Can't get enough of post apocalyptic RPGs? Now you can experience them one more with this list of games like Fallout.
What is it about post-apocalyptic wastelands that appeals to us so much? Your guess is as good as mine, but fact is they are fun to watch and play in. Here’s a list of ten games that deliver the best Mad Max experience on the market.
10. Metro: Last Light (2013)
A nightly walk through post-apocalyptic Moscow
Developer: 4A Games
Genre: First-person shooter
A light of hope
Rejoin Artyom on his mission to rescue the last remaining Dark One, a mysterious creature that seems to hold the key to our future.
Navigate your way through the hells of a blasted Moscow, where the surface is irradiated and toxic, and the metro system below is dark and chilling. The game is highly atmospheric, and makes several sacrifices of convenience in order to keep you on your toes (for instance, instead of a map you merely have a compass). You will need to fight both soldiers and mutants, and in will need to conserve ammo in both cases because it is also used as currency.
Metro: Last Light is a brutal experience, but nothing less is to be expected from a title that attempts to immerse us into a dying world. This can be frustrating, but if you grit your teeth and push on, you will find yourself in the middle of a great game.
9. State of Decay (2015)
Explore a zombie-infested open world
Developer: Undead Labs
Genre: Stealth, survival horror, role-playing, third-person shooter, simulation
The executions are thoroughly satisfying
After returning from a fishing trip, you find the world ravaged by a zombie apocalypse. Salvaging what you can, you try to organize the survivors and live through the horror.
State of Decay is an unbelievably detailed zombie apocalypse simulator disguised as an open world video game. It will have you rescue NPCs, build and manage a base, go on supply runs, send your allies on their own missions, and everything else you can think of.
An incredible feature is the fact that the game will keep advancing whether you actually do anything or not, so the zombies will swarm and overrun areas if not taken care of, and the NPCs will do things by themselves, upgrading their skills.
8. Wasteland 2 (2014)
You are not alone
Developer: inXile Entertainment
Genre: Role-playing
Reminiscent of classic Fallout – but with a party
Lead an elite team of Desert Rangers, and investigate the mysterious death of one of your colleagues, Ace.
Being the sequel to the game that inspired the original Fallout, Wasteland 2 offers a top-down view on a turn-based battlefield. You lead and create a party of four, customizing them to your needs and desires (complete with appearance and backstory), and may be joined by up to three non-player characters.
What is amazing about Wasteland 2 is the sense of responsibility and loss the game imparts upon you. Like in the XCOM reboot, you cannot help everyone, but unlike the aforementioned game, this one directly shows you the consequences of your choice (the area you choose not to help might get exterminated to the last man, for instance). And that is what surviving the end of the world is all about.
7. STALKER: Clear Sky (2008)
An enticing mixture of FPS and survival horror
Developer: GSC Game World
Genre: First-person shooter, survival horror
The Zone is as interesting to visit as it is dangerous
After the Chernobyl disaster, the area around it (nicknamed the Zone) has started exhibiting supernatural anomalies. Scar, the man we get to play as, possesses a mysterious immunity to some deadlier anomalies, and is sent in to investigate the area and save lives.
Clear Sky is an FPS game with some elements of horror and RPGs thrown in for good measure. Ammunition and necessities are scarce and need to be conserved. Scar himself can take part in the faction wars that rage across the Zone, and trade with various affiliated and unaffiliated characters for supplies and stronger gear.
The factions themselves will fight with each other regardless of whether you help them or not, which helps immersion a lot. If you want to feel like part of a living, breathing post-doomsday world, and don’t care much for zombies, then you should at least try this title.
6. Rage (2011)
Apocalyptic enough for you?
Developer: id Software
Genre: First-person shooter, action-adventure, vehicular combat, racing
The Wasted are but one of the many rival gangs you will face
After one hundred and six years spent in stasis, you awake to find a world gone mad, civilization having been destroyed by the fall of an asteroid. After surviving an attempt on your life, you try to make ends meet in this mad new world.
Rage’s open world is explored on foot and from the insides of a vehicle. While walking around, you may enjoy a well-polished FPS game with some additional elements such as an inventory system and scavenging. When behind a wheel, however, you partake in faster exploration or racing (both armed and unarmed).
While the title does lack some mechanical depth, it doesn’t disappoint in any other way. It looks amazing, the atmosphere is on the level, and the gunplay is top notch.
5. Borderlands 2 (2012)
The charm of Borderlands cannot be denied
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: First-person shooter, action role-playing
The game’s cartoony graphics significantly lighten the atmosphere
After surviving a deadly trap by Handsome Jack, the Vault Hunters join a resistance movement in order to take revenge.
This title, like its prequel, is an FPS/RPG hybrid in an open world setting. Bring friends, pick your characters, and let the conquest of Pandora begin anew.
Borderlands games know what you’re after, and they won’t even try to create something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., choosing to deliver a spectacle of cartoony insanity instead. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
4. Bioshock Infinite (2007)
The most exciting babysitting story of the decade
Developer: 2K Games
Genre: First-person shooter
The visual design is breathtaking
While not strictly being a game set in a post-apocalyptic setting, Infinite’s Columbia can be viewed as another type of technological purgatory. It puts you in the role of war veteran Booker DeWitt, who is tasked with finding a girl called Elizabeth and breaking her out from the floating city of Columbia, where she is held captive.
The game itself plays like a first person shooter with unlockable upgrades and powers that you get by collecting certain items. There are three types of upgrades in Infinite: Vigors (granting active powers that require a resource called Salt to use), Gears (active passive upgrades) and Infusions (increasing either maximum Health, Shield, or Salt).
What truly steals the show here is Elizabeth your companion in the game. Being well-thought out and designed, as well as useful (she has an unusual ability to make tears in space), it’s no wonder that she captured the hearts of gamers everywhere.
3. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
Easily the most immersive RPG of its time
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Genre: Action role-playing
You will see a lot of this and it still won’t be enough
You are an unstoppable hero with the power to steal the souls of dragons and take their power along with it. Now go and do whatever you feel like.
The Elder Scrolls V sends you into an amazing world with a degree of freedom previously unheard of in other AAA games. Build your character however you like, join any organization you like and play their quest to its end, then do it again somewhere else. It might get old after a while, but we all get back to Skyrim sooner or later.
Possessing a lot of qualities we expect from Fallout, minus the setting, this title is the logical pastime to turn to while we wait for Bethesda’s next release.
2. Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magic Obscura (2001)
It might look dated but it feels timeless
Developer: Troika Games
Genre: Role-playing
Arcanum features a unique world where high fantasy collides with the steam engine
After having your party crashed (literally) by a squad of biplane-piloting orcs, you awaken in the smoldering ruins of what was once a luxurious blimp. The only other survivor seems to be dying, and he urges you to “find the boy” before his last breath.
The first child of the late Troika games, Arcanum gave us the potential to create and advance either a magic(k)ally or technologically inclined character, right before diving into a fantasy world that had recently discovered the steam engine. Every time you level up, you gain a point that can be spent to improve a trait or buy something new, and you will never have enough of these.
The degree of freedom offered by the title is impressive even today, and the various ways you can develop the storyline and your character keep it as fresh as anything else on the market.
1. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)
As is the norm for the series, options are plentiful
Developer: Eidos Montreal
Genre: Action role-playing, first-person shooter, stealth
Sometimes you just want to let it all out
The latest installment of the beloved series lets you play as Adam Jensen again, and puts you right in the middle of a ready-to-explode war between the augmented and natural human beings.
Adam’s cybernetic enhancements will see much use as we navigate the game’s version of future Prague: every situation will be solvable in many different ways, making the game replayable and exciting. Melee executions, shoot-outs, sneaking, disabling, all of these and more will be viable alternatives for overcoming any obstacle.
All things considered, Mankind Divided seems like an inevitable masterpiece. The only downside seems to be the release date. As all good things in life, this one will most certainly be worth the wait.
