Games That Make You Feel Powerless

[Moonface]

I was watching someone on Twitch last night playing The Evil Within, and long story short what was happening to them reminded me of when I played The Evil Within 2 and how powerless the game made me feel in the opening areas on its hardest difficulty. It wasn't that the enemies were too tough to take down, but that resources are so limited at the start that I ended up getting caught in a fight with multiple enemies and found myself overwhelmed. What made it worse is there's a stamina gauge, so running away is very limited. Eventually you upgrade yourself and gather enough resources to hold your own in the game (albeit still tough), but the opening chapters always stick with me for not allowing me to just kill everything easily like it was RE4 2.0.


Another game that really does the powerless feeling incredibly well is Nier: Automata. You're generally very capable right from the start of that game, barring any of the typical RPG level barricades and such, but midway into the overall story of the game you suddenly end up in a situation where you gradually lose function and even the ability to fight back, while enemies continue to intercept you. All you can do is stagger away and hope you manage to avoid too many hits. For those who are curious to see the sequence, watch this:



I'm sure there's some other games I've played that made me feel weak/powerless, but what about everyone else?

[ShiraNoMai]

I think one of the heaviest ones that did this to me was Depression Quest. When the depression hits the character so hard, none of your viable options to proceed work because you're too depressed to go through with any of them. Each response to the selection of the options brings up a reason why that option isn't available, and the game forces you to pick the worst option.

[Nightingale]

Bit of an oldie, but Army Man: World War - Land, Sea, Air makes you feel puny, defenseless and powerless throughout.

It was the first PS game I beat out of spite, not joy.

[Moonface]

Bit of an oldie, but Army Man: World War - Land, Sea, Air makes you feel puny, defenseless and powerless throughout.

It was the first PS game I beat out of spite, not joy.

Is it just a really tough game?

I forget what game it is, but I know there's a Halo game that makes you feel powerful and powerless at the same time. During the credits you fight an endless horde of enemies and basically keep going until you die. It's supposed to make you see there's no chance of winning but you get to go out swinging.

[Nightingale]

It likes to... cheap shot you.

In fact, it left such an impression on me that I wrote my own walkthrough of it as I went along and many, many years later I beat it again on an emulator, with cheats, in one afternoon.

[Moonface]

Another game that does a really good job of making you feel powerless is Alien Isolation. All you can do is hide from or distract the alien, and although you can take out android and human enemies, the former are incredibly strong and only go down with guns or EMP stuns, and the latter likely use guns which will instantly attract the alien, so a lot of enemies you can take out are just far too risky to attempt doing it. You also can't run away from the alien because it can outrun you, so you're reduced to slow movements and crouching and even that doesn't guarantee anything. The alien will also get used to distractions you use and places you hide, so as the game progresses it will ignore distractions and actively search more often in areas you've been found hiding in. Other games like Amnesia also make you unable to fight back but nothing in that game poses an actual threat because you can just run away; Alien Isolation is the only horror game I know of that gives you zero power and/or takes things away from you that give you any power or comfort by making the alien stop giving a damn.

I can't decide whether any of the FromSoft games make you feel powerless or not. You can get very strong, but at the same time all that strength goes out the window if you can't avoid attacks and get stomped by a boss multiple times. Although I tend to just feel stupid rather than powerless because it's entirely on me when I fail in those games.

[WR91]

The ending to The Walking Dead: Season One had me feel super sad and that unfortunately there was nothing I could do to help the aweful thing that happened.

[queenzelda]

Blue Dragon (an Xbox 360 game) does this a lot. You start out powerless, gain powers then have them taken away, then you get them back again after a long while.

Another game is Metroid where you have none of your abilities and have to get them back. Same with Kingdom Hearts where you have to relearn everything. <_<

[Moonface]

The ending to The Walking Dead: Season One had me feel super sad and that unfortunately there was nothing I could do to help the aweful thing that happened.

Reading this one initially made me think of moments from The Last of Us, but all of those happen in cutscenes so it's hard to feel properly powerless when you have zero control anyway. It did however remind me of The Darkness where Jenny dies, because all of a sudden you lose control of your character and get forcibly dragged to watch her death. You can struggle, but the more you do the more you get restrained, and after it happens you immediately shoot yourself in the head. XD

Another game is Metroid where you have none of your abilities and have to get them back. Same with Kingdom Hearts where you have to relearn everything. <_<

I'm glad that Dread at least gave a reason for you to lose your powers. There are so many games though that just have the main character lose everything at the start of the sequel for no reason other than gameplay purposes.