(in b4 this becomes another trope-hating topic)
This is more in the context of video games, but I'm kind of tired of always being thrown into a 'world on the brink of collapse', a 'dying world', 'a world in decay', etc. Basically 'post-apocalyptic but not quite, because we still want NPCs around and stuff.'
I know it's easy set up for showing the player why the big evil "darkness" has to be defeated, and for having monsters around as a fact of life, but it's just been done to death and beyond and I want to see other stuff.
I think one easy fix would just be to let the player watch the world die, so they actually have a chance to get invested in its fate instead of simply being told to care 'bcuz video game said so'. A good example would be Mother 3, and I guess maybe Half-Life, sorta (the exponential acceleration of 'world death' between 1 and 2 kinda obscures the effect, but I feel like it's still there).
...Although when I say 'easy' I mean with minimal alteration to the original concept (you'd basically just tack on a prologue), not necessarily easy to do. ^^; I mean, in terms of gamedev that'd be a whole extra sprite set at the very least...
