from seeming outlandish at its 2001 release to appearing astute some 20 years later. All tales from this world carry a chilling real-life theme of nuclear proliferation and its inherent danger.
1 Silent Hill
Silent Hill 1 – 3
Silent Hill
- Released
- January 31, 1999
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
One of the most iconic locations in video game history, Silent Hill might just be the very worst world to live in. Always covered in thick fog or occasionally snow, this rural town of Northeastern America is supposedly found in Maine. Silent Hill is a terrifying location not just for its monsters like Pyramid Head or the presence of a disturbing cult called the Order, but for its distortion of reality. The “Otherworld” of Silent Hill is essentially the protagonist’s innermost fears, projections and subconscious material brought into reality.
People brought to Silent Hill are typically kidnapped, victims of an accident or in search of a missing person. Surrounded by malevolent forces and with no ally in sight, Silent Hill is no place to live, and series entries suggest it’s not even a place to visit.
