Grimdark

Grimdark is a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, and violent.

The term is inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000: "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.

[9] Grimdark fantasy has been written since the 1980s by authors including Glen Cook,[10] George R. R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie,[4][11] Richard K. Morgan,[4] Paul Kearney,[12][13] Mark Lawrence[5][11] and Anna Smith Spark.

[14] In a broader sense, the "pervasively gritty, bleak, pessimistic, or nihilistic view of the world"[15] characteristic of grimdark fiction is found in much popular fiction from the 2000s, including Batman comics, the television series Breaking Bad, and the media franchise The Walking Dead.

That necessitates situating the characters and action in a dark world and then directing the drama and activity towards the light.