Human sacrifice is unimaginable vicious act for us modern humans. However, human sacrifice was a very common thing in many societies in history. Almost every society participated it in such as Aztecs, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Canaanites, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Celts, Nordics, Pagans, ancient Chinese, ancient Japanese, Tibetans, Indians, and many more. Thankfully this horrible ritual over now. Although we can still witness human sacrifice in video games.
It wasn’t super common thing except for Aztecs maybe. The reason behind human sacrifice ritual was to please or appease gods in most cases.
Crop failure, drought, famine, plague, and social crises are expected to be solved by human sacrifice in ancient times.
1. Aztecs The Last Sun
2. Crusader Kings 3
Blot tenet of the Viking Asatru religion lets you do human sacrifices to appease the Nordic Gods. Biadic pagan religion practices human sacrifice as well.
You can also reform any religion and introduce human sacrifice tenet.
3. Conan Exiles
4. Skyrim
Boethiah’s Calling is a Daedric quest in Skyrim requires player to sacrifice a companion in order to progress.
It’s one of the darkest things in Skyrim.
5. Baldur’s Gate 3
In one of the quests, Fish-men will demand you to sacrifice one of your companions to the evil God BOOOAL.
6. Rimworld
RimWorld is a dark world. You can imprison, enslave, kill, and sacrifice people in it. Though you can be on the receiving end if you’re not careful.
There is this prisoner sacrifice ritual in RimWorld that must be done to increase moral of your group.
7. Europa Universalis IV
You can do many human sacrifice rituals in a Europa Universalis 4 Aztec playthrough.
Aztecs follow Nahuatl religion. Each Nahuatl state has a ticking Doom value. If the value reaches 100, the ruler family will be sacrificed and replaced with a 0/0/0 ruler, all the monarch power will be lost, all subject states will descend into chaos, and up to two religious reformations will be lost. All in all, you must avoid doom at all costs.
To prevent doomsday, Nahuatl states can declare wars and secure captives for human sacrifice. Nahuatl state can also sacrifice ruling monarchs and their heirs from vassal states.
8. Worship
9. The Shrouded Isle
10. Fhtagn Simulator
11. Godhood
12. Human Sacrifice VR
13. Total War Warhammer 2
You can sacrifice captives to Chaos God by playing as a chaos lord.
14. Stellaris
You can create an empire following a death cult and sacrifice pops for advanced research and unity.