




Hell is the afterlife destination for the souls of the dead who were evil and wicked in their mortal lives. Although you probably don't wanna go there for real, since it's full of bloodthirsty demons, unspeakable abominations and lots and lots of fire, Hell makes a great setting for videogames.
Hell is Heaven's polar opposite. The home of evil incarnate. Though many games have sent players to many different versions of Hell, Hell itself has generally fallen into one of two categories. The first type of Hell is the fiery, subterranean Hell made famous chiefly modern christian and western culture. The second type of Hell involves the perversion of the mortal plane from its natural state into a Hell on Earth. The use of hell tends to be closely tied to a game's use of demons and holy objects or crusades.
After several games based on George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead brought Hell to players, Doom became the franchise that took players to the Pit in 3-D. The wildly popular Doom and its myriad expansions and sequels remained the most popular portal to Hell until 1997 when Blizzard released Diablo. The Diablo franchise set the bar for Hell in video games with its sparse use of light and genuinely spooky cinematics and voice acting.
Today, Hell remains just as pervasive in video games. Painkiller largely has taken up the reigns once held by Doom, offering a gore-filled Hell to players and a serious professional gaming following. Anyone who played World of Warcraft during its younger days remembers its first major raid destination, the Molten Core, which brought players down into the demon-infested and extremely hot innards of Azeroth.
There are many different types of hell that are currently used in videogames but most of them are based either on the hell portrayed in Christian books, media, and art or in some sort of weird Japanese interpretation of hell.
Types of Hell
Purgatory-style Hell
Hot Hell
Cold Hell
Mirror/Parallel dimension hell
Cute Hell
Hell on Earth (includes Zombie Hell)
Kickass Hell
Demons and other beings that live in it are just like humans and enjoy living the high life. In this type of hell there are generally some rock concerts going on, or the devil is the cool and suave guy. Think Guitar Hero III's final stage.Greek Hell (see Tartarus)
Il Inferno de Dante (Dante's Inferno)
Dante Ahglieri was an italian that wrote The Divine Comedy in the fourteenth century. He divided Hell in nine circles, which the main character, Dante, traversed with different guides who showed him the way through it. This is supposedly being adapted with broad liberties into the game Dante's Inferno to be released on a later date.
First Circle
The First Circle of hell is Limbo, where the unwillful sinners are. Basically all the pagans that did not know of god, live here, there is Socrates, Homer, Virgil and Saladin amongst others. Without baptism they live in a deficient form of heaven, where there are some flowers and green fields, as well as a white castle. Minos resides at the end of this circle, and as the first judge of Hell separates the levels in which the damned shall go to, by the amount of times he circles them with his tail.
Second Circle
The second circle of hell is for those who committed the sin of lust. Figures of men and women are swept away by the winds, being a symbol of unwinded and needless passions.
Third Circle
The third circle of hell is for gluttons. Here they are forced to lie in a slush made up of freezing rain, black snow, and hail. This is as punishment for the garbage they made on Earth when consuming all of their food.
Fourth Circle
The fourth circle of hell is for the avaricious and the slanderers of wealth. The avaricious are forced to push massive stones towards the center of the circle and the slanderers are force to hoard them up against the wall, in an antithetical or ironic punishment.
Fifth Circle
The wrathful and the lazy inhabit this circle, which has the river Styx run through it. In the surface of the waters the wrathful fight for all eternity while the lazy gurgle in the bottom. In order to go lower into hell Dante must cross the city Dis (of the damned) which is guarded by fallen angels.
Sixth Circle
Heretics and atheists lie in tombs in this level. Heretics are buried alive for eternity, while atheists are simply dead.
Seventh Circle
The Minotaur guards the entrance to the seventh Circle and this circle is reserved for the violent. It has three rings.- Outer Ring: Houses those that were violent to others' property, they are dipped in a river of boiling blood, according to their sins, and have arrows fired at them from Centaurs if they attempt to leave
- Middle Ring: Houses the suicides, who live in eternal pain as thorny trees. Those that took the means through which life was sustained (in modern terms, those that commit euthanasia) are forever chased by vicious dogs in this circle as well.
- Inner Ring: Houses the blasphemers (they are considered violent against God), the sodomites (homosexuals), and the usurers (those that lend money, it was considered a mortal sin to do so in the middle ages). They are forever in a desert filled with fiery sand while fire flakes rain from the sky
Eight Circle
This circle houses the dishonest. Malebolge is its name (evil pockets/ditches). People are thrown into the different holes according to their sins. The following are the different holes:
- Pimps and Seducers
- Flatterers (ass kissers) are steeped in excrement
- Those who commited simonies (priests and popes who gave salvation in exchange of money)
- Sorcerers and False Prophets
- Corrupt politicians
- Hypocrites
- Thieves
- Fraudulent Advisors
- Sowers of discord amongst men (war mongers and such)
- Falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, etc.)
Ninth Circle
The last circle of hell is guarded by giants. This circle is reserved for traitores, they are encased in an eternal lake of ice called Cocytus. The sinners here are divided amongst their actions, the first:
- Those that reside in Caina. Named after Cain, this round is reserved for those who betrayed their kin and are buried in the ice up to their necks.
- Those that reside in Antenora. This round is reserved for those who betrayed political party or city, and are buried even deeper and cannot move their necks.
- Those that reside in Ptolemeica. This round is reserved for those who betray their guests. They are buried half of their face in and when they cry their tears freeze their eyes and shut them together. They are not allowed the comfort of tears.
- Last is Judecca. Named after Judas Iscariot, those that reside here are completely encased in ice, and contorted in inconceivable positions.
- In the center there is Satan, with three heads, each chewing on a prominent sinner, and forever encased waist down in ice. He tries to set himself free with his wings but the wind he creates is ever colder and prevents the lake from unfreezing.
Fun fact
Hell is actually a real place in Norway, and there is a highway going through it. So you can totally say "I'm on a highway to hell".
It is also a town in Michigan. The town's website is http://www.hell2u.com/
Before the Renaissance Hell was always depicted as being cold, not hot in Western (Christian) culture. As the christian god was considered the "light of the world", then the place most devoid of light (coldest) was considered to be hell and where Satan lived, depictions of Satan also tend to be blue. Also Smurfs are blue too. Could Papa Smurf be Satan?
According to Dante, Odysseus of Homer's the Odyssey is totally roasting in Hell.
| Name: | Hell |
| Appears in: | 118 games |
| First appearance: | Kid Icarus |
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