Summary
Final Fantasyis one of the oldest JRPG franchises around. Over the last 30+ years, the series has become famous for its brilliant narratives, immersive world-building, and iconic characters. Whilethe best games in theFFfranchiseare distinct from one another, they do tend to share a handful of elements, like the fact that they tend to tell epics of hope against overwhelming darkness.
Fans have come to expect a fair amount of cheesiness and silliness fromFinal Fantasy too, but the games themselves can get really dark.Some entries have incredibly sad endingsand almost every game in the franchise has at least one area that will leave you feeling down. This list ranks the franchise’s bleakest areas, based on the emotions they evoke and how they feel to explore.
Taken at face value,Final Fantasy 7’sNibelheim doesn’t look all that bleak. Hometown to both Cloud and Tifa, when players first visit it in flashbacks, it looks like an idyllic little country town. Everyone knows each other, the children play together, and the locals work at the local Shinra plant. Only the fact that Sephiroth is in attendance suggests that something is amiss here.
But, it’s all downhill from there. The melancholy music that always plays in Nibelheim scenes hints at the truth. Nibelheim’s residents are destined to be butchered by Sephiroth, and the town itself burned to the ground. When Cloud and co return to find it mysteriously rebuilt, it is a town shrouded in tragedy. Add to this the eerie Shinra mansion and barren Mt. Nibel, and you have one ofFinal Fantasy’sbleakest locations. The only reason Nibelheim gets the bottom ranking is its veneer of pleasantness and the fact it comes across as much less bleak and mysterious inFinal Fantasy Rebirth(which turns it into a hospital town for those poisoned by Mako). Still,Final Fantasy 7is one ofthe franchise’s most influential games, and Nibelheim one of its most memorable locations.
Unless you’re a rich executive working for Shinra, life in Midgar generally comes across as pretty bleak. The futuristic city’s citizens live in a corporate-controlled police state with soldiers in the streets and eco-terrorists targeting its massive power plants. Even in the nicest areas, there’s no natural greenery, and the architecture is as oppressive as the city’s regime.
But, it’s oh so much worse in the slums. With the sky blocked out by massive plates, those who live in the slums rarely see the sun and essentially live in a giant trash heap in homes made from the upper world’s recycled rubbish. Hidden in these trash heaps are hints of a once beautiful city turned into a dystopian nightmare. Things feel particularly bleak after the plate collapse, with countless dead and many seemingly giving up what little hope they held. In the slums, only a few bright spots, like Aerith’s chapel, her home, and the seedy but neon-lit Wall Market exist.Final Fantasy 7has always had one ofthe best atmospheres in the series, and nowhere is that more true than in the Sector 7 slums.
Compared to earlier entries in the franchise,Final Fantasy 8likes to take itself a bit more seriously (at least initially). It tells a much more grown-up story about child soldiers who have their memories wiped and are paid to fight in foreign wars. Take out all the stuff about evil sorceresses and GFs, and many of its war-torn locations and story beats feel much more grounded. That is, until the game’s plot takes a sharp turn and becomes one ofthe franchise’s most over-the-top stories.
Which brings players nicely to the game’s bleakest area and most over-the-top area, Ultimecia Castle. The final area Squall and his team visit, this castle is a place outside both space and time. The evil Ultimecia has essentially won by compressing time, and her castle is her playground. It’s a dark, gothic fortress full of twisted architecture and gruesome monsters. Upon entering, the player loses all of their hard-won abilities, creating a sense of desperate vulnerability as they must start from scratch while navigating its oppressive halls. While the castle is bleak, no mortals live there, giving it a lower ranking as the suffering within its walls is limited to Squall’s party.
Final Fantasy 7has more than its fair share of bleak areas. While there are plenty more examples from the game, like The Forgotten Capital, Corel Prison more than deserves its place on this list. The next few entries are bleak in a large-scale suffering kind of way, whereas Corel Prison is a bit different. There are lots ofgames that send the player to prison,but few of those prisons are quite as bleak as this one.
The Gold Saucer is one ofFF7’s brightest, happiest, and most fun locations. Corel Prison is the desolate penal colony located directly below it. The prisoners are dumped there to fend for themselves in terrible conditions with little hope of ever leaving. The prison is controlled by gangs, and instead of walls, it’s surrounded by desolate desert as far as the eye can see. Corel Prison feels completely hopeless to those who live there, and the fact that it’s where Barrett faces off against Dye makes it even more bleak. Corel Prison is full of human suffering and highlights in many ways what is wrong with society in the world ofFinal Fantasy 7.
Final Fantasy 9gets really dark in places for a game that starts so upbeat and features one ofFinal Fantasy’s best fantasy worlds. Many of its areas have dark undertones and are connected to tragic past events, but nowhere else is quite as bleak as Burmecia. What makes Burmecia so dark and depressing is that it was a once-thriving city only ravaged by war briefly before the player’s arrival.
When Zidane and co first step foot in Burmecia, most of its population has only just been slaughtered by Alexandria’s forces. Few survivors remain in the city, and those the player stumbles across are traumatized and terrified. Every building the party enters feels like it was only recently abandoned and ransacked. It’s a dark, sodden area whose perpetual rain, ruined buildings, and dead streets create an atmosphere dripping with despair and hopelessness. Thankfully, the war eventually ends, and players know that, one day, Burmecia will be returned to its former glory, making it feel a little less bleak with hindsight.
Final Fantasyfans have gotten to visit a lot of ruined cities over the years, but it’s rare they get to see them during their glory years first. Zanarkand, home to Zidane, is first seen during the game’s opening and comes across as a thriving, futuristic metropolis where people live happy lives. At the time of release, it was graphically stunning, and graphics like these remain one of the reasons Final Fantasy 10 is one ofthe PS2’s most timeless RPGs.
Unfortunately, it’s very different when the player next steps foot there, 1000 years later, toward the game’s end. It is a ruined city, filled with the ghostly echoes of past summoners and their guardians. This reveal, that the final summoning requires the summoner’s death, makes the area acutely bleak as it strips away any hope that Yuna can bring lasting peace to Spira, or live to tell the tale.
For Zidane, this location is a reminder that the home he knew is gone, nothing but empty ruins. The song “A Fleeting Dream” plays throughout the area, amplifying the bleak, sorrowful tone. Unlike a ruined city like Burmecia orFF7’s Forgotten Capital, Zanarkand isn’t just about physical ruin — it is heavy with emotional despair and the crushing weight of sacrifice.
Final Fantasy 15starts out as a classic road trip with four good buddies on their way to Altissia for their friend’s wedding. It’s a bit likeFinal Fantasy’sversion ofThe Hangover, except it’s a Royal Wedding, and the stakes are just a bit higher. Sadly, things don’t stay that lighthearted, and the game’s ending area is one of the franchise’s bleakest.
Toward the game’s end, the friends are separated, and Noctis is isolated and absorbed into the Crystal (becauseFinal Fantasyloves crystals). When he finally wakes, ten years later, the world has fallen into perpetual darkness, Daemons roam freely, and only a few bastions of human survival remain.Final Fantasy 15has one of the franchise’s most beautifully realized worlds, but this version of it is beyond bleak. Things then get worse when, after briefly reuniting with his friends, Noctis must return to his city of Insomnia alone. Once a vibrant city, Insomnia now represents everything Ardyn has achieved. It is a ruined battlefield overtaken by darkness and ruled over by Noctis’ nemesis. What makes it all the more bleak is that, to overcome this darkness, Noctis knows he must sacrifice himself once and for all.
The earlier entries on this list all had at least relatively modern 3D graphics to depict their bleakest settings, but notFinal Fantasy 6. Its World of Ruin is less an area than a World Map state, but with a name like that, it had to be included on this list. The World of Ruin represents what happens when the good guys lose and the villain wins.
After Kefka obtains godlike levels of power, he destroys the world using the Light of Judgment and leaves the once-thriving landscape a barren wasteland. Towns the player had visited crumble, the oceans are poisoned, and chaos reigns supreme. Kefka rules as a nihilistic tyrant, followed loyally by his brainwashed Cult of Kefka. It’s such a bleak world that when Celes awakens alone on a desolate island, she considers suicide, all hope seemingly lost. Until the party begins to reunite, there is no hope in the World of Ruin. It hasn’t just been physically destroyed; its people have been left broken and emotionally shattered. It’s about as bleak asFinal Fantasygets.
