How About Pre-Apocalyptic Game?

"People are making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow.. Too soon."

-Ellie

Recently I started to think about what is lack of apocalypse themed games. We have many games in apocalyptic setting, but the main protagonists journey mostly starts after the world has fallen, not before the apocalypse happened. Flashback of the main protagonist life before the disaster, the bomb fall, or the outbreak happens, then the real gameplay begin. My question is.. Don't you think we need pre-apocalyptic games because there is enough post-apocalyptic games already? 

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The stories may begin before the apocalypse event starts to happen, but most part of the gameplay always proceed after the apocalypse. 

Games with this kind of setting has the drama of its own. When the world has fallen apart, where everyone have no more place to really live their lives anymore, will the remaining population crumble down or do they gonna stand together to rebuild their home? Mostly that's where the player's character jump in and decide what they gonna do with the now-destructed world and the life that has become a restoration attempt, with survival as the main goal. 

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For example, Dying Light and State of Decay which are zombie apocalypse themed games where the main protagonists starts their journey when the world has turned into zombie land filled with the infected citizens that turns to be unspeakable horrors. As we make our way to complete the main story line we helps the remaining uninfected people we meet along the way to survive through the horror. 

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All the survival adventure we do entirely after the disaster happened, after the zombie outbreak occured sometime ago. Though this type of setting could be good for zombie apocalypse games to hide the reason why the outbreak happened, to put a mystery, or even a twist to the plot that the players would figure out in the end of the game.

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There is also games where we can play before the apocalypse but not for so long. Fallout 4 for example, let the player experience the main protagonist's normal life in the always sunny Sanctuary Hills before the havoc starts happening. A few moments later the protagonist watched the tv to find out there is nuclear detonation somewhere and then rush to the nearest vault along with his/her significant other carrying their baby Shaun. 

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200 years later the protagonist get out of the underground shelter to see the world has turned to sh*t (sorry). Then we can begin our journey as the Sole Survivor to find his/her kidnapped infant son and take the part to decide what the Commonwealth would be. 

Sure we get to play before the world destroyed by nuclear bomb, but that's like 5% of the entire gameplay. Plus the war flashback before the character creation makes it.. 8%?

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Another example I can think of where we get to play before the chaos happen is The Last of Us. The first part of the game shows the player the beginning of the pandemic and before that happen 20 years back. The long nice cutscene shows Joel, the main protagonist's normal life with his daughter Sarah a little bit. The moment Sarah wake up we are in control of her, walking around the house to find Joel hastily get into the house just after we figured that there is something going on. That's where the outbreak happen.

When Sarah died in their run away attempt, the intro ended and then we see Joel wake up from his sleep and we know all of that was a dream.

That's a simple yet perfect way to tell the player what happened back then before the current situation Joel is in, without taking too much time holding us from playing the actual journey. I'm not saying The Last of Us is bad, that game is one of the greatest game ever. So please don't beat me up. 

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The kind of gameplay that I think of is the story that begins way back before the disaster, and the story of the main protagonist is to prevent it to happen, escape from the current city or do something else to not experience the grand disaster. The point is the apocalypse will happen in the end of the game. 

I'm not saying there is no pre-apocalyptic games, what I'm saying is the post-apocalyptic ones are so many already and I think if there is more pre-apocalyptic games won't be a disaster. 

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My best example of pre-apocalypse game is Dragon Age: Inquisition. The game let us playing before the doomsday happen. Well it's kind of already happening but the worst is yet to come, and we play as the Inquisitor who will lead the group of warriors and mages to wipe out demons across the land by closing their way in, the fade rift, and stop one of the biggest enemy in Dragon Age games Corypheus to wreak havoc. 

I'm pretty sure there is another that kind of game but I just didn't know it yet, or I don't realize that I've played a game that was set in the middle of pre-apocalypse event which is kind of stupid. Anyway, let me know if I said something wrong..

..Or this article is entirely wrong.

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