History EldritchLocation / VideoGames

** The [[spoiler: Primeval Thaig]] is definitely one, [[spoiler: built by prehistoric Dwarves that worshipped a pantheon of deities, constructed using magic thus giving it some degree of AlienGeometry, possessing a unique form of Red Lyrium running throughout the structure itself and inhabited by creatures like the Profane that Varric claims were supposed to be ''myth''. It was also the location where Hawke and company first encountered the [[ArtefactOfDoom Lyrium Idol]].]]

** The Mansion from ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'' is... ''weird''. The mirrors can transport Luigi, there are mouse holes (and later a dog house) that can suck up Luigi and put him in a different room, one room is upside-down, the door on the right of the Astral Hall loops back to the left door, and then there's the observatory which may or may not transport Luigi to space. Oh, and it's [[CaptainObvious filled with ghosts.]] Justified, as it's an illusion made by the Boos.

** Both [[VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon final levels]] of ''Franchise/KingdomHearts I'' and ''II''. The one from [[VideoGame/KingdomHearts the first game]], appropriately titled The End Of The World, is basically the remains of any and every world destroyed by TheHeartless, and the one from [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII the second game]], The World That Never Was is a dark city overrun by Heartless overlooked by the warped castle that is the headquarters of Organization XIII, and its ''[[WeirdMoon moon]]'' is [[MacGuffinLocation the heart of reality itself,]] [[TitleDrop Kingdom Hearts]] (or at least, a functional replica).

* Aperture Science's Enrichment Center from the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' saga seems at first like a fairly normal, if deserted, underground testing laboratory, but the more you play the game, the more you'll start to question how the physics even work in this building. It isn't until the second game you'll realize that the facility is impossibly ''massive'', to where you'll wonder how it even got built in the first place. You can also see the outside from one chamber only to be lifted up several floors right afterwards. It also seems like whatever AI runs it is able to create new testing chambers out of the blue, and even though it's shown that they can control and rearrange the architecture, it's still a mystery on where ''exactly'' these new rooms are coming from, since of course, it's still a building that's fixed underground.

* Aperture Science's Enrichment Center from the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' saga seems at first like a fairly normal, if deserted, underground testing laboratory, but the more you play the game, the more you'll start to question how the physics even work in this building. It isn't until the second game you'll realize that the facility is impossibly ''massive'', to where you'll wonder how it even got built in the first place. You can also see the outside from one chamber only to be lifted up several floors right afterwards. It also seems like whatever AI runs it is able to create new testing chambers out of the blue, and even though it's shown that they can control and rearrange tiles, it's still a mystery on where ''exactly'' these new rooms are coming from.

* Aperture Science's Enrichment Center from the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' saga seems at first like a fairly normal, if deserted, underground testing laboratory, but the more you play the game, the more you'll start to question how the physics even work in this place. It isn't until the second game you'll realize that the place is impossibly ''massive'', to where you'll wonder how it even got built in the first place. You can also see the outside from one chamber only to be lifted up several floors right afterwards. It also seems like whatever AI runs the place is able to create new testing chambers out of the blue, and even though it's shown that they can control and rearrange the place, it's still a mystery on where ''exactly'' these new rooms are coming from.

* Aperture Science's Enrichment Center from the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' saga seems at first like a fairly normal, if deserted, underground testing laboratory, but the more you play the game, the more you'll start to question how the physics even work in this place. It isn't until the second game that you realize that the place is impossibly ''massive'', to where you'll wonder how it even got built in the first place. You can also see the outside from one chamber only to be lifted up several floors right afterwards. It also seems like whatever AI runs the place is able to create new testing chambers out of the blue, and even though it's shown that they can control and rearrange the place, it's still a mystery on where ''exactly'' these new rooms are coming from.

* Aperture Science's Enrichment Center from the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' saga seems at first like a fairly normal, if deserted, underground testing laboratory, but the more you play the game, the more you'll start to question how the physics even work in this place. It isn't until the second game that you realize that the place is impossibly ''massive'', to where you'll wonder how it even got built in the first place. You can also see the outside from one chamber only to be lifted up several floors right afterwards. It's also implied that whatever AI runs the place is able to create new testing chambers out of the blue, and even though it's shown that they can control and rearrange the place, it's still a mystery on where ''exactly'' these new rooms are coming from.

* Aperture Science's Enrichment Center from the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' saga seems at first like a fairly normal, if deserted, underground testing laboratory. It isn't until the second game that you realize that the place is impossibly ''massive'', to the point where you start to wonder how it was able to get built in the first place. It's also implied that whatever AI runs the place is able to create new testing chambers out of the blue. So the question remains, where ''exactly'' are these new rooms coming from?

* ''Videogame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' has Jool, which at first just looks like a green Jupiter. And then you get anywhere remotely close to it, and physics start getting more than a little odd, and only get nastier as your ship gets close, culminating in it spontaneously exploding while you're still several hundred miles from the surface. And then your poor astronauts fall in, and [[WreakingHavok their limbs]] [[BodyHorror flail in impossible ways]] before they simply die. And that's the ''best'' case scenario; there's the occasional tale of ships that survive entry getting flung out of the galaxy at FTL speeds. Of course, it's not actually meant to be that way - it's just glitchy as hell - but the fans have latched on to the first interpretation to match with a certain GoodBadBug being blamed on an EldritchAbomination. Funnily enough, it's this exact same weirdness that makes it completely immune to any and all attempts to (further) glitch it out, and not from lack of trying. And since many of those glitches tend to destroy entire planets...
%%* Indie horror game ''Kholat'' gives us ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kholat_Syakhl Kholat Syakhl]]'', a.k.a. the ''"Dead mountain"'', a real-life place in northern Urals, Russia.

%%* And in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', we have the final dungeons for Law and Chaos, respectively: Purgatorium and Lucifer Palace. The Monochrome Forest also counts, as well as the various Demon Domains littered around Tokyo.
* ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne]]'' mostly takes place within the Vortex World, a chaotic, demon infested realm that the Earth reverts to when it comes time for a new world order to be decided. Naturally, it's up to you to shape it as you see fit. For bonus points, it's a truly literal form of TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona'':
** The series in general has a more benevolent but still bizarre example in the Velvet Room, a room covered ceiling-to-floor in blue velvet that exists outside of time and space, changes appearances with each game, and sometimes isn't even a room (in ''3'' it's an ever-ascending elevator car, in ''4'' it's a limousine traveling through space, and in ''5'', it was a prison.) All of its denizens - the master, Igor, the pianist and singer in the first two games, the painter in ''2'', Elizabeth and Theodore in ''3'', Margaret in ''4'', and Caroline and Justine in ''5'' - are all AmbiguouslyHuman.

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' has the [[DarkWorld Schwarzwelt]]. It is effectively a [[NegativeSpaceWedgie void]] over Antarctica where [[HellGate demons appear]], overwriting Earth with their own reality. The Investigation Team's mission is to analyze and nullify the Schwarzwelt before it can consume the entire world. The game over screen shows what happens if your character dies...it ain't pretty. The fun part is that the UN sent cameras into the Schwarzwelt during the planning stages...and ''nobody'' believed the results (one of them was a ''shopping mall''). Turns out they were all accurate (but you don't want to eat the food in the shopping mall...).

** Eleutheria as a whole. The bit about the stars setting normalcy? Eleutheria is a segment of space where the locals decided they ain't having none of that, and are shutting down every last light they come across. The terrible things that starlight usually eradicates, since they're so utterly wrong and against the law of the universe no star wished them around, are congregating in the area, including those that came from places where there was never any light to begin with. There are ''veeeeery'' few laws of reality still working in the place, like overburdened, groaning pillars holding up existence and preventing it from caving in and collapsing into raw entropy. The "star" system even has an inversion in the form of the Eagle's Empyrean, the last stronghold of the New Khanate where things work more or less normally, and that's because they are serious enough about keeping things illuminated and sane they made a whole artificial ''moon'' for themselves. Most of its surface is high-powered ''lightbulbs'', and even then it's not 100% effective. [[spoiler:As it turns out, the local [[SentientStars Judgement]], the Halved, actually ''wants'' things to be this way, [[DefectorFromDecadence to keep it as a place where those who hate the other Judgements can congregate]]. And it also turns out mere darkness ''would not be enough'' to keep things this eerie; Darkness is not the opposite of Light, it's the mere absence of it. The Halved is irradiating everything in Eleutheria with ''Anti''-light to actively eradicate Law within its domain]].

** Eleutheria as a whole. The bit about the stars setting normalcy? Eleutheria is a segment of space where the locals decided they ain't having none of that, and are shutting down every last light they come across. The terrible things that starlight usually eradicates, since they're so utterly wrong and against the law of the universe no star wished them around, are congregating in the area, including those that came from places where there was never any light to begin with. There are ''veeeeery'' few laws of reality still working in the place, like overburdened, groaning pillars holding up existence and preventing it from caving in and collapsing into raw entropy. The "star" system even has an inversion in the form of the Eagle's Empyrean, the last stronghold of the New Khanate where things work more or less normally, and that's because they are serious enough about keeping things illuminated and sane they made a whole artificial ''moon'' for themselves. Most of its surface is high-powered ''lightbulbs'', and even then it's not 100% effective.

*** In the ''Dragonborn'' DLC, you visit Apocrypha, the realm of Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge (with a particular specialty in [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow Things Man Was Not Meant To Know]]. Reading one of Mora's "[[TomeOfEldritchLore Black Books]]" causes you to be ensnared by a tentacle that formed from letters which float off the pages, pulling you inside. The realm itself is a place Cthulhu would find comfy. All the walls are made of books, the water is slime and sprouts tentacles to attack you if you get too close, there are invisible monsters roaming the halls and sea mutants in the slime, certain areas have darkness that can kill you, and the architecture isn't necessarily static. On a more meta note, it also does not help that the area is notoriously [[GameBreakingBug glitchy]] so that when the when the layout of certain tunnels shifts, the Dovahkiin tends to clip and fall through the floors and walls into the deadly slime. But if you brave these horrors, the Black Books will grant you amazing powers.

** The whole Violet Sector of ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash''. We have a sentient ocean, a whirlpool that never goes away, an area of the ocean that is pitch black in broad daylight, and smoke coming from out of nowhere. Except for the first thing, everything is a result of things going on in the Alternate World.
** The Mansion from ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'' is...''weird''. The mirrors can transport Luigi, there are mouse holes (and later a dog house) that can suck up Luigi and put him in a different room, one room is upside-down, the door on the right of the Astral Hall loops back to the left door, and then there's the observatory which may or may not transport Luigi to space, oh and it's [[CaptainObvious filled with ghosts.]] Justified as its an illusion made by the Boos.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': The Void, a dimension that can only be accessed through special keys. The area appears as a vast expanse of space and pure energy, with only the occasional abandoned Orokin tower [[spoiler:or the moon]] floating in its space. It is the source of all energy that the Tenno use, and it has close ties to the lost god-like race of the Orokin. Occasionally fissures in space leak void energy and allow the Orokin towers to use their mind controlling power to extend their reach. [[spoiler:General Vor was even able to become a pure godlike being of energy with the use of a special void key.]]

* The Subspace of "Subspace Emissary" in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' is this coupled with AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield. And it only gets weirder when the parts of the regular world that were dragged into the Subspace are assembled into the [[MarathonLevel Great Maze.]]
** In ''Wii U/3DS'', [[spoiler:Master Core itself turns into one of these, named 'Master Fortress'.]]

* ''Videogame/SunlessSkies'' goes with the above setting and ramps it all up, since the stars that give any semblance of normalcy to the universe are being shot dead one by one, so the laws of reality are growing thin in most places. Some more than others, of course, which still lets some genuine Eldritch Locations exist.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has the Corruption, Crimson, and Hallow. Respectively, they are [[DarkIsEvil dark,]] [[EvilIsVisceral flesh,]] and [[LightIsNotGood light-themed]] biomes that actively spread through the ground and could even infect an entire map if the player does not take proper quarantine measures. The Corruption houses worm-like enemies and a boss variation called the Eater of Worlds, while the Crimson has meaty monsters and Cthulhu's brain as a boss. Both of them spread much faster after killing a giant mass of flesh summoned by burning a voodoo doll in [[PhysicalHell the Underworld.]] Meanwhile, the Hallow is not present on the map at all until after killing the aformentioned flesh-boss, (or by just converting patches by using resources taken from another world where the boss was already killed) and holds fairy tale-esque creatures that are almost as kill-happy as their dark/meat counterparts.

** The "I AM ERROR Room," a deeply-hidden area that can only be reached by through either random teleportation or, as of ''Afterbirth'', causing a paradox[[labelnote:As in...]]Using a Blank Card (an activated item that replicates the card held by the player) on a ? Card (a card that replicates the activated item held by the player) or using Teleport 2.0 (teleports to the next unexplored room) after exploring every possible room in the map[[/labelnote]]. It has a glitchy floor along a black void, an equally-glitchy shopkeeper with a word balloon reading "I AM ERROR," a direct way to the next floor, and a number of rather random possible items, pickups, or other objects. It cannot be escaped by anything other than teleportation and little to no real in-story reason for its existence.

** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight''), the whole castle ''has an inverted duplicate'' revealed halfway through. You and the monsters fall towards and walk around on the ceiling. All the furniture is still on the floor. It is never explained why a second castle just appears out of the clouds, nor why it's upside down. And then there's the two mirrored split castles in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'', which are somehow both the extension of Maxim's will.