3 Games That Promote Mental Health Awareness

Gaming has been at the forefront for covering a lot of delicate issues that are otherwise considered very taboo. Topics such as women’s rights, suicidal tendencies, depression, sadness, anger and expression, and mental health in gaming are insanely crucial if the youth is to advance further while also playing games. 

Two of my favorite games that cover mental health and dark issues are Omori and Superliminal. Games like these cover extremely taboo topics, and moving forward, I aim to cover other titles such as Silent Hill 2, Hellblade, and Fatal Frame 2, which cover the mental health crisis all too well. 

1. Traumas Covered In Omori 

The first time that I played Omori was back in 2021 when I saw a few of my favorite Twitch streamers playing it and raving about it. They kept going on and on about the issues that it covered and how it made them practically go through trauma for a good few months. 

Omori is a beautiful game with a pixelated art style and sprites. It features a group of friends, including Sunny, Basil, Mari, Aubrey, and a few more. While the game’s art style is insanely beautiful on the surface, it quickly takes a turn for the worse when Sunny’s traumas begin to take the best of him. 

Omori is quite literally depicted as a metaphor whereby Sunny is unable to process Mari’s death. As the game goes further, the combat system covers emotional battles instead of the physical combat system. It covers a lot of darker topics that may be triggering, such as grief and death of a loved one, combating depression, as well as self-harm, self-deprecation, and suicide.  

It goes without question that the game is unsuitable for kids. After finishing the entire game myself, it left me feeling traumatized and scared for a good few weeks, and I was unable to talk about darker topics until the effect wore off. That’s how horrible the game can be for kids in general. 

2. Silent Hill 2 And Its Mental Health Depiction 

As far as mental health in gaming is concerned, Silent Hill 2 is probably one of the most beautiful titles out there. The rise of psychological horror games took a turn when Silent Hill 2 was released, and I feel that it ties together the coverage of mental health issues and implies the importance of destigmatizing them really well. 

Silent Hill 2 didn’t just focus on making the game horror, rather it went directly into the traumas faced by the protagonist, focusing mostly on the protagonists’ sexual trauma, as well as severe survivor’s guilt faced by them. 

Playing the game is enough of an experience to leave the player feeling not just unsettled but highly traumatized, and this is where you need to have a thick skin in order to process the serious issues it covers. 

Perhaps the biggest lesson from the game is that trauma processing varies greatly between people. While James is able to process it really well and gets redeemed, characters such as Eddie are left traumatized. Then, there are instances where people aren’t able to handle their trauma well at all and are left wandering amongst the sea of their thoughts. 

3. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Is A Traumatic Masterpiece 

If there is one game that has been making the rounds in the psychological-horror game corner, its Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, which combines a beautiful psychological horror gameplay experience, all the while covering the story of a woman going through psychosis. Senua, belonging to a Norse world, makes it so that her psychosis is made out to be “mystical darkness,” essentially. 

Throughout the game, there are moments where you will continue to hear voices speaking to you, and a few of my friends experienced it first-hand when they first attempted to play it themselves. It beautifully covers mental health in gaming and ties it together with A+ visuals that leave anyone stunned. 

One of the major selling points for me was the voices that you consistently hear. How it all felt so real that I had to take off my headset a few times to turn around to see if anyone was actually there, only to find out, it was just Hellblade, making it hell for me to play it comfortably.

But that’s the fun part: you’re made to sit through the discomfort, the voices, the feelings of severe paranoia, which is all that makes Hellblade such a gorgeous title. 

Conclusion 

All in all, mental health in gaming has been taboo for quite a few years now. Still, it started to gain more traction over the past few years when developers started to beautifully implement darker topics with the same engaging combat and environmental design. 

It takes guts to sit and play through darker games that can potentially leave you feeling empty and dreadful, but if we don’t make ourselves experience these, how are we supposed to progress further and openly talk about it?