The Land of The Video Game Apocalypse

Video games and the apocalypse go hand in hand. Player One is always that one guy with shit to do and an appointment on Tuesday trying to make his (or her) way through this mess and help all these people out—how’d they survive before Player One came along?

But, we keep coming back to these needy people in their dangerous world because of some romanticism that we can hack it, fix it, or beat it into submission.

Of all the video game apocalypses, which is the worst; which is the best? Is it the overwhelming zombies of Resident Evil, the galactic invasions of Mass Effect, the aggressive extermination in Halo, or some other hellish scenario?

If given the choice, I’d find this Unicorn Apocalypse from the Samsung Mobile commercials and be there. I don’t know all the details of Unicorn Apocalypse I just know those are two things I need to see in one place in order to die happy.

Some of my favorite and most feared video game apocalypses

HAWKEN

Earth is overcrowded and a handful of humans move to a new planet for a better life. They get good jobs and mine precious materials and then Big Business (three of them actually) ruin everything for everyone.

They over-mine the planet and war for power.

Quickly, this new planet succumbs to a super-speedy corporatocracy (corporate oligarchy) apocalypse that ravages it, stranding blue collar workers and shit-ton of mech suits to try to make the best of it.

Epic Mickey

This one is a little more confusing than it seems… It’s also a lot like a reoccurring nightmare I use t have as a child where cartoons would come down from the woods behind my house and turn everything they touched into cartoon. It was horrifying.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-MnhFSHTxU&hl=en_US&version=3]
Epic Mickey is essentially The Land of Depression and Mickey, who’s at fault for creating The Land of Depression, is the only one who still has a bit of pep in his step and is the last hope for restoring the world to some place worth living in.

I don’t want to be there.

Fallout

Now to get in on the Fallout apocalypse you’d have to go back in time and kill Julius Edgar Lilienfeld[1. I do not condone this or killing any other scientists.] so he could never invent the transistor… That out of the way, you have to then go forward a bit to after The Resource Wars and then see how life in a 1950s style wasteland suits you.

Did everyone wear dress shoes in the 1950s? Would there be armies of Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s hunting wild dogs and whipping about in hover cars?

Ohmigawd I want to be there[2. Except Black people don’t time travel backwards for obvious reasons…]!

NeverDead

This one would be interesting because it would be a supernatural apocalypse where you get to be an immortal demon hunter. Sure bits and pieces of you fall off from time to time and you have to babysit your “partner” who is not immortal but DEMON HUNTER!

Manhunter: New York

Imagine Earth is conquered by benevolent (which is weird if they invade and conquer, but bear with me) aliens that look like giant floating eyeballs and watch everyone and everything. They implant all the Humans with fun new tech that helps the all-seeing, benevolent, eyeballs keep up with the day to day of their new minions. AND they even offer you work and let you do as you please as long as they CAN ALWAYS SEE YOU.

They might be eating people and you might be a race traitor unbeknownst to you but you get to live in a brave new world of aliens and humans and resistance fighters WITH job security!

The Last of Us

Super-virus survival is unlikely, but if you manage it you have the option of living like The Last of Us. Exploring abandoned cities whilst dodging bandits at every turn. Or staying cramped in a military-run quarantine zone whilst imagining what life is like outside…

You could run a black market business like Joel and have a sidekick like Ellie! Your sidekick could watch your back when the infected come for you—And they will come for you, just like the bandits, and the military that runs the quarantine zones…

Never a dull moment!