Bethesda is a game company known for focusing on incredible worlds. They have created some incredible franchises with amazing lore for gamers to dive into, and this has produced many amazing games, but also showcased some great worlds to play inside but would be truly horrible if players were forced to actually live there.
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From the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises to the various one-off games that made up much of the Bethesda library in their early years, there have been a lot of great places to play in, but horrific places to imagine being stuck, in the history of this great company.
6 Starfield Earth
Bleak & Abandoned
Starfield
- Platform(s)
- PC , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S
- Released
- September 6, 2023
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda
Bethesda’s recent major release, Starfield, comes with hundreds of planets to explore, including some truly delightful ones with beautiful cities and wondrous resorts to live in. However, other planets contain gruesome killer beasts and terrifying environments that would make for terrible worlds to live in.
One of the most shockingly horrible planets out of the lot though is Earth. The largest population center for humans by this time in the 24th Century is Mars, while Earth is a desolate rock. Long abandoned by humans, it is interesting and eerie to explore for a short time, seeing some of the remnants of former monuments. But it would be a grim and lonely place to live, prompting most players to leave quickly.
5 Nirn
Filled With War, Strife & Evil Gods
Appearing across the entire Elder Scrolls franchise, it almost seems like the people of Nirn can never catch a break. The primary setting of all the games, which each contains various wars and conflicts, not to mention the horrifying things players encounter in side quests across the Elder Scrolls games, such as Skyrim.
Tamriel is a continent on Nirn where most of the Elder Scrolls stories take place. It is home to magic, many races, a large group of diabolical, scheming Daedric Princes, and plenty of other issues. Though living in a pollution-free medieval fantasy world seems like a nice thought initially, the idea of running into giants and dragons while simply walking from one town to the next isn’t worth the hassle. It seems the inhabitants of Tamriel are far too likely to meet a grisly end for the liking of most people.
4 Fallout Earth
Nuclear Apocalyptic Wasteland
Fallout 4
- Platform(s)
- PC , PS4 , PS5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S
- Released
- November 10, 2015
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda
Though the Fallout games have never explored another planet, they have plenty to deal with on their version of Earth, which makes it near-uninhabitable. The games follow the story of a great war that led to a nuclear apocalypse in 2077, and two hundred years later, the world, or at least America, remains an irradiated wasteland filled with new dangers.
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Most people are at best unfriendly; mutants and robots roam, not to mention super mutants and worse. The world of Fallout is incredibly unsafe to traverse. The few people who manage to lead more normal lives are usually trapped in vaults underground, fearful of the surface world. Fallout is a fascinating world, and a great one to play in, but it would make for a truly terrible living situation, although some modders have attempted to make it a little nicer.
3 The Soul Cairn
The Most Desolate World
- Appears In Skyrim
There are various planes of existence seen within the Elder Scrolls franchise. From the terrifying Daedric realms to Sovngarde, the hall of heroes, there are many places where people and souls can find themselves. But one of the most horrific places to end up is the Soul Cairn, where souls who were trapped upon their death in soul gems often end up.
This fate, being nothing more than a husk, traded and absorbed by the Ideal Masters, who rule over this realm of Oblivion, is truly tragic. Though the Soul Cairn is a great place to hide out, because it is so challenging to get there, living here alongside the lost souls, Bonemen, and various other powerful creatures that roam the bleak landscape would be a truly terrible fate.
2 Terminator Earth
The Bleak World Of Skynet
- Released: August, 1995
- Developer: Bethesda Softworks
- Platforms: DOS
In the 90s, Bethesda took on some different projects relating to already established franchises, including several games set in the Terminator franchise. While these were fascinating games, and included some rare forays into the FPS genre for Bethesda, they also took players into a bleak version of Earth.
Those who don’t know the Terminator franchise well will still know how bleak the post-apocalyptic, Skynet-controlled version of Earth is in the near future there. Interestingly, in The Terminator: Future Shock, the game is set in 2015, by which time the Earth had been destroyed and most of humanity was driven to extinction by the machines, making this world a pretty poor choice of living situation for any fans.
1 Freya III
The Scariest Moment In Starfield
- Appeared In Starfield
Of all the planets and missions in Starfield, nothing comes close to being as terrifying as what players experience during the Entangled mission in the Nishina Research Station on Freya III. The Entangled mission takes players to an alternate universe where the station has been overrun by the native bug species of the planet, making for a truly terrifying back-and-forth mission.
Additionally, it gives players an insight into one of the very worst places to live in any game, ever. Freya III, with its native Cataxi, would be a grim landscape to call home. The things they do to the station alone after invading it show how they treat their environment, making the idea of staying on the planet one of the most terrifying things players could imagine across the thousand worlds they can explore in Starfield.
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