The art of a role-playing game isn't just in building the characters and gearing them up, it's also about the immersive world in which they live. These days there's a lot to choose from in the RPG genre that includes standalone games, massively multiplayer online games, and mobile games, which are great for anyone building a character and playing the game.
For the actual residents of these game worlds, however, life might not be as much fun and probably doesn't even last for very long. It seems that the game developers were so intent on creating an exciting and dangerous world for players that they forgot actual NPCs have to live there, too.
6 Azeroth – World Of Warcraft
Not Outland, Northrend, or any of the expansion locations that came later, but the two continents that players often refer to as Old Azeroth were always ridiculously dangerous for NPCs. Even when the level cap was 60, it was common for maxed-out players to charge through a lower-level town and destroy every NPC there just for the dirty fun of it.
Never mind the inherent danger from players, Azeroth is a playground for some of the most powerful and destructive forces in the universe, such as the Scourge and the Burning Legion. Unlike the areas that are populated by higher-level characters that came in later expansions, there's not a lot an NPC can do about the Lich King or Deathwing except duck and cover.
5 Faerûn – The Baldur's Gate Franchise
It might depend on what kind of mood the Dungeon Master is in when playing a tabletop version of this game, but against a computer, NPCs can expect no mercy. Faerûn is a world featured as a setting in several D&D modules, and it's so dangerous that it's been featured in other RPG games known for their difficulty, like Planescape.
Faerûn is so messed up that it not only has a God of Murder, but this deity visited the already dangerous land in human form during a period called the Time of Troubles. The result was a whole generation of murder-children wandering the earth and not all of them are interested in being heroes. It's a dangerous enough prospect for a player character, imagine the stress for a regular NPC with no stats or party.
4 Elysium – Disco Elysium
It looks like a quaint alternate-reality game set in a version of the 1950s, but this vision is chilling once the player gets to understand the nature of Elysium and what kind of place it is. It's not located on a conventional planet, but on a series of islands held together by an ethereal goo called the Pale that makes people go crazy if they're exposed to it for any length of time.
Disco Elysium is scary for everyone, players, and NPCs alike, because it's a game that relies on conversation to advance as opposed to combat, and part of the story is about the main character trying to regain their memory. The whole environment isn't just dangerous, it doesn't even rely on basic physical laws, and it's terrifying to think of regular NPCs dealing with reality breaking down on a regular basis.
3 Sanctuary – The Diablo Franchise
Sanctuary is so disgusting and horrifying that it's quickly becoming a satire of horror RPG worlds everywhere. The player can't walk down a street without wading through leftover bits of human, demon, or whatever else, along with most of the place being in ruins or on fire all the time. There's not a lot as far as infrastructure goes, which also begs the question as to what the NPCs of this world are growing or eating.
The Diablo games have been around for a long time, and Sanctuary has always been like this, and the helpless danger on the part of the innocent is a part of the storyline. The NPCs in this game deal with some of the ultimate suffering because it's just in the lore, so they huddle in a few pathetic little towns and adjust accordingly when demons burst from their neighbor's chest or a burning pit opens up in front of the house.
2 Pagan – Ultima VIII: Pagan
Players that are interested in seeing what inspired the hellish environments of Diablo and New World need to take a trip on the way-back machine and check out the old Ultima games. It wasn't until the eighth installment, Pagan, that the game designers decided to take the horror up to eleven.
Most of the previous Ultima adventures took place in a fictional world called Britannia, which wasn't exactly a paradise being based on the grit and gore of medieval Europe, but at least there was a king, an army, and some system of government. Pagan, on the other hand, is a world of burning pits, pentagrams, piles of rot and cobwebs, and distressed NPCs that somehow manage to live here.
1 The Island Of Aeternum – New World
What makes this one of the most terrifying RPG worlds for both NPC and player alike is that it's based on real-world lore and is that much more immersive. The backstory claims that Aeternum is some kind of lost Eden, which is why death isn't permanent, but that invites certain terrifying conclusions.
As the player travels across Aeternum, they'll get involved in quests where NPCs have a wide variety of gruesome problems when it comes to mysterious, hellish diseases that affect both people and property. Isabella, one of the endgame bosses, used several of her own workers and sailors in sordid experiments. Even NPCs such as shopkeepers and craftspeople aren't safe from supply chain issues that are inevitable when entire trade routes are cut off by a Corrupted attack that comes out of nowhere.