Summary
Across history, video games have let gamers perform acts of violence they would (hopefully) never dream of doing in real life, fromtaking down an island’s worth of peoplewith deadly force to torturing simulated people before drowning them in a ladderless pool.
No act of bloodshed is out of bounds. Even the highly taboo act of supping on human flesh for sustenance (and pleasure) has been explored by a few choice titles. Whether for power, survival, or absurdity, these games turn cannibalism into a core gameplay loop, allowing players to experience the bizzare and horrifying act of eating another person.
Open-world city sandbox games bustling with wandering street NPCs have become somewhat pedestrian these days, butPrototype’s take on creating urban havok remains unique. Not only does Alex Mercer,Prototype’s sentient, monstrous biomass protagonist carve unbelievable amounts of bloodshed in his rampage through the streets of New York City, but he does so to nourish himself.
Through one ofgaming’s most horrific healing mechanics, Mercer claws, cleaves, and liquidizes the people of NYC to add flesh to himself to stay alive and even pull off special “critical mass” attacks that destroy everything in the area. As well as using people as food, Mercer can steal his meal’s appearance to hide from enemies and trick them into fighting each other with a literal skin swap, as well as gaining any plot-related memories or abilities.
If anyone were able to sell the idea of rage-driven cannibalism as a core game mechanic, it would have been Atlus.Digital Devil Sagais a turn-based RPG that stars a cast of heroes infected with a demonic virus that forces them to eat humans or enter a feral “berserker mode” as they explore and attempt to escape their pseudo-futuristic purgatory. Sadly, thisgreat RPG is trapped on the PS2, just as its protagonists are trapped in the Junkyard.
DDSemploys Hindu themes and metaphors surrounding karma and ascension. However, when demons consume one another, including the heroes, it is not metaphorical but graphically gory, although most of the random encounter enemies the party eats are devoured off-screen. However, there are obtainable abilities that allow the heroes' demons sneak in a snack mid-battle, and eating enemies often leads the way to powerful, non-cannibalistic skills.
Rimworld
Chewing Whatever It Takes To Survive
Similar to the real world, where one animal eating the same of its kind leads to all kinds of biological, emotional, and socialolgical issues. The colonists inRimworldwill similarly experience a great deal of physical and personal anguish for devouring one of their own, which they can do in times of extreme starvation.
However, theIdeologyDLC lets the player apply the “Cannibal” meme to their colonists, which gives them the ability to perform cannibalistic feasts to fill their bellies without suffering any associated guilt. On the contrary, wearing the skin of their victims will even put a little spring in their step, giving them a bonus to their mood.
Probably the cutest and most amusing example of an all-consuming mouth devouring an entire landmass (and its inhabitants) isDonut County. Players take control of a raccoon, who has himself taken control of a portable hole in the ground and is tasked with swallowing everything in sight.
In a similarvein toKatamari Damacy, the remote-controlled hole grows as it feeds. To feed the raccoon’s trash collection obsession, players must find ways to shove objects down the hole’s gullet before working up to larger objects, including people, then eventually buildings.
Ultimate Spider-Man
Spider-Man Would Never (But Venom Would)
Although spiders are famous for their enormous appetite and penchant for eating creatures equal to or larger than their size, this is, thankfully, not a trait that Spider-Man gained once bitten by the fateful radioactive spider. However, inUltimate Spider-Man, unlocking Venom allows players to experience the symbiote spider’s aggressive need to squeeze the life out of puny humans.
After beating the game,Venom becomes playablein the open world. Due to his constantly draining health, players must ensure his access to fresh meat. Outright cannibalism wouldn’t match the cartoony comic book style, so after Venom has his fill of the people he absorbs, he spits out their lifeless (or more likely, unconscious) bodies.
As one of the most developed post-apocalyptic video game series, it makes sense that cannibalism would enter the gameplay options conversation at some point.Falloutfans have been able to dine out on their fellow Wasteland survivors ever sinceFallout 3when it became an optional perk for the player to obtain after level twelve. Eating man-flesh will give the player bad karma, and of course, the player isn’t the only one with a morbid curiosity for cultured meat.
The perk carried over to everyFalloutgame since. Snacking on a human corpse restores a little health Mercifully, (or regretfully, depending on the player’s taste for immersive grotesquery), eating a corpse inthe 3D Fallouts brings the camera into third-person mode. In thosewith a survival mode, such asFallout 4,players can reduce their hunger levels by indulging in a little pre-cooked roadkill, and in some cases, gain powerful stat boosts.
The name of this video game is somewhat misleading, asManeateractually allows players to eat men, women, and just about every other living creature as a monstrous, constantly evolving shark. The gnarly “shaRkPG” revels in exaggerated depictions of human consumption through gory animations and satirical commentary. For a game about a shark getting his revenge on fishermen, there isa surprising amount of depth toManeaterto explore.
The feeding mechanics serve as both a combat system and progression method, encouraging players to view every swimmer as potential shark chow. Consuming an apex predator allows the shark to take different forks of evolution (granting it poison, electricity, and bone-battering ram abilities, to name a few) and expand its diet from sea creatures to whatever creatures the shark can see, aquatic or terrestrial.
