Horror movies have nailed this concept. Most horror films start with a group of survivors put in horrible situations, and one by one they die until only one person is left alive, usually a female. Not all survival scenarios end up this way, and that’s true of horror games too.
Other setups can involve the concept of a lone survivor, as it doesn’t have to literally mean one character is left to survive in an empty world. They may be the last presumed one of their kind, like in Hollow Knight, or the world could be broken down like in Loop Hero. Whatever the case may be, these games have interesting survival situations across a wide range of genres.
Warning
Dead Space requires having the ending spoiled, but everything else is spoiler-free.
Ball X Pit
Pinball Heroes
Ball X Pit opens with the funnily named Ballbylon, a play on the fall of historical Babylon, as it sinks into the ground. Players will start as survivors who can go down into the depths to fight monsters, collect materials, and blueprints to rebuild the city one house at a time. The city-builder aspects are minimal, but worthwhile since they give characters that unlock more passive bonuses.
There is no quest-based or dialogue dynamic between the unlocked characters or citizens, but that’s all for the better because the ball-based roguelike gameplay is fantastic, like a more RPG-infused game of pinball. The lack of a real story also adds to the isolating vibe that players are just trying to survive in a broken world.
Dark Cloud
Toan And I
The original Dark Cloud was Level-5’s first game, and it opened with a cult reviving a dark genie who wipes out nearly an entire town, including buildings and people. The hero, Toan, who looks a lot like Link from the Zelda series, is the one warrior left who can rebuild things.
There is a dungeon nearby where the genie encased materials and NPCs in spheres. By fighting monsters and collecting these spheres, players could use them to rebuild the town, which worked well as an early PS2 game. Players also unlocked new heroes besides Toan, like Goro, who has a big hammer, over time, and it was an overall great first effort from Level-5 as an action RPG with building mechanics.
Dead Space
The First Scream King
Dead Space is a different example of a survivor game, as it is a literal survival horror game set in space. The protagonist, Isaac Clarke, is an engineer who accompanied a small crew to investigate a space colony, the USG Ishimura, after things went dark some time ago. Aboard, they find the crew has either been torn to shreds or turned into undead aliens called Necromorphs.
One by one, the crew gets violently dismembered or killed in several ways, with Isaac being the lone survivor in the end, essentially making him the scream queen of the nightmare. Armed with all manner of weapons, this original and the remake are still amazing examples of what the horror genre is capable of in games.
Dragon Quest Builders
A Dark Alternate Ending
Dragon Quest Builders is an alternate reality game that takes the bad ending from the very first game and imagines the events, aka the end of the world. With the world destroyed, players awaken as a mythical hero known as a builder who has the power to repair everything. In each chapter, players will be presented with a town or area they must fix, with some NPC survivors as well, asking for certain perks.
Players will level up in each area, but after moving between chapters, things reset again. It’s an odd leveling system for a Dragon Quest game, but the building mechanics are very intuitive, as it is very similar to Minecraft, just with much better graphics and a more engaging story and quest system.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins
Wander No More
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a semi-reboot of the franchise, focusing on an original character instead of one of the many figures from Chinese history. The character is known as The Wanderer, and their tribe was wiped out long ago. With no home to call their own, this silent protagonist chooses to ally with nearby nations that are all trying to conquer China for themselves.
Players can make choices on who they support, which will change the story and also lead to new information as to what happens to their home. Like all Dynasty Warriors games, players can expect a lot of action as they slay literal hundreds of enemies in each map with a wide range of weapons and skills.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
