Many of the great stories throughout all of fiction have centered around a dystopian society of some shape or form, whether it comes in the form of some strange sci-fi future, a reimagined version of the past, or somewhere in between.
The same can be said for video games, obviously, as there are many prime examples of great stories in gaming that feature the dystopian concept in some shape or form. So, obviously again, that’s what we’re here to talk about.
In this post, I’ll be showing you ten of the best dystopian-themed games that you can get on PC today. And it doesn’t get much simpler of an opening explanation than that, right? So let’s just jump right into it with our first game…
#10: HEADLINER (PC)
Headliner: What if YOU controlled the news? (Issue #1)
Opening up our list is a short, yet thought-provoking game where you enter the role of a news editor for a national news program.
In Headliner, you determine what news stories do and don’t get pushed forward for the country to see, and you have to live with the consequences of your actions.
In a futuristic city where most people are genetically modified, where genetic engineering and civil unrest loom over the city, what bias will you have when pushing out news stories?
Will you side with the marginalized or push to keep the status quo for the majority, remain unbiased or show disdain for modified individuals? In Headliner, the choice is yours.
The average length of a full run through Headliner is roughly forty-five minutes to an hour long, which encourages plenty of replayability in order to discover dozens of endings, each of which is affected by the narrative you decide to run on the news.
After every work day, you’ll walk home and witness the consequences of your decisions first-hand, whether it leads to protests for the rights of genetically modified people or a modified-centered bar being burned down, and even outright attacks in the streets that require a curfew to be put in place, and many more alternative outcomes that all hang on your choices.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, once you get home you’ll have to sit down and explain, perhaps even justify your decisions to your wife and daughter, and if you aren’t careful, your decisions might end up with you losing the support of your family altogether.
As far as the games on this list, Headliner is certainly the shortest game on this top 10 list based on how long it takes to complete the game once. But in that same regard, Headliner also offers hours of replayability when it comes to shaking up the stances you take with the stories you’ll have published so you can see the surprising depth of options that this game has.
If you’re looking for a game that will leave you thinking, then you can go and pick up Headliner on Steam for just $4.99, and if you want to take it a step further, you can even buy it in a bundle with its sequel, Headliner: NoviNews, for just under $19.00 while you’re at it.
Curate news articles however you see fit in Headliner. Push for outrageous stories that generate ratings or stick to the facts and remain unbiased, the choice is yours to make, just as the consequences are yours to face.
#9: Liberated (PC/PS4/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S/Nintendo Switch)
Liberated - Launch Trailer
In a dystopian near-future, governments and corporations work together to track the movements of every citizen, to shape the way they think, and to control every facet of every life on Earth as if they were pawns in a game.
With basic human rights crumbling around you as society is pulled into a new, dark world, will you succumb to the wills of your new would-be overlords, or will you rebel against the oppressors and begin your very own revolution?
Liberated takes place in a rain-soaked dystopian city where democracy is slowly slipping away into authoritarianism. On top of its tech-noir and cyberpunk-centered themes, what really makes Liberated unique amongst other games on this list is that its visuals are composed of hand-drawn interactive art that makes the entire game look and feel like you’re playing in a living comic book, with every different area and cutscene in the game being surrounded by white borders and joined with the rustling sounds of pages being turned, in an effort that really does immerse yourself in the story as though it actually were a paperback comic book, with interactive panels of art that are reminiscent of Frank Miller’s and Will Eisner’s graphic novels.
Combining comic book-style art with that classic 1940s and 50s noir film aesthetic, Liberated puts players at the forefront of a revolution for basic human decency, where they will have to rely on their wits and perhaps their 9mm pistol as they jump and sneak through levels, solving puzzles and getting into close-quarters shootouts, as players see the game’s dramatic story play out from the perspectives of multiple individuals locked in a clash of ideals.
And though the story, music, and visuals of the game are stunning in their own right, this game is left near the back-end of this list for having at times clunky gameplay with generally low-quality animations and overall gameplay that to some is generally too repetitive for a second playthrough.
That being said, even considering the at-times slow gameplay elements, the story and art of the game overall help to make it a perfectly good game in its own right, and well worth a spot on this list.
In the end, while it might not be the perfect example of a perfect game, Liberated still brings its own unique experience to the table that makes it worth at least one playthrough for any fan of the dystopian genre. So if you want my opinion, if this game interests you at all, then go and get Liberated during a Steam sale if you’re willing to give it a shot.
Light the fires of revolution against a growing authoritarian regime that seeks to spy on the whole of humanity in Liberated, a game whose story is told through beautiful hand-drawn art that makes it feel like a graphic novel brought to life.
#8: Remember Me (PC/PS3/Xbox 360)
Remember Me | gameplay trailer (2013)
The year is 2084 in the city of Neo-Paris, where the corporation Memorize has created a mass-marketed brain implant called Sensen, which enables 99% of the population to upload their memories and share them directly with others, and even allows people to remove bad memories if they so desire.
This technology establishes Memorize as a surveillance state in the city, leading a group of rebels calling themselves Errorists to join together in the hopes of bringing down the corrupt corporation.
In Remember Me, players enter the role of a woman named Nilin who was captured by the authorities and had her memories erased.
After escaping from her imprisonment at the start of the game, Nilin begins a journey to recover her memories and her identity, in a search for her past that will lead her to be hunted down by the very people in charge of this new surveillance society.
Before having her memories wiped, Nilin was what’s known as an elite memory hunter among the Errorists, an individual with the ability to break into people’s memories via their Sensen implants and steal or even completely alter another person’s memories if they so choose, and this ability is what led to her capture and subsequent memory wipe, as the powers that be were fearful of her knowledge and ability.
Across the game Nilin will need to use these latent abilities to recover memories and information of her past life from those she encounters on her journey, using her abilities not only to recover her memories but to shape how those whose minds she enters see themselves in the present.
With her abilities, Nilin can shape the memories of other people with the “Memory Remix” mechanic, allowing players to alter other character’s minds in real-time gameplay, either to completely change how they see themselves or how they see others, which could have potentially disastrous consequences for the denizens of 2084.
The world of Neo-Paris is filled with threats to Nilin’s health however, whether those threats are the government agents tracking her down, the sewer-dwelling mutants known as Leapers who have absorbed so many memories that their Sensen’s have degraded their minds and bodies, and plenty of other obstacles to overcome.
To face off against these life-threatening dangers, players can utilize the game’s Combo Lab, one of Remember Me’s unique features that allows players to create their own series of move combos under four categories of fighting moves called Pressens.
With the moves you can collect throughout the game, you’ll be able to unlock certain abilities like stunning large groups of enemies all at once, moving at high speeds to land more hits, an ability to turn hostile robots friendly before making them self-destruct, and many more moves and abilities beyond that.
With the moves available and the combinations you can create with them, there are 50,000 possible Pressen combinations for you to create. There are also a few projectile weapons to use as well, in case you were wondering.
Somewhat ironically, Remember Me is a bit of an obscure game in this day and age due to it being one of the many third-person action-adventure games that came out around the early 2010s, even though the game has sold over 1 million copies and became a “Platinum Title” for the game’s publisher Capcom.
That’s not to say the game is bad of course, as this game features an interesting story along with fun gameplay and what many find to be a highly enjoyable protagonist in Nilin, whose story of reclaiming her memories and reawakening as a person resonated with quite a few people back when this game released in 2013.
But here in the present over ten years later, if you find yourself looking for a new adventure game filled with platforming and exploration, intense melee combat, and a story that’s worth investing in, then Remember Me is certainly a game worth remembering in 2023.
Pave the way for a better future as you search for ways to recover your past, in a quest that will put you up against the strongest forces of the corrupt corporate government that stole your memories in Remember Me.
#7: We Happy Few (PC/Linux/PS4/Xbox One)
We Happy Few | Launch Trailer
In an alternate version of 1960s England, we find ourselves in a city once ravaged by the war and now stands rebuilt as the “Retrofuturistic” paradise known as Wellington Wells, where everything from the people to the very roads they walk on appears to be joyful!
Unfortunately for you though, that’s far from the truth, because in reality society as you know it is on the brink of collapse, and none of the citizens know or even care because they are too hopped up on a new hallucinogenic drug called "Joy", which chemically induces a constant state of euphoria and blocks out all negative thoughts, like the “Very Bad Things” that the Wellington Wells residents did to the invading German forces that lead to where they are today.
If a resident refuses to take their Joy they become known as a “Downer”, and if anyone catches them acting like a Downer they’ll either be force-fed the pills, hauled away by the police, or even outright killed on the spot. All to ensure that everyone in Wellington Wells remains in joyful bliss of the dystopian police state they live in.
In We Happy Few, players will experience the story arcs of three characters who each have their own connections to the rebuilding of Wellington, and each have their own story arcs to traverse that will in some way involve the other two.
These characters are Arthur, an “utterly unremarkable” British everyman who stops taking his joy to try and remember what happened to his long-lost brother, Sally, the creator of an experimental new brand of Joy who secretly plans on escaping the city with her daughter, the first child born in Wellington in 15 years, and Ollie, a former British army soldier hiding out in the abandoned Garden District who seeks to reveal the terrible truth of Wellington’s past to its oblivious citizens, a quest which will lead him back to his own forgotten memories of his horrible past.
These three people are far from heroes, but they have still chosen to wake up from conformity to try and escape from their euphoric prison of obliviousness. Will you help these three escape from Wellington Wells in pursuit of the ugly truth, or will you leave them to remain happily oblivious forever…?
Gameplay-wise, We Happy Few is a survival video game that gives you numerous ways to sneak or fight your way through the puzzles ahead. Since each of the three characters has their own playstyle, we’ll focus on Arthur’s playstyle here. After Arthur stops taking his Joy and becomes a “Wastrel” when he’s forced to flee into the abandoned Garden District where only other non-Joy users now reside, Arthur will have to scavenge for food and supplies to help him fight back against his hostile surroundings.
The choice is ultimately on the player if they want to find crafting recipes to develop new and better weapons to fight back against the other Wastrels and the residents of Wellington Wells, or if they want to take their Joy pills and blend in with the other “Wellies” as they use stealth-tactics to complete the puzzles and challenges preventing them from reaching their ultimate goal of escaping this doped up dystopia.
We Happy Few received praise for its setting, voice acting, musical score, and all-around vibe, but in turn, also received criticism for the gameplay being too survival-orientated, for a few noticeable gaps and flaws in the storyline, and a few noticeable bugs when it first fully launched.
This leaves the game in a somewhat “mixed” state that generally leans in favor of the game, which led many players to refer to the game as flawed, but still an overall enjoyable experience.
Five years after its release, I do recommend that you give We Happy Few a try if you’re a fan of the “joyfully oblivious world hiding from the grim truth” world that the game presents you, as even those criticized open-world survival elements are still very much enjoyable if you are a fan of those kinds of games. At the end of the day, We Happy Few and its DLCs are what I would call a “flawed masterpiece” that comes up just short of being that little bit more perfect.
As for me, personally speaking, I do hope that we’ll see some kind of sequel to this game someday, as there really is something special about the strange little drugged-up world of We Happy Few.
Take your Joy pills and remain oblivious and happy forever, or refuse these mind-numbing drugs and open your eyes to the terrible truth of this happy little town’s dark past in We Happy Few.
#6: Beholder (PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch/iOS/Android)
Beholder - Trailer
The totalitarian state controls every aspect of both private and public life in a dystopian world where laws are oppressive, surveillance is total, and privacy is dead… but freedom still lives on.
You play the role of a State-installed manager of an apartment building, where you will go about your daily duties to ensure the building is a desirable location for tenants who come and go, a job that is simply a mask for your real mission: spying on the residents.
In Beholder, you are but one small cog in the massive totalitarian machine, with your own needs and a family to care for. Will you stay loyal to the regime and report suspicious activity without a care for the lives of the tenants, or will you cling to your humanity and cover up for them? The choice ultimately remains yours.
When doing your duties as the apartment caretaker/government spy, not only will you have to keep up appearances as any other ordinarily oppressed citizen, but you’ll also have to put in the effort of spying on the complex’s tenants in a number of ways, whether it’s peering through the keyhole of their apartment to installing secret cameras inside of their smoke detectors.
And when your tenants are away, that’s your opportunity to break into their homes and begin rifling through their belongings for anything that your overbearing overlords disallow, such as bombs as a more prominent example. If and when you find something illegal in their possession, you generally have three options to choose from.
You can either simply report the citizen to the government as you’re supposed to, choose compassion and help cover up their crimes to avoid raining unjust punishments upon them, or even extort the guilty party directly by threatening to report them if they don’t pay you cash.
The citizens aren’t blank slates to randomly decide the fates of either, as each and every one of them is their own unique individual with their own unique personality, circumstances, and issues that have led them where they are today, and in turn, they each have things to gain just as they do things to lose should you find a reason to disrupt their lives.
If you find contraband in a father’s home and report him to the government, for example, the father will be taken away while his child becomes orphaned, and in another example, if you fail to do your job in time, one tenant might just end up shooting another, or even you if you happen to be so unfortunate.
Every action you do or do not perform across a game of Beholder directly affects which of the several endings you’ll end up getting, so you have to carefully pick and choose when to show humanity to others, and when to be selfish so that your family stays alive.
If you’re looking for a good example of what living in a dystopian future is like, Beholder is the game you should be turning your attention to. It’s got all of the details that make for a good dystopian thriller, the overbearing and ruthless government, the sympathetic and desperate populace just trying to live their lives, and one lone man who can make all the difference caught in the thick of it, that being you.
So if you like your dystopia with a splash of that classic adventure game feeling, on top of having to make countless bleak and morally gray decisions, Beholder, and perhaps even its sequels, should be right up your alley.
In Beholder, after becoming the State-installed manager of an apartment complex it’s up to you to decide whether you’ll obey your totalitarian rulers or help hide the crimes of those you’re supposed to turn in.
#5: Papers, Please (PC/Mac/Linux/PS Vita/iPad/iOS/Android)
Papers, Please - Trailer
The communist state of Arstotzka has finally ended its six-year-long war with neighboring country Kolechia and brought about a tense peace between the two nations as Arstotzka finally reclaims its rightful half of the border town Grestin.
In the year 1982, your name was drawn in Arstotzka’s October labor lottery and you are immediately reassigned by the Ministry of Admission to work as the new immigration inspector for the new border checkpoint between East and West Grestin.
It’s your job to inspect every identification document that is placed in front of you during your twelve-hour shift, meticulously inspecting every document for discrepancies of any kind before letting any hopeful entrant into the glorious country of Arstotzka.
In Papers, Please you aren’t a big action hero or a despicable villain of any kind, but just one lone man going to work every day in order to provide food, shelter, and comfort for your family in your class-8 apartment. You go to work every day, sit down in your inspection booth, and toil through the documents of dozens of entrants every day to see whether or not they should be allowed to enter your country.
The game starts out easy enough on the first day, with only Arstotzkan natives with the proper passports being allowed to cross the border, but as the days go on newer and more complex pieces are added to the puzzle. At first, foreigners can enter using entry tickets, but then the tickets are no longer valid and they’ll need a transit visa, and then a work visa on top of that, and then every Kolechian entrant needs to be inspected after a terrorist attack on the border, and even more troubles well beyond that which you’ll have to face with tact and a keen eye in order to keep you and your family afloat during the harsh winter.
Like any good dystopian story, Papers, Please offers the player a variety of options for how they might proceed across the wider story.
During your time as the inspector, you’ll encounter scenarios where you’ll have to decide between being loyal to the job or showing compassion for your fellow human beings, from deciding whether to detain a suspected murderer or to let him pass without trouble, or deciding whether to report a man when he accidentally gives both his real and a fake passport, and many other little choices that could impact your pay and job status. On top of the little decisions, you’ll also make decisions that will eventually lead to one of several endings.
Whether you remain a loyal bureaucrat to your country, join the mysterious group EZIC and become a secret anti-government agent, flee the country for snowier pastures, or get arrested and maybe even get killed, ultimately your fate relies entirely on what decisions you end up making.
Papers, Please has served as inspiration for many dystopian-centric games since it was released way back in 2013, with Beholder being just one example of this. Papers, Please celebrated its 10-year anniversary on August 8th this year, leading the solo developer Lucas Pope to release a series of merchandise, a new Game & Watch styled online mini-game titled LCD, Please, and he even donated $100,000 to support the International Rescue Committee.
As of its tenth anniversary, the game has sold over 5 million copies across all platforms and continues to live on with its legacy of being an award-winning example of video games as an art form, and is even considered to be among the greatest games of all-time.
Papers, Please is a great example of a video game with a simple concept on paper being far more complex than you might have ever guessed just from looking at it from the outside. If there’s any game on this list that I would recommend you buy as soon as you can, it would be Papers, Please.
It’s a brilliant take on a quiet dystopian premise that fully captures your attention and wraps you up in its world, as even though that world primarily takes place at one small border checkpoint, you still learn plenty about the state of the surrounding world through context clues and conversations had with the border entrants.
For fans of a more grounded dystopian setting, for just $9.99 Papers, Please is a game that’s well worth the cost of entry and will leave you playing it again and again.
After being assigned to your new job by the Ministry of Admission, it's up to you and you alone to inspect every individual document placed in front of you to ensure only those with valid papers can cross the border into your country. Don’t let us down, Inspector. Glory to Arstotzka.
#4: Bioshock: Infinite (PC/Mac/Linux/PS3/Xbox 360)
BioShock Infinite Beast of America Trailer
In the year 1912, a veteran of the U.S. Cavalry, a disgraced former member of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and now hired gun Booker DeWitt’s life is on the line after he became indebted to all the wrong people, and is left with one opportunity to wipe the slate clean.
To wipe away his debt, Booker must rescue Elizabeth, a mysterious girl imprisoned since childhood who supposedly possesses strange abilities.
But in order to rescue Elizabeth, Booker must leave the Earth below and travel to Columbia, a technological marvel of a city that somehow has the ability to fly above the clouds, where the ideals of American exceptionalism are practically law, mysterious substances called “Vigors'' give people amazing powers, and the entire city is threatened by civil war.
Will Booker be able to survive being hunted down in this city in the sky, or will his life of violence lead him to a sudden plummet back down to Earth?
Bioshock: Infinite takes the series from the undersea city of Rapture and brings it to new heights(literally) by placing players in the brand-new setting of Columbia, a city named after the female personification of the United States that was originally funded by the U.S. Government, then ultimately seceded from the U.S. and disappeared into the clouds.
Though Columbia is idealistically beautiful in appearance, the city’s founder and self-proclaimed prophet Zachary Hale Comstock has transformed the city into a theocratic police state, where the Founding Fathers are treated as religious figures and institutional racism and elitism run rampant across the city.
Booker quickly comes to learn that Columbia’s appearance only serves to mask the ugly truths of the city, as soon after arriving in the city he’s marked as a “False Shepard” who seeks to corrupt Elizabeth and overthrow the city, leading Booker to get involved in a number of violent shootouts across the Columbia in his quest to rescue the girl and wipe away his debt.
Like the previous Bioshock games, Infinite gives you a wide range of weapons to use against the series of strange and unusual enemies that you’ll be facing off against, whether those enemies be the local police forces of Columbia, the revolutionary members of the rebellious Vox Populi group, or any other number of robots, cyborgs and Vigor-powered lunatics.
But in Infinite you’ll have help when facing these threats, as not only can you fight back with a series of new guns and Vigor power-ups, but you’ll also have Elizabeth by your side, who has the ability to manipulate “Tears” in the fabric of space-time which exist in Columbia, and slightly less impressively, she can throw the player useful items like healing items and new guns when in the middle of combat.
Bioshock Infinite was released to critical acclaim from critics all around the board, with its visuals and interesting setting, the voice cast, the implementation of Elizabeth as an AI partner to player-controlled Booker, and generally everything else regarding the game save for its somewhat polarizing combat mechanics and at-times monotonous and repetitive gameplay aspects.
But even with those and other criticisms, Infinite still received plenty of awards, including the Best Visual Design award at the 2013 Golden Joystick Awards and the Action Game of the Year award at the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, along with dozens of additional nominations. On top of being a critical success, the game was also a success with the fans, as two years after Infinite’s 2013 release, the game surpassed 11 million total copies sold, a healthy addition to the Bioshock series’ overall 41 million copies sold as of 2022.
I’ve always been a big fan of the Bioshock series, and Bioshock: Infinite is no exception to that status. The unique and strange setting, the dark themes that are present in the game, and the overall story that’s told between Booker and Elizabeth is a highly enjoyable rollercoaster ride to be a part of.
Whether you choose to buy the game as a standalone copy or buy the two episodic story continuation DLCs about Elizabeth venturing down to Rapture, I can fully recommend that you give this 2013 hit a try if you haven’t already.
Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt. In Bioshock: Infinite, Booker DeWitt must rescue Elizabeth, a girl with strange time-space-altering abilities, from her imprisonment in the police state city in the sky Columbia.
#3: Road 96 (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S/Nintendo Switch)
ROAD 96 - Trailer Announce The Game Awards 2020
In the summer of 1996, the country of Petria is on the brink of collapse due to the oppressive authoritarian regime of President Tyrak, and with an election swiftly approaching things are only getting more tense in the country. The state of things in Petria has led to dozens of teenagers across the country deciding to leave their homes and flee for the country’s border.
In Road 96, there are thousands of roads to freedom and dozens of strange, sad, and maybe even beautiful encounters to be found when traveling along the highway. Will you be one of the lucky few who makes it to the end of this road and escapes Petria, or will the obstacles in your path lead you to fall just short?
Road 96 is a game about road trips, an oppressive government regime, and the people struggling to survive and escape this deceptively dangerous world they find themselves in. Each new game you play in Road 96 will have you assume the role of several different hitchhiking teens fleeing the country, whose stories can end in any number of ways depending on your decisions and actions, with each time you succeed or fail in crossing the country’s border putting you in control of a new teenager.
The story of each teen acts as a chapter for the game, and with each different teen you control you’ll find yourself taking an entirely different route to escape Petria, as each individual road trip in the game is procedurally generated, meaning that you’ll encounter several unique and explorable stops along your journey across the country, each of which ensuring that every new teenager will have their own unique adventure along the roads to freedom.
Just as important as the procedurally generated selection of places you may or may not stop at are the several key non-player characters that can be met along the way. Among the many characters you can meet, you might cross paths with Franny, a police officer who is more compassionate and willing to disobey orders if she feels it's the right thing to do unlike other cops, fourteen-year-old and self-proclaimed genius Alex who makes money by developing games, a masculine trucker named John with conflicting feelings about the anti-Tyrak rebellion group he’s a part of, and even Stan & Mitch, a pair of usually unsuccessful career criminal brothers robbing their way across the country with their motorcycle.
Each character you meet, depending on how your encounters go with them, has the potential not only to help you get closer to the border but also to give you a unique ability that could help you help yourself along the way.
Road 96 has seen generally high praise since its release, with most praise going to the setting and the musical score, and is ultimately an emotionally satisfying journey to go on.
Along with its praise also came some criticisms, such as how the experience of homelessness could have been expanded on, and how the game’s story somewhat forces you to pick the side of “the good politician” that is the rival candidate to Tyrak if you’re going for the “good ending” of the game, without really giving players a definitively neutral position to take.
But overall, the interactions that the player can have with the eight main side characters, the randomness of the places and encounters the Missing Teens can experience, and the immersive atmosphere of taking a road trip across a tyrannical country make Road 96, in my opinion, a great gaming experience.
So if an adventure-filled “road trip simulator” with a stunning visual style and a soundtrack filled with 90s hits sounds like the next big game for you, then go and check out Road 96 today.
No two road trips are the same in Road 96. Experience the journeys of several runaway teenagers fleeing from the authoritarian rule of their home country as they travel along thousands of procedurally generated routes to the country’s border. Will you escape to freedom, or be cut down just short of the finish line?
#2: Wolfenstein: The New Order (PC/PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One)
Wolfenstein: The New Order - Gameplay Trailer
Set in an alternate universe where Nazi Germany deployed highly advanced machines of war that allowed them to turn the tide and win World War II, the year is now 1960, and the Nazi forces have since taken over most of the world. In this world of shattered dreams and dwindling hopes, players enter the role of U.S. special forces operative B.J. Blazkowicz, whose previous mission left him severely injured after escaping from a human experimentation laboratory, and left him in a catatonic state which he finally wakes up from fourteen years later, after the psychiatric asylum he’s in is “shut down” by a death squad of Nazis.
After he finally wakes up and escapes from the Nazi death squad, Blazkowicz slowly begins to learn the truth of this new, terrible world he’s woken up in and vows to do everything in his power to set this right.
Nothing spells dystopia quite like the Nazi regime, right? In Wolfenstein: The New Order, players take control of “Terror Billy” B.J. Blazkowicz as he brings the fight back to the Nazi Empire.
The New Order is a first-person shooter where players control Blazkowicz as he battles against Nazi foes new and old, whether it’s using your melee weapon or a wide variety of firearms and explosives, to cut down streams of Nazi soldiers and the strange mechanical war machines developed with stolen technologies that helped them win the war in the first place.
The return of Blazkowicz begins to reinspire Allied survivors of the war into reforming resistance efforts against the regime, leading to bigger and badder enemies being fought and taken down with prejudice as the player journeys through each chapter of the game’s story, bringing down Nazi strongholds and making difficult choices surrounding the fate of his allies and loved ones along the way.
The New Order marks the ninth overall installment in the Wolfenstein series as well as being a soft reboot for the series and overall was seen as a very positive return to form for the series back during its 2014 release.
The Wolfenstein series laid the groundwork for the launch of the Doom series back with the release of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, whose engine served as the launch pad for what would ultimately become 1993’s Doom Engine, and as such players will notice that gameplay element in the overall incredibly satisfying combat mechanics in The New Order.
For any fan of action-adventure games with highly entertaining combat mechanics, or perhaps just fans of sticking it to the Nazi army, Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game that will leave you wanting more. So it’s a good thing the game got a sequel in 2017, isn’t it?
After waking up from a 14-year-long vegetative coma and learning that WW2 was won by the Nazis, special forces agent B.J. Blazkowicz vows to burn down this new Nazi Empire by any means necessary in Wolfenstein: The New Order.
From sorting papers, spying on neighbors, and blowing up Nazis, we’ve already got a pretty good selection of games about the thrillingly depressing lives of those living in dystopian worlds. But just wait, because we’ve got one last game to show you here in this post! And that game is…
#1: Dishonored (PC/PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One)
Dishonored - Debut Trailer
In the capital of the Empire of the Isles, the industrial city of Dunwall is a place where advanced steampunk-inspired technologies and otherworldly forces coexist in an intriguing fashion.
The city of Dunwall was once ruled justly, but following the assassination of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and the kidnapping of her daughter, Dunwall’s new government officials have become corrupt after their sudden rise to power following the death of their former rulers, and use their newfound strength to isolate themselves and the rich away from the plague that’s ravaging the lower-class citizens of the city.
Among the chaos of this crumbling city, you enter the role of Corvo Attano, the former bodyguard of the Empress, now known as her infamous assassin after being framed for her murder.
In Dishonored, Corvo must set out on a quest to clear his name and get revenge on those who have wronged him. How he goes about completing that quest, however, is up to you.
Dishonored is a first-person action-adventure game that focuses on improvisational and innovative assassination, leaving players to choose how they wish to proceed in the many missions they’ll be undertaking.
Using a combination of the strange weapons and gadgets developed by humanity, and the unearthly powers that Corvo is granted by a mysterious and amoral figure known as The Outsider, Corvo has the means either to stealthily sneak his way through any level they enter by hiding in the shadows and using such powers like the teleport ability, or he can take on every foe he encounters head-on with the weapons and abilities at his disposal, using the games flexible combat system to creatively dispatch your opponents.
This also ties into the game’s RPG elements, where not only can the player make certain moral choices throughout the game, but they can also complete the entire game without having to kill a single person if they so choose, leading to a few distinct variations to the game’s ending depending on who lives and who dies, and how much chaos Corvo causes throughout the game.
Dishonored received high praise for its memorable gameplay and unique world setting, being favorably compared to well-received 2000s games like Deus Ex and Thief, with Kotaku's Jason Schreier stating that the game blends "the do-what-you-want structure of Deus Ex with the masterful world design of BioShock as one such example of its praise.
Dishonored became the fourth best-selling game of October 2012, and a month later during the 2012 Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it became the number-one game on Steam, which currently stands with an Overwhelmingly Positive status with over 56,900 user reviews.
On top of earning praise from fans and critics alike, the game also earned the Best Action Adventure Game award at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards, the Best Game award at the 2013 BAFTA Game Awards, and the Audience Choice award at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Interactive Achievement Awards, along with dozens of nominations.
Ultimately, Dishonored’s strange blend of technological achievement and mischievous otherworld abilities with the backdrop setting of a plague-ridden city ruled by corrupt murderers makes for one of the most visually engaging and interesting worlds of early 2010s gaming, and that’s not even mentioning the entertaining take on the stealth-action gameplay blend.
The closest comparison I can make off the top of my head to Dishonored is perhaps Batman: Arkham Asylum, only instead of Batman you play as an assassin on a quest for revenge with swords and otherworldly powers, so the comparison isn’t exactly perfect. But the overall vibe is the same, where you find yourself trapped in a grim and tired world struggling for survival, and it's you against the world as you try to unravel the mysteries around you as you seek to complete your mission.
So at #1 on our list, for any fan of stealth games, action games, or both blended together, you should definitely give Dishonored a playthrough if you get the chance.
After the Empress is murdered and the blame is pinned on you, set out on a quest of quiet, bloody revenge in order to clear your name in Dishonored.
Conclusion
Whether it's right in your face or it’s subtle and quiet, there’s a wide range of interesting stories about dystopian worlds and the turmoil of those poor souls trapped within them available out there, and we’ve only given but a small taste of what’s available, even in a list of ten whole games. But what a group of games they are, whether it’s cities in the clouds or cities blinded by hallucinogenic happiness, I think that we’ve given a pretty great spotlight to the dystopian genre.
But what do you think? Are you happy with the list, or is there a game you wish you saw on here that got left out? If you’ve got some thoughts on the list, or just simply want to talk about it a bit more, please feel free to share what’s on your mind in the comments! Otherwise, I’ll leave you all with the great selection of games that we’ve already talked about here today.
