Top 10 Post Apocalyptic Games of All Time
by Eric Swain on 14th Jun, 2013 Updated: 06/14/13
Note: The list has been updated with the latest title from Naughty Dog, The Last of us, a post-apocalyptic game where humans have been zombified—more or less—
by a terrible fungus called the cordyceps.
We are all enamored by the end of the world. There is something titillating in the idea that everything we know and love will be destroyed, and that we will have to start civilization anew. Why do we fantasize so much about being reduced to barbarism, even when simple conveniences like toilets or clean running water are gone? Why do so many people want to experience something that were it to happen in real life they wouldn’t survive a week?
Maybe it’s the "what if" factor of seeing humanity rise and fall after staring into the face of total oblivion. Maybe it’s just the desire to end inequality for a few minutes before everyone races to stand on top of one another. Or maybe it’s perverse desire to see people and systems you don’t like completely obliterated from the world.
Video games are unique in their ability to place us within a world, within conditions far outside ordinary life. We can walk the barren apocalypse, see our world broken in a virtual "what if" and discover our reaction to it all. The game puts us in a situation where the world has ended, and we get to experience what happens after the disaster. Unlike films and books, we get to experience the post-apocalypse not just through a lens filtered by immersive graphics and clever writing, but also through game mechanics—like starvation, radiation poisoning, and every other hardship one can think of in a post-apocalyptic world. Looking at it from that point of view here are the top 10 post-apocalyptic video games of all time.
10. The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead is based on the comics of the same setting but tells an original story, unlike the TV series on AMC which follows the comic book story almost page by page. The game focuses on a man and a little named Clementine who stick together, and find other survivors of the zombie apocalypse to make a living in the post-apocalyptic world.
Just as it is with the comic book, tensions flare when people of different personalities just can't get along, and have various motivations and biases underlying their presence in the story. In many ways, the human drama of The Walking Dead is as cynically post-apocalyptic as it comes.
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6. Wasteland
The original post-apocalyptic game, first released in 1988, Wasteland is a turn based roleplaying game where you take command of a squad of Desert Rangers who police the Wasteland, solving problems and bringing about justice. Set after a nuclear war punch up between the US and the Soviet Union. Survival is paramount in this world and the game itself is pretty difficult too. It was also one of the first games to feature a persistent world where it would save the changes you as the player enacted upon it. It also allowed multiple solutions to challenges that would arise. Due to technical limitations, instead of having all the dialogue and descriptions on the disk it came with a printed book and would tell you what paragraphs to read at a given point in the game. It allowed for a lot of detail and information and at the same time enough blanks space for one’s imagination to fill in the gaps.
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5. Left 4 Dead (series)
There is probably no apocalypse so engrained in the present public consciousness as the one of the zombie variety. Unlike most zombie games, however, where they are just in the indiscriminate enemy dujour, in Left 4 Dead it feels like the zombie apocalypse has happened and you are one of the last 4 unluckiest people alive trying to escape. The horde is everywhere and you can’t hole up forever because of the Tank zombies will break down the entire wall, Smokers will pull out and Hunters will take out any stragglers. Left 4 Dead not only presents us with a zombie apocalypse, but also feels like a zombie apocalypse, with a strong emphasis on the apocalypse. Zombie apocalypse is how the living deal with each other as much as the dead. Here: cooperate or die.
4. Day Z
Day Z's setting isn't much to speak of but it's post-apocalypticness lies within its gameplay, which sees players attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse while also fending against each other.
Taking place on a large island, the players must pool together their talents and find a way to survive the environment, while occasionally making runs into zombie-infested cities for resources.
As a post-apocalyptic game, it's more of an experience than anything else.
3. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (series)
Another game with an Eastern European ethos with regards to the Apocalypse, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and it’s two expansion packs are sandbox FPSRPG games with their worlds being based in “The Zone” a highly radioactive desolate environment vaguely based on Chernobyl. The people aren’t much better. The fact that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stands for Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber and this is a common enough profession should be telling enough. Radiation, hunger and persistent wounds are all mechanics furthering the game’s emphasis on survival. Keep your finger on the quick save key, life in the Zone is nasty, brutish and short.
2. Last of Us
The Last of Us is developed by the makers of the Uncharted series, and is set to offer a new take on the post-apocalyptic genre in a future where humans have been zombified—more or less—by a terrible fungus called the cordyceps.
The game follows the story of two survivors, Joel and Ellie, as they traverse through the post-apocalyptic urban jungle, that's literally overrun by flora, while avoiding both the zombified plague victims and hostile scavengers alike.
1. Fallout (series)
This is the big enchilada of all post-apocalyptic games. With six titles to its credit, and 5 of them actually good, it shows us the future as the 1950s imagined it and that we all did in fact drop the bomb. The role-playing game series is not just about survival, but being able to move forward as a society. To rebuild in the aftermath of total annihilation, in the face of power hungry group, in the face of the repercussion of an unconscionable corporation, in the face of being lied to, in the face of running out of supplies. In the face of all this, you choose who you will be.
