Get ready for a university experience like no other in a high-octane and hormone-charged new superhero series set in the universe of The Boys. Gen V is out now exclusively on Prime Video. Watch it here.
With Prime Video having just debuted Gen V, the new spin-off show set in the universe of The Boys that takes place at Godolkin University – a college built exclusively for those with superpowers – we thought about the kinds of terrible, horrible antics implied by gathering a bunch of young, hormonal Supes in one place. If you’ve watched The Boys, you know it’s probably going to be just as bad as you could imagine.
We also thought about the video games we’ve played that have featured schools where things were particularly bad. Either because of nasty students, negligent faculty or straight-up horror and persistent mortal danger. To that end, we’ve put together just a short list of the worst video game schools we could think of. Places that should be immediately shut down (or already have been) and should absolutely not any parent’s list:
(Some Of) The Very Worst Schools And Colleges In Video Games
Bullworth Academy – Bully
This was an easy inclusion in the list. Located in New England, Bullworth Academy has an undisputed reputation as one of the worst schools in the United States. Run by the self-righteous and imperious Dr. Crabblesnitch, Bullworth is the kind of boarding school that believes that dominating and controlling its students is the way to put them on the right path. To be honest, it’s far from the worst place on this list but when you’re known nationwide as one of the absolute worst, well, somebody should probably look into that.
Midwich Elementary School – Silent Hill
Depending on whether you’re looking at the games or the film adaptation, Midwich Elementary is either lightly religious or run by a full blown cult, but either way it’s a place of great importance to the town of Silent Hill and the source of a lot of its horror. It was the formative experience for a young Alessa Gillespie, whose rejection and mistreatment (to understate it) at the school served as the catalyst for the horrific twisting and warping of the town into a place you’d absolutely never want to go, let alone send your kids for an education.
Midwich also got turned into a Dead by Daylight map, which should tell you everything you need to know.
Balamb Garden – Final Fantasy VIII
While Balamb Garden is a gorgeous, state-of-the-art campus with some incredibly well-appointed facilities (not to mention the fact that it can lift off of the ground and relocate with minimal fuss), there are some seriously questionable things going on within (and without) its grounds. For starters, the students here are trained to be mercenaries, given exams that involved wading, unprepared into active combat and allowed to wander a “training area” that has actual dinosaurs in it. It gets worse though, because it turns out a giant Shumi named Norg secretly funds and controls the school from a hidden chamber. Oh, and the Headmaster, Cid, is also married to a powerful sorceress. It’s all a bit much, really.
School II – Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Series
Although it might look pleasant and well-appointed enough at a glance, School II has a huge problem with outside invaders rocking up after hours and cutting absolutely sick on every possible surface. Despite both Officer Dick and skating legend Tony Hawk picking up security shifts and roaming the grounds in their golf carts, there’s no stopping the onslaught of skaters. Worse, they’ve figured out how to break into school’s gym by grinding a specific rail at the moment that the second school bell rings – who’d have thought anyone would crack that?
Shujin Academy – Persona 5
Look, I can’t fully explain just how bad this supposedly “elite” prep school in Tokyo actually is without spoiling a bunch of events, but needless to say that its faculty are a cohort of people objectively unfit to be teaching or looking after students and a principal who’ll turn a blind eye to it for the sake of his own status. I can actually get behind Shujin agreeing to enrol a student with a prior criminal conviction, as unfair as said conviction was, but being completely oblivious to the fact they were bringing a whole-arse talking cat to school every day is proof of how negligent the staff actually are.
Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp – Psychonauts
While technically not a full-time school, the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp still makes this list by throwing young learners into a veritable melting pot of danger, in this case with potentially mind-altering results. The teachers here are not only content with letting their students frolick through a grounds located directly above an enormous Psitanium deposit and sitting opposite the Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed, its teachers have no regard for their students safety, or their own, letting them run amok with their psychic powers and even delve into the teachers’ very own troubled and treacherous psyches. At least they finally banned voodoo dolls?
Seiryo High – Lost Judgment
This private Japanese prep school might seem fairly reputable and without incident, giving students a top-notch curriculum and excellent cultural opportunities when it comes to a wide range of clubs and activities, but it also has a major issue with bullying. That might seem like a fairly standard problem for a school to have, but the real issue is with the solution. Takayuki Yagami, a 38-year-old hardened private investigator, is brought on-board to uncover a particularly deadly bullying incident – which he does by infiltrating the students’ various clubs as if he isn’t nearly three times their age, joining in on their dancing, skateboarding, robot building and even getting involved in fights with literal children. Not very how do you do, fellow kids of him, is it?
