List of dystopian music, TV programs, and games

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This is a list of depictions of dystopian themes in music, TV programmes and games, including computer games and role-playing games.

Contents 1 Music 2 Television 3 Games 4 See also

[edit] Music

• 2112, an album by the Canadian rock band Rush, released in 1976. The title track is about a man living in a dystopian society.
• "In the Year 2525," a song by Zager and Evans
• Time (1981) by ELO features tracks that may be considered dystopian or utopian depending on listener's point of view.
• "Kilroy Was Here" (1983) by Styx that features the song Mr. Roboto which portraits a strong corporate tecnologican dystopian theme.
• OK Computer (1997) and several subsequent albums by the British band Radiohead.
• Replicas (1978) by Tubeway Army explores life in a devastated, robot-dominated world, with songs such as Down In The Park.
• Rock band Big Black with their stark portrayals of the underside of American culture
• The Pleasure Principle (1979) by Gary Numan, ex-leader of the Tubeway Army, continued his narratives of a robotic world in songs like Metal.
• Avenger (1999)? by Aska, about a world where humanity is crushed under the heel of alien oppression until the Age Of Light (perhaps a nuclear or antimatter weapons deployment?) reverses fortunes.
• Rock band Dystopia
• Deltron 3030 (2000) Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator, and Kid Koala work together on this Hip Hop CD about a future world of battle raps with aliens, government oppression, and space travel.
• Feel Good Inc. (2005) A single from Gorillaz album Demon Days, its music video features a dystopic setting.
• Machines Are Us by Norwegian EBM act Icon of Coil dwells on many dystopian and cyberpunk themes.
• Swedish rock band Freak Kitchen has a song named Dystopia.
• Obsolete (1998) by the American band Fear Factory. Each song on the album successively adds to an underlying dystopian storyline.
• "I Should Be Allowed to Think", a song by They Might Be Giants has fairly strong dystopian theme.
• "Eye in the Sky", a song by Alan Parsons Project has a strong dystopian theme.

• "Every Day Is Exactly the Same" a song written by Nine Inch Nails suggests dystopian lyrics.
• "Dystopia" album released by The Invisible 1987.
• "Dystopia" a song by Kreator about the current world's situation in their album Enemy Of God (2005), a work full of references about our "perfect" world.
• Diamond Dogs an album by David Bowie is loosely based on George Orwell's 1984 especially the songs "Future Legend" "We Are The Dead" "1984" and "Big Brother".
• Outside, another David Bowie album set in a bizarre world where many crimes, including murder, are legal if they can be justified as art.
• Joe's Garage, a dystopian concept album by Frank Zappa, set in a world where music is illegal and crimes are punished preemptively
• "Clones (We're All) by Alice Cooper contains dystopian themes
• Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations, albums by the band Muse have many references to the UK and USA becoming dystopian societies.
• The Unforgiven by Metallica portrays an ultra-conformist dysotopian society.
• Dystopia is an album by the French doom metal band Anthemon.
• Pink World by Planet P Project portrays a post-nuclear apocalyptic anti-utopia.
• Year Zero (2007) by Nine Inch Nails is a concept album with a strong dystopian theme.
• "Brave New World" by "Iron Maiden" alludes to Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel after which it is named.

[edit] Television

• Blake's 7, BBC, 1978-1981. An Orwellian space opera created by Terry Nation.
• Doctor Who, BBC, 1963-present. The series has featured many storylines set in dystopian times and places, ranging from the war-torn planet Skaro in Genesis of the Daleks (1975) to the world of Terra Alpha in The Happiness Patrol (1987) in which sadness is punishable by death, ironically by the ingestion of sweets so tasty they are deadly. A more recent example occurs in The Long Game (2005), which features centralization and falsification of news for the purpose of keeping humanity frightened, ignorant and enslaved.
• Charlie Jade, South Africa, 2004 A private investegator from an alternate universe controlled by a global corporate state discovers that the corporation vexcore has opened a link to two alternate universes to exploit their resources, being trapped as a fish out of water in our own universe in the process.
• Nowhere Man, UPN, 1995-1996. Thomas Veil is a photojournalist whose identity, as well as a photograph is stolen from him. One day, his wife and friends no longer recognize him. Tom's personal mission is get his life back. In in the process of doing that, he realizes that the United States government is responsible for what is happening to him.
• Sliders, Fox, 1995-1997, Sci Fi Channel 1998-2000. Team of three or four people travel ("slide," hence the title) between dimensions, to alternate Earths, where history has taken a slightly different path. Most of these alternate Earths were, in one way or another, dystopian.
• The Prisoner A man attempts to escape his idealistic yet confining artificial town, while authorities attempt to hunt and recapture him.
• The Tripods, BBC, 1984-1985. Humans are enslaved by an alien race via mind control devices. Culture and technology have been suppressed, and the alien masters are worshipped with a religious fervor. A small resistance movement must fight both the alien threat and the human society that serves it.
• The Twilight Zone Many episodes are set in futuristic and dystopian settings, as a warning to viewers about the dangers of certain aspects of modern society or culture.
• V, V: the Final Battle, V: the Series NBC, 1983-1984, based on Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here.
• Dark Angel, Fox, 2000-2002. James Cameron and Charles Eglee created a dystopian world set in Seattle after terrorists have set off "The Pulse," an electromagnetic bomb which caused all electronic devices to stop working, disrupting financial institutions and life as we know it. There is a huge rift between the lives of the wealthy and the poor, and Seattle has been divided into "zones" which are carefully guarded by a militaristic police force. Jessica Alba plays Max, who is a bike messenger in her day job at Jam Pony, but doubles as a super-soldier created by the government who escaped from a military training school ten years earlier. She works with a character named Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) to correct the wrongdoings in their society, with varying degrees of success.

[edit] Games

• Paranoia (1984) by West End Games, which features every aspect of the above list of things typical of dystopias except for a protagonist who feels something is wrong.
• A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) by Infocom
• Warhammer 40,000 (1987) by Games Workshop features intergalactic races which are cruel and heartless. The Imperium of Man, for example, forces the worship of The Emperor, who binds all of humanity to his will. Any dissent is regarded as heresy, and is harshly dealt with.
• Wraith: The Oblivion (1994) by White Wolf, Inc., in which the world of the dead is run by the Hierarchy, a government with little compassion who seeks to enslave wraiths rather than help them "move on". Souls who do not agree with the Hierarchy and are caught are literally forged into money and goods.
• Syndicate (1993) by Bullfrog Productions. In the future, after the collapse of government, the world is harsh and polluted - corporate crime syndicates rule in place of national governments. The population of the world are fitted with "Utopia Chips" to mask the misery and squalor of the world around them. The player controls cybernetically-enhanced agents, out to further the cause of the syndicate. The sequel Syndicate Wars was similar.
• Beneath a Steel Sky (1994) by Revolution Software
• Beyond Good & Evil (a title which is a reference to the existentialist Friedrich Nietzsche) by Ubisoft is an action-adventure game conveying the grim world of Hillys, which has become an epicentre for capitalism and idealism forced onto its inhabitants by means of propaganda, censorship, and limited travel at the hands of its militant group, the Alpha Sections.
• Chrono Trigger (1995) by Squaresoft, whose theme is time travel. One of the eras that the player can visit is a dystopian future caused by the destruction of Lavos. The main plot of the game resolves around going back to the past to stop Lavos.
• Final Fantasy VI, AKA Final Fantasy III in the USA; (1995) by Squaresoft.
• Final Fantasy VII (1997) by Squaresoft features a world in which a company called Shinra controls most of the inhabited world through its “Peace Keeping Forces.”
• Fallout (1997), and Fallout 2 (1998) by Black Isle Studios. Narrative takes place in a post-apocalyptic world of the near-future.
• Deus Ex (2000) by Ion Storm. The game features a world with overpopulation when a virus began to kill people, while only politicians and rich persons were given the antidote. Later it is revelaed that the virus is actually artificial and is produced by the same company that produces the antidote.
• Deus Ex 2, in which a religious group fights against the WTO. Later it is revealed both are a branch of the Illuminati who have control over the world.
• Half-Life 2, which has an evil alien race known as the Combine ruling over the earth.
• Oni by Bungie. The plot is quite similar to Syndicate's. The player controls Konoko, a female rogue agent subjected to an extreme experiment: an enhanced twin version of her was implanted in her body so that every time she gets hurt her "chrysalis" grows and makes her stronger. In her world the criminal organization Syndicate opposes the all-powerful government hiding the truth about the world outside the cities. Her mother died outside the areas protected by government, inhabited by deadly mutant creatures created by pollution.
• Mega Man Zero series (2002-2005 by Capcom). A resistance force against a dystopian society called "Neo Arcadia," resurrects an ancient fighting robot called "Zero" to help them.
• Jak 2 (2003 by Naughty Dog In this game Jak, a young boy, is sent from his peaceful world (setting for Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy)to the future, where the entire world is covered by wastelandand the only civilisation left is Haven City. Haven City is ruled by the oppressive and murderous Baron Praxis who enforces his crazy and strict rules. He keeps authority with an elite military group under his control, the Krimzon Guard and puts on the show of protecting Haven City's people from their enemies, the Metal Heads, but he is actually selling them the energy source, eco, in return to let them invade his city.
• Dystopia Mod (2005) by Team Dystopia is a modification for Half-Life 2 (2004).
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) by Kojima Productions features an organization known as the Patriots which controls the United States.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2007) by Kojima Productions features a military being controlled by Outer Heaven, the parent company of the five largest PMC's in the world.
• Oddworld, a quintology by Oddworld Inhabitants (1997-2005).
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay A futuristic universe where much of the population is plagued by crime, with whole planets being used as prisons.
• The Worm in Paradise by Level 9 Computing - a text adventure game for the ZX Spectrum and other 8-bit platforms, set in a dystopian future.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time by Nintendo. Although the game begins as a on good terms, there comes the point where Link, the main character is sealed away for seven years and awakens to a dystopian Hyrule after seven years of war by main antagoist Ganondorf.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past shows Hyrule split into to "worlds". The Light World which is a peaceful land but under siege by Agahnim and the Dark World, a dystopian version where Ganon's rule is law.
• Dystopia (computer game) cyberpunk-themed modification of the 2004 first-person shooter Half-Life 2 it was released after 3 years of development on Saturday February 24, 2007.

[edit] See also

• List of dystopian literature
• List of dystopian films