Why Do Some Video Games Embrace Nihilistic Storytelling?

I’m the heroine in an erotic story. My specialty? Turning anything hot or cold into something steamy. On the first day I landed in a horror game, the boss told everyone to choose how they wanted to die. I smiled and said, “I’ll take shortness of breath, trembling legs, glazed eyes, and… pleasure so intense I die from it.” Boss: “???”

After I was caught in a dockside explosion, I was bound to a Survival Program. It gave me twenty-five years and four designated targets. If even one target’s Love Score or bond score reached 100%, I could wake up in my real world. But I failed all four. Because every target I tried to reach eventually turned toward Sophia Lane, the heroine of this world. They called my pain a performance. They called my tears manipulation. They said I was only pretending to break down so they would choose me over Sophia. But if they never loved me, why did they lose control when my mission failed and I chose to leave this world for good?

My son, Kaden Watt, shouted at me menacingly, “I don’t have to pretend anymore! I bet you didn’t know that I could hear your conversations with the System. I never once thought of you as my father. Every bit of it was an act. A man that desperate makes me sick.” My wife, Silvia Watt, walked in with her true love, her affectionate eyes reflecting hostility. “If it weren’t for fear of the System punishing Simon Bartone, I would’ve filed for divorce a long time ago. My son doesn’t deserve a spineless man for a father. Watch yourself, or I’ll come after you.” The trio stood there, as if they had their perfect ending. I curled my lips. Well, who was to say that I wasn’t acting too? A player in a game could never fall in love with NPCs.

When my boyfriend claimed he was the final boss of a horror game, I laughed it off. What kind of terrifying final boss spends every day at home doing laundry, cooking meals, handing over all his money, and constantly clinging to his wife for affection? Then, one day, I entered the horror game myself. The infamous final boss, the one every player feared, pinned me against the headboard, slowly testing the limits of my body. He leaned close to my ear and whispered, “So? Do you believe me now?”

After my family and I are dragged into a roguelike horror simulation, they favor my cousin, Julian Clark, over me. In a lobby of blood-soaked players, he always manages to stay spotless, earning their praise as someone who has "kept his humanity". He's unlike me, the brute who willingly throws himself into melee combat and hacks down monsters just to keep everyone else alive. During one dungeon run, a terrifying entity targets my younger sister, Millie Larsson. I draw my blade and move in for the kill, but Julian stops me with a sorrowful smile. "Every creature has a soul. Gabriel, if you kill it, you'll only enrage it and burden Millie with the sin of bloodshed." Millie believes all the nonsense he says and begins resenting me for interfering. Later, when a veteran player steals Julian's life-saving loot drop, I nearly die reclaiming it for him. Instead of thanking me, he takes pity on the woman robbing him and hands the item back to her. He condemns me for being too ruthless, claiming I know nothing about showing mercy to women. Then comes the advanced raid. Cornered by the final boss, I beg Julian to activate the high-tier talisman I've given him, buying me just one second to escape. He recoils from my bloodstained hand in disgust and turns to my parents instead. "Gabriel provoked the boss himself. He's too violent. I can't risk wiping the whole party just to save him." In the end, I die in the boss' jaws. Julian steps over my shattered bones and blood to clear the raid, eventually becoming the server's most celebrated player for being the Untainted Saint. But fate grants me a second chance. I awaken once more in the game's central lobby, right before everything begins. This time, I want to see how long their precious humanity lasts in a world overrun by horrors when the blood-soaked blade that always carries their party is no longer there to protect them.

After I got pulled into the horror game, my nearsightedness made everything blurry. I ended up treating the creepy girl in the blood-stained dress like my own daughter, the final boss like my husband, and the old creepy ghosts like my loving parents. The first time I met the boss, I grabbed his abs and said, “Nice body. Shame you’re kind of short.” He actually laughed in anger, picked up the severed head in his hand, put it back on his neck, and ground out, “I’m six-foot-one. Still think I’m short now?”