Why was hell such a prevalent theme in the mid 90s?

Cause it was the height of Christian moral panic.

Hell used to be scary, now being an atheist is trendy

Video games need bad guys.

Hell is full of the baddest guys of all.

>>3513813
You sure that isn't now?

>>3513842
Do you see people trying to ban D&D because it literally worships Satan?

Ironically, I find the satanic style monsters with their stock SFX in the original game scarier than monsters in modern Doom games.

>>3513842
Now is the era of image macros about religion and, "most people are afraid to say they love god" even though most religious people openly talk about it. Special snowflakes. The panic now in the US is "we're becoming a Muslim nation but we were founded as a Christian nation, barrack Osama needs to go back to Kenya, no shariah law."

They have the voice they had in the 90s, people just aren't listening anymore.

>>3513868
yeah
when the barons first notice you, they let out that scream; best sound effect in any game

>>3513805
Heavy metal.

Because killing people was seen as a bad thing.
Killing things from Hell made you a "hero" because anything from hell is evil.

>>3513805
There was Doom and Diablo.

Doom literally started as a licensed Aliens game, but the deal fell through, so they just decided "lol it's demons n space marines" instead.

Diablo 1 was just cool and it was awesome they had the balls to make something so grim and authentically gothic without pulling punches and letting capeshit and English SJW women fuck it up. Of course that eventually happened.

>>3514196
What does capeshit mean?

>all these wrong replies

Heavy Metal is the reason.

>>3513842
Not nearly like it was back then.

>>3514507
>implying there is only one reason

>>3514489
It mean that he browses /co/ and you should not listen to him.

Why the hell not?

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>>3514854

I can't give you the definitive answer, but I can tell you for sure: it wasn't just video games. Doom and Quake were inspired in part by sensibilities of their authors.

An obvious answer is metal: bands like Slayer already started the whole satanism thing before the '90s. Then came Metallica with their black album which sold gazillions, and showed executives that something like this could actually sell.

But also, from Nine Inch Nails to Marylin Manson to to Nirvana, the whole first half of the nineties was choke full of music perpetuating the theme of "twisted psychopaths". Why? I guess to stay edgy and "oppose" Reagan times zeitgeist. When the '80s were over and Nirvana broke through, all these smaller acts got signed to big labels, got big budgets and suddenly got radio airplay.

Now, the movies lagged behind a bit, but still caught up later. With stuff like Se7en (1995), Devil's Advocate (1997) and Ninth Gate (1999), and then there was Blair Witch and other horror stuff.

So this question is like, why everything in the '80s and early '90s had these triangles, squiggly lines and bright shapes everywhere. The answer is, big people suddenly decided it was the shit.

>>3515018
I assume it always comes in cycles. We'll see a revival once people get tired of the current trends and someone makes something great with the theme. Eventually, it'll get ran back into the ground and go into hiding again.

I guess sort of like that sort-of 80s revival that's going on now.

>>3514507
>>3515018

>90's metal

It was all about "muh feelings" in terms of lyrics by that time. You're thinking autistic 80's thrash/death/whatever

It was probably just a trend, they figured out "hey, that Doom game got pretty popular with all that demon bullshit, and the devs are just a bunch of nerds, let's slap some of that good ol' lucifer into our game too"

>>3515161
>muh feelings

You're thinking about neo-metal from mid to end 90's. He was referring to Black Metal which was born at the end of the 80's and widespread at the beginning of the 90's.

Black Metal was never a commercial hit however, but yeah it shows part of the mentality of the time.

>>3513842
Nowadays we have the SJW PC panic

>>3515185
>neo-metal
It's nu-metal, dude

>>3514196
>Doom literally started as a licensed Aliens game, but the deal fell through, so they just decided "lol it's demons n space marines" instead.

Doom already had an alpha with demons in it by the time they were contacted about doing an Aliens game, and id software themselves decided against it so they could have more creative freedom.

https://youtu.be/EKg85-TXY5w?t=20m12s

>>3513813

>president gets his dick sucked in the oval office
>oj on the run live on tv
>rodney king
>hulk hogan heel turn
>columbine
>gulf war
>bosnia war
>the death of cassettes and vhs

what a time to be alive

>>3513805
90's was all about being dark, edgy and extreme.

>>3515161
>autistic 80's thrash/death/whatever

What was so autistic about them?

Back then Hell was a mysterious fantasy. Today we're living in it :(

>>3515492

thanks obama

>>3515018
Nice post

>>3515441
>what a time to be alive

in terms of current events we're living in far more interesting times now

like the chinese curse

>>3513805
Because we thought we could beat it.

We were living in it all along.

>>3513805
Yeah, all those two games.

>>3513805
Was it though? I can't think of many hell-themed games.

>Doom
>Diablo (not even hell-themed for most of it)
>???
I mean I'm sure there are more but what are you thinking of, OP.

>>3513842
We're in a moral panic that is completely different yet somehow identical. They still demand that everything be sanitized of anything controversial, but instead of being blue-collar workers from Bible Belt suburbs they're white-collar yuppies from major coastal cities.

>>3513842
Not even remotely. This was a time when there were serious political movements trying to ban metal and gangster rap, video games, dnd, etc. A time when there were news reports on satanic cults performing human sacrifices. This wasnt just a right wing thing btw, this was bi partisan. The 80s and 90s were weird.

What's it like to get a handjob from a Baron of Hell?

>>3516158
>gangster rap
To be fair, that's a rather insidious entity that the recording industry chose to cultivate, despite it being obvious that it would have a dire influence on the black community. It's probably why so many black men are getting blown away by the cops today.

You've got to ask why they did this when there were so many other potential directions rap music could have taken...

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>>3513842
Nowadays we have a panic about "phobia." Everthing is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, xenophobic, whatever "phobic" they can attach. This is the modern equivalent of the satanic panic and I suspect that in a few years, you are going to see these things being mocked relentlessly in a lot of pop culture after it all blows over.

The reason Hell was such a popular theme in the 90s is because the Satanic Panic was waning by that point, and many of the kids who had to grow up under it were now adults making video games. I suspect it will be the same thing in a few years when the "progressive panic" is in decline.

>>3516249
>tfw games of the 2020's will be about beating women and enslaving black people

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>>3516276
>Plantation Tycoon

>>3515441
>>the death of cassettes and vhs

these were widely available as late as 2003

>>3516282
The tapes are still going in Poundland. And audio ones.

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I HAVE THIS DESIRE

THIS SEARING DESIRE

>>3516143
There were also a lot of games that showed hellish themes. Now not so much. Well actually I don't know much about current gen games, but atleast mid 90s is where it started to become popular

>>3516276
I first thought that was some far future joke, like Cyberpunk 2020 but then I remembered it's 2016.

2020 is in just a little bit over three years and two months.

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>>3515492
pretty much