Both cinema and video games have told some stories far from reality. Apocalyptic situations that made our Sundays more pleasant and enjoyable. However, no one could have foreseen the arrival of a pandemic that would force citizens, from most of the globe, to confine themselves to their homes to avoid spreading it. The COVID-19, far from being a meme, has reached our countries and has caused an increase in demand for digital games, with stories to liven up your stay at home. Therefore, we collect a list of games based on global pandemics, which cannot be compared with reality, but which are still very interesting stories.
Plague Inc.
The first contribution could not be other than Plague Inc. A game that, after outbreaks such as Ebola during 2014, has become remarkably popular and that, for no reason, its developers had to explain several times that it is only a game and not They intend to profit from fear or panic caused by current viruses. The game system is simple: create and evolve a pathogen to extinguish humanity, it is not surprising the peaks of popularity in relation to today.
The Last of Us
One of the most iconic installments could not be missing for the study of Naughty Dog: The Last of Us, which expects a sequel for next June 19. The PlayStation exclusive detracts from the classic zombie genre, although it drinks plenty of them, replacing the classic human-made virus with a parasitic fungus which needs to infect a host in order to survive and spread its spores. Furthermore, this premise is inspired by a real parasitic fungus under the name Ophiocordyceps unilateralis.
The Division 1 & 2
Tom Clancy’s The Division 1 & 2 takes us to a land where a mutated strain of smallpox is wreaking havoc in the security systems and health services of the city, causing chaos among citizens and annihilating millions of people. This Ubisoft action game puts us in the shoes of a special forces team trained to restore order in emergency situations.
Bloodborne
The way stories are told in FromSotware titles may have caused more than one player to go through these real challenges without learning the narrative. You may have even been surprised to see him here, but everything resides in one of the most important plots in the game: blood. The common thread of the road through the city of Yarham that invites you to the eternal hunt and that is causing both citizens and foreigners to become infected with it and become beasts that lose control.
Prototype
Prototype's argument is simple: Alex J. Mercer wakes up disoriented in a morgue and ready to receive an autopsy and be subjected to scientific evidence. However, he clings to life and runs away while discovering that he is the bearer of special abilities, although he does not remember anything about his life. With all this you will find a scenario dominated by biological warfare in which the United States Government is involved and that causes people to mutate into monsters created by a strain that was designed to improve the human species, you can imagine the rest.
Resident Evil Saga
Ignoring the desire to go through the alphabet to name a new virus for each new installment, Resident Evil has the most iconic pandemics in the world of video games: The T virus. A strain created by the powerful pharmaceutical company Umbrella Corporation that experimented with the city of Racoon City and, logically, went wrong. With each new episode of the saga, we have been able to see how these first experiments have evolved, bringing new and powerful enemies, in some cases even showing more intelligence than the first installments or turning out to be chillingly dark, typical of Stephen King stories.
Days Gone
Far from having an innovative plot within the genre, Days Gone puts us in the shoes of Deacon St. John, a motorcyclist who struggles to survive in a gigantic open world populated by zombies. However, the already repetitive apocalyptic scenario shows us a sandbox where the infected behave differently according to the hours of the day and also, they sometimes present you with hordes composed of infinite zombies, also called Freakers. We could say that the proposal developed by SIE Bend Studio is the perfect title for lovers of series like The Walking Dead, since it will remind you a lot of the AMC Studios series.
Pathologic 2
The sequel developed by Ice-Pick Lodge came after years of waiting for the first title and which many remember as an icon of the first-person survival genre. The events narrated in the beginning of the plot lead us to a city infected by a deadly plague from which we have to save citizens given our medical condition. In addition, we must survive in this environment, since not all citizens are happy about our return.
The Walking Dead Telltale
Having mentioned the series The Walking Dead in Days Gone, his game developed by Telltale Games could not be missing. And if you are a follower of the series you should try it. The game tells stories located in the same comic book world, where events occur shortly after apocalispis in the state of Georgia. The Walking Dead stands out for having an exciting story told through a Gameplay typical of graphic adventure genres, where you must make decisions for the protagonists of the game. These decisions will affect the course of the narrative, triggering different events, situations and even endings.
Games that suffered pandemics
To end this post, it is worth adding three special mentions to games that, without having a base developed in a pandemic, have suffered or live similar situations. One of them is World of Warcraft, this MMORPG suffered for a week the famous Corrupted Blood pandemic, which due to a failure in one of its dungeons, spread a curse executed by a final boss that was transferred to the rest of the players from outside the room. This caused players, especially low-level players, to have to move away from big cities where there were large conglomerations of players Doesn't that sound familiar to you?
Another title that suffers from a disease that plagues NPCs is Sekiro: Die Twice. its flu is a disease that affects the characters in the story and that your character is the cause of it improving or getting worse, depending on certain decisions in the game, such as: revive during your game. Those of FromSoftware they know how to punish your stumbles with the controller. And finally, Vampyr. Game that puts us in the shoes of Jonathan Reid, a doctor turned vampire who makes decisions such as quenching his thirst for blood or exercising with his Hippocratic oath during a London ravaged by the Spanish flu.
Table of Contents
