History Main / DarkWorld

** To add to this, we have the Crystal War era, a dangerous time in Vana'diel's history where regional skirmishes can break out at any moment. [[spoiler:It's further implied that the version you visit is headed towards a BadFuture.]]
** Finally, we have Abyssea, perhaps the straightest example of this trope: a depressing parallel universe where the aforementioned Crystal War was lost ''horribly'', the aforementioned crags are missing, and XP parties play somewhat like Dynamis runs.

* ''SilentHill'' features multiple levels of this trope in play. Most games feature the main character flipping back and forth between the derelict, fog-shrouded town and its hideous, blood-and-rust DarkWorld form. The relatively more normal-looking fog-shrouded town is, itself, a twisted DarkWorld mirror of the real town of Silent Hill--which exists unaware of these alternate realities, for the most part.

* The Dark World is visited at the end of ''FinalFantasyIII''.
* In ''FinalFantasyVI'', the story falls to the darkest moment when the world is turned by the CompleteMonster Kefka into a horrible place.

** ''{{Persona 3}}'' has a "Dark Hour" between midnight and 12:01am when the Shadows come out to play: the sky turns a sickly green, the city's splattered in blood, and most humans are turned into indestructible coffins. They're the lucky ones.
*** And let's not forget Tartarus, a twisted tower that grows out of the ground each Dark Hour.

* Some {{Philip K. Dick}} stories feature dark versions of the "real world" of the protagonists, such as ''Martian Time-Slip'' in which a powerful Martian colonist named Arnie Kott uses an autistic and/or schizophrenic boy and a Martian ritual to send him back a few weeks into his own past so he can make a business deal, but finds he is in a hallucinatory version of the past tainted by the boy's fearful fixations on entropy and death.

** ''{{Vindictus}}'', the prequel to Mabinogi, is about the battle to escape the shadow world in order to reach the promised land of Erinn. It is very much DarkerAndEdgier than the original game.

* This is one of the tropes upon which ''SilentHill'' was built.

The nature of the DarkWorld might never be revealed, but could very well be entirely "natural", or outright hellish. Entering the Dark World is usually distressingly easy: drive to a little old town, walk into a HauntedCastle, activate a strange device, SwirlyEnergyThingy, crawl through a [[SuspiciouslyCrackedWall hole in your bathroom]] or go into a ConvenientComa near a [[PsychicDreamsForEveryone psychically charged]] place. The last one tends to be freakiest because whatever NightmareFuel the darkness throws at you will most likely be [[YourMindMakesItReal reinforced by your own mind]].

* Closed Space in ''SuzumiyaHaruhi''. Gloomy.

* In the ''{{Constantine}}'' [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames tie-in video game]] you keep alternating between the real world and Hell (which, like mentioned above, is a hellish version of the real world) to solve puzzles, leading to some ridiculous situations. At least one reviewer snidely remarked that this is the first game that ''literally'' makes you go ToHellAndBack, ''open a '''door'''''.

* In the ''{{Constantine}}'' [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames tie-in video game]] you keep alternating between the real world and Hell to solve puzzles, leading to some ridiculous situations. As one review stated, "what kind of game has you ''going through Hell'' to ''open a '''door'''?''.

* {{Silent Hill}}. Nuf said.

* Occurs in a New Zealand short film, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXXeEzwYRQ ''The French Doors'']]. A man moving into a new home buys a pair of French doors and installs them. The next morning, he wakes up to a beautiful day with sun shining though the windows...except through the French Doors, which remain in complete darkness. Going out through the doors, he finds a darkened version of his garden and realizes that [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel he's not alone]].

* {{KULT}} has endless city of Metropolis and the nightmareish realms connected to it, filled with twisted mockeries of life and sanity. And there is also Gaia, the darkside of nature where "eat or be eaten" is taken to extreme. Both of them are The True Reality, as opposed to the illusion of the "real world" that mankind lives in.

* The Shadowmoor setting in MagicTheGathering is the DarkWorld version of Lorwyn.

** {{Persona 3}} has a "Dark Hour" between midnight and 12:01am when the Shadows come out to play: the sky turns a sickly green, the city's splattered in blood, and most humans are turned into indestructible coffins. They're the lucky ones.

* There's a Dark Realm in ''[[RaidouKuzunohaVsTheSoullessArmy the Devil Summoner:]] [[RaidouKuzunohaVsKingAbaddon Raidou Kuzunoha games]]'', although it's not quite as creepy and twisted as most of these. It's mostly just, well... dark, and full of demons.

* {{Eternal Eden}} has two parallel worlds, one of which is the dark world.
* [[MabinogiFantasyLife Mabinogi]] sets part of it's mainstream story quest-chain in Tir Na Nog, a dark version of the Uladh region of the main world. It features prominently in the conclusion to the conclusion of the Generation 1 story. To most of the human {{NPC}}s, it is only a mythological paradise, which they may or may not believe in. Very few know the truth about it.
* The Plane of Myrror in {{Master of Magic}} is a Dark world counterpart to the primary plane of Arcanus.

** Considering that Nosgoth is ''already'' a monster/demon/vampire/[[Jerkass jerkass]]-infested [[CrapsackWorld hellhole]], the Spectral Realm would probably qualify as a Dark-ER World.

** Considering that Nosgoth is ''already'' a monster/demon/vampire/[[jerkass]]-infested [[CrapsackWorld hellhole]], the Spectral Realm would probably qualify as a Dark-ER World.