I can't stand "Game of Thrones" or any of that stuff, it really isn't for me at all. Yet I love The Witcher 3 and "Thronebreaker" games. And I think the reason why is worth talking about.
In regular "Dark Fantasy", the good characters get killed off, betrayed or shunted aside, and the darker characters get most of the limelight. I literally stopped watching GoT after One Season because (I'm not kidding) I said to myself "I hate all these characters so much that I don't care if the series ends with the city being burned down by dragons." Now, my unintentional prediction was slightly off, because it was "a dragon" rather than "dragons". But the point still sticks.
But Dark Fantasy RPGs are different, because if you decide to play as a good character, your decisions don't get you killed off. But instead, you usually get punished HARD, while the evil decisions get you easy and quick rewards. So in such games, and I think the Witcher:Thronebreaker is a good example, trying to be the hero makes the game frustrating, difficult and stressful. Yet even in such cases, you can at least say "I did the right thing."
I think "Dark Fantasy" stories have a lot of horrible messages, but "Dark Fantasy" video games like this give a very good, helpful and healthy message which very few other stories or media can manage. That feeling of "even if everything I do goes wrong, even if all this seems to be for nothing, even if everything falls apart and ends in disaster, at least I took the opportunity to spit in the Devil's eye". And sometimes, just sometimes, if you persist enough through the slog, these games do give you a golden ending or a special reward, which is a wonderful little surprise.
