Once we gave up on the vision of lustrous future we replaced them with post-apocalypse. The brutal, unforgiving wastelands and restructured societies are a good fodder for video games. This article discusses some of the best games taking place in post-apocalyptic worlds for quick reference.
What is post-apocalypse in the first place?
Most post-apocalyptic worlds, especially in video games which thrive on conflicts, are very dangerous, with bandits, crazed cults, monsters, and wild animals. If you play a post-apo game be prepared to fight with tooth and claw to survive in a world that is in shambles.
Now that we have established a common ground we can move on discussing the games.
Game | Release | Genre | Developer | Sale | ||
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| Rage 2 Deluxe Edition | 2019-05-14 | Action | Bethesda Softworks | 94% | Read more |
| Rage | 2011-10-03 | Adventure | id Software | 71% | Read more |
| Far Cry New Dawn Deluxe Edition | 2019-02-15 | Adventure | Ubisoft | Read more | |
| Wasteland 3 | 2020-08-28 | RPG | inXile entertainment | 93% | Read more |
| Wasteland 2 Directors Cut Classic Edition | 2014-09-18 | Indie | inXile Entertainment | 46% | Read more |
| Mad Max | 2015-09-01 | Adventure | Avalanche Studios | 78% | Read more |
| Darksiders Iii | 2018-11-27 | Adventure | Gunfire Games | 93% | Read more |
| Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition | 2020-08-07 | Adventure | Guerrilla | 77% | Read more |
| Fallout 4 Game Of The Year Edition | 2017-09-26 | RPG | Bethesda Game Studios | 85% | Read more |
Rage 2
Release date: | 2019-05-14 |
Genre: | Action |
Developer: | Bethesda Softworks |
Although the original Rage didn’t gain much traction, Rage 2 seems distinctive and lively enough to carry the franchise to success. The intensely colorful designs of the Rage 2 apocalypse brings to mind Mad Max if it was made by graffiti artists.
Rage 2 is going to be a no-holds-barred first-person action game, with superpowers, power-boosting Overdrive mode, devastating weapons, deranged enemies, and no regard for the limits of a human body. It’s definitely worth checking out.
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Wasteland 2
Release date: | 2014-09-18 |
Genre: | Adventure |
Developer: | inXile Entertainment |
Wasteland is an old franchise, it not only predates Fallout but can be pointed at as one of the biggest inspirations for that series. Wasteland 2 is a Kickstarter-funded, demanding role-playing game with turn-based tactical battles.
Build your team of Rangers and start investigating the death of one of your colleagues. Track the mystery from Arizona to Los Angeles and solve the troubles of communities you find along the way. The ending will tell you what your actions have wrought.
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Mad Max
Release date: | 2015-09-01 |
Genre: | Adventure |
Developer: | Avalanche Studios |
If you enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road, you’re likely to have a good time with this adaptation of George Miller’s classic series. This open-world action-adventure has brawling and vehicular combat in spades.
Max’s Interceptor has been stolen, and he’s in need of a new ride to defeat the crazed warlord of the wasteland and recover what’s rightfully his. The dried-up sea floor making up the game’s map is a unique and surprisingly diverse locale for this adventure.
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Darksiders 3
Release date: | 2018-11-27 |
Genre: | Adventure |
Developer: | Gunfire Games |
The kingdoms of Hell and Heaven invaded the kingdom of Earth, responding to the alleged signal to begin the apocalypse. Between their arrival and humanity’s demise, seven deadly sins took root on Earth. Kill them, would you?
in Darksiders 3 you play as Fury who, like her brothers War and Death, has a mission which would escape the bounds of what she thought she knew about the world… and kill many enemies with her deadly barbed whip in fast-paced, action-heavy combat.
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Far Cry New Dawn
Release date: | 2019-02-15 |
Genre: | Adventure |
Developer: | Ubisoft |
Far Cry New Dawn is a sequel to Far Cry 5, taking place 17 years after the bombastic ending of FC5.
New Dawn is set on FC5’s map of Montana reimagined to reflect what happened in the meantime. There are even some returning characters, who may offer commentary on the last 17 years. New Dawn presents a vibrant and lively view of the post-apocalypse, which, like in aesthetically similar Rage 2, meshes well with the series typical intense, often ridiculous, player-instigated action.
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Horizon Zero Dawn
Release date: | 2020-08-07 |
Genre: | Adventure |
Developer: | Guerrilla |
One of the singleplayer hits launched on PlayStation 4 in recent years, Horizon Zero Dawn takes place in a stunning post-apocalyptic world overgrown by nature and ruled by both small and massive robots with bestial shapes.
As Aloy, a young hunter, you’ll track and hunt the animalistic machines, craft tools using their parts, and get to the bottom of the recent wave of attacks from the robots. The world of HZD is beautiful and its history is quite interesting.
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Fallout: New Vegas
Release date: | 2010-10-21 |
Genre: | Adventure |
Developer: | Obsidian Entertainment |
One of the most famous role-playing games of the last decade, Fallout: New Vegas takes place on the sun-scorched Nevada desert, torn apart by a conflict between the Caesar’s Legion, New California Republic, and the city of New Vegas.
Developed by Obsidian Entertainment, New Vegas offers the players a lot of freedom in many aspects, including what kind of character they play, with whom they want to ally, and what is their chosen approach to solving problems.
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Supplementary apocalypses
The games listed above are by no means all productions with post-apocalyptic themes out there. Below you’ll find an additional list with a few more suggestions which didn’t make to the main list.
This is the end
This concludes our selection of games the events of which take place in post-apocalyptic settings. There are many more out there (such as Fallout New Vegas’ predecessors’ Fallout 1 and FO2), and most likely there are many more still to be imagined and created, as post-apocalypse is a fertile ground for making games full of danger and with stories about restructured societies. The cause of the apocalypse being natural or man-made, scientific or mystical, doesn’t change that fact.