It’s the end of the world as we know it, and until the electrical grid goes out for good, I’m gonna spend it playing video games! Some say it’ll end with a bang, some with a whimper – others think it’ll involve gothic androids battling skyscraper sized automatons. At the end of the day, who’s to say? Earth’s days are numbered, and while our inevitably mortality is intrinsically depressing, these game developers have given us something to celebrate: armageddon has great gameplay. In honor of the post apocalyptic future that we’re doomed to inherit, here are the 10 best post apocalyptic video games of all time.
Nier: Automata
Nier: Automata offers the most fun prediction for the end the world – everyone is an insanely stylish android wielding epic JRPG weapons against machine menaces. The action takes place in the year 11945 AD, and follows a proxy war between human made androids and semi-intelligent, self replicating machines of alien origin. In the beginning of the game, the player controls 2B – an elegant combat android who packs an arsenal of oversized weaponry. As 2B engages in wartime operations at the behest of her android commanders, she begins to question if the minds of her machine enemies differ all that much from her own programming. The game combines hack and slash combat with moral quandaries: you killed that robot, but was it justified? What existential purpose does the violence serve? How do you maintain morale in a meaningless world? Why is everyone wearing a blindfold? Is this a kink thing? All pertinent queries.
Fallout 3: New Vegas
The crown jewel of a legendary post apocalyptic franchise, Fallout 3: New Vegas is arguably the greatest nuclear wasteland story ever told. The game takes place in the inhospitable ruin of the Mojave Desert – which got even worse after the nukes went off. You take on the role of a courier, who survived an assassination attempt from an unknown assailant. Spurred on by your desire to chef up some Michelin star rated revenge, you go on a trek across the Las Vegas wasteland to serve it cold. In the process, you get wrapped up in the local culture: mutant murder, armed militias vying for power, horrifying chimeras trying to eat you alive – the options are endless. With an arsenal of retro-futuristic weapons and tech as your disposal, you’re given the choices to reshape the post-apocalyptic world as you see fit.
The Last of Us
The game that elevated video game narratives into Oscar bait, The Last of Us feels more like a playable version the Best Picture winner than a game. After the world has fallen to a fungal infection that turns everyone into angry shroom-zombies, grizzled smuggler Joel is tasked with transporting his most precious cargo yet: an immune teenage girl. As they navigate the wasted world, the pair’s mercenary relationship soon blossoms into a surrogate father/daughter bond. A heady cocktail of beauty and brutality, the game combines emotional depth with sharp weapons that sink in just deep. Who can save the world from the cannibal cults and mushroom monsters? You can, but is it worth the cost? By the end of the game, you’ll know the answer – though it might surprise you.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn is a new Neolithic Revolution built upon the ruins of a technologically advanced past. Civilization went kaput, reincarnating in Stone Age form with tribal groups of humans battling monsters that resemble those of the prehistoric past – except for all the metal. The true inheritors of the Earth are animalistic machines, which are hunted by humans for resources. After a young hunter named Aloy stumbles across an ancient piece of advanced technology, she begins to piece the past back together. What happened to humanity? Why is the Earth a robo-zoo? Who is this cult trying to resurrect long-dead automatons? If you can survive the game’s brutally difficult encounters with mechanical sabertooth tigers while you’re armed with just a bow and some traps, you’ll find out the answers yourself.
Project Zomboid
Project Zomboid is the most comprehensive post-apocalyptic RPG ever made – they really thought of everything! After choosing from a multitude of different backgrounds, your custom built character is dropped into the zombie apocalypse with one goal: survive. While attempting to gather resources and avoid be bitten, your character also has to take care of their own emotional and physical needs, fighting hunger, fatigue, anxiety, and even boredom. Yes, boredom is a status effect in this game! While you have a myriad of choices to make, from where to scavenge, to what weapons to use, to how to best zombie-proof your home, they all result in the same thing: your inevitable death. There is no winning Project Zomboid, you’re challenged to survive as long as you can – and then start over with a different character. Starvation, bacterial infection, hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning – the ways you can die are an infinitely varied as the choices you can make, and you’ll suffer one of them soon enough.
Mad Max
Mad Max the game is about as fun as Mad Max the movie, which is to say very. Set in an open world wasteland, you and your divinely ordained muscle car are tasked with liberating the land from the grip of warlords -mutated psychopaths that make Immortan Joe look pretty darn mortal. The bulk of the game takes place behind the wheel, featuring car combat that is just as thrilling as the road battles in Mad Max‘s cinematic counterpart. The rest of the fights are brutal, on foot affairs. For an action game, the combat mechanics feel somewhat survival horror – bullets are scare and melee weapons are your best friend. It’s a high octane thrill ride featuring a satisfying story that can be summed up in four words: bad guys go boom.
Metro Exodus
Adapted from a series of post-apocalyptic novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky, the Metro games take place in a near-future Russia devastated by nuclear war. Humanity has adapted by moving underground, devolving into warring factions that compete with mutated creatures for survival. Metro Exodus is arguably the best game in the series, centering around a Russian soldier who breaks away from his militia in order to establish contact with the rest of humanity. After discovering a working train on the surface, he and small team of survivors come together to reconnect civilization. The game follows a semi-open world structure, each stop on the group’s world-rebuilding journey is a unique puzzle that can be solved in multiple ways. Hostile paramilitaries, killer critters, cannibal cults, you’ll have to contend with them all – reestablishing civilization isn’t exactly a walk in the irradiated park.
Dark Souls
A grimdark fantasy masterpiece, Dark Souls is set in the kingdom that has gone through multiple cycles of rebirth and decay. Nearly every game in the franchise has dealt with the end times in some way or another, though the details of those apocalypses can be only sussed out by reading item descriptions and consulting Reddit lore threads. Known for its atmospheric setting and brutal combat system, Dark Souls revolutionized modern gaming, spawning multiple “Souls-like” carbon copies in its wake. Eerie, engrossing, and ever-frustrating, this game will have you banging your head against a wall and begging for more.
Stray
The most adorable post-apocalyptic story ever told, Stray takes place in a sci-fi city from which humanity has seemingly vanished. The desolate cyberpunk streets are home to a new dominate species: cats. You take control of a nine-lived hero who is separated from its pack, and befriends a robot drone on a quest to recover its deleted memories. As you bound through subterranean city with feline grace, you piece together the post-apocalyptic details of humanity’s disappearance. Well, you the player do. The cat you control isn’t interested in anything except knocking things off shelves and stretching out on rugs. There’s even a button dedicated entirely to meowing – and not even the robots you discover can resist your infectiously cute charm.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild
Who would have thought that family friendly Nintendo would take a stab at the post apocalyptic genre? While The Legend of Zelda series has tackled the genre before in the moon-destroys-world masterpiece that is Majora’s Mask, Breath of the Wild approaches the end of days with a more hopeful attitude. One hundred years ago, the kingdom of Hyrule fell to the might of Ganon, a demonic presence that has plagued the land since antiquity. After a century long snooze, the Hyrule’s champion Link wakes up in a beautifully ruined world. It’s this landscape that is the true star of the show, a sprawling open world whose beauty brings a tear to the eye. Sure, you’re on a quest to purge evil and yada yada yada, but the best part of the game is the journey and not the destination. Vast deserts, steaming jungles, mist shrouded forests, ancient ruins, these are only a handful of places that the post apocalyptic world has to offer. Who says the end times can’t be a good time?
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