Caps or cartridges? – Post-apocalypse in the games of the East and West

Post-apo games are one of the branches of the fantasy genre. Some of them differ significantly from each other and are signed with the same signboard. Where do these differences come from? What are they about? Why is this related to the past of the world? Let’s find out!

The East and West of Europe perceive the post-apocalypse actually as much or much as the rest of the products, especially other cultural works. In the segments of the market (not only the entertainment market) it was believed and still believed that in terms of quality, the East is worse, the West is better. There is evidence of this, such as cars, electronics, groceries, and cinematography. The original ideas, plans and solutions that arose in the West, the East most often tried to ineptly copy it, because it was not able to match it qualitatively. Thus, the conflict between Fanta and Mirinda took place in the 1970s.

This, of course, stems from the cultural, political and ideological differences that had their roots at the end of the Second World War. It was then that the continent was divided by the Iron Curtain into a socialist East and a capitalist West. Communism in the countries belonging to the Soviet Union did not work, despite great ideas. Politics and management meant that the system produced poor quality products, and it was economically incapable of catching up with the inventions of capitalism.

These differences are evident at every step in today’s world. They can be seen in the plans and construction of cities. The Internet is teeming with memes, where post-Soviet towns are depicted as gray, gray blocks of flats, muddy, dilapidated streets. Poverty, neglect and depression are everywhere. Meanwhile, Western cities present the opposite side. Likewise, we can share the vast majority of livelihoods on both sides of Europe. The East has not yet reached the level of the West in terms of economy, wages, or people’s living standards.

This is also how post-apocalyptic computer games look like. On the one hand, we have a colorful, quite friendly Fallout or Rage, and on the other, a dark Metro or foggy STALKER . It can be assumed that the differences between these productions result from the above sources, shaped over a half-century, and this is the end of the argument. But wait! After all, there are still the first two parts of Fallout . Dark, warped, and terrifying in places, it was produced just on the west side of the Berlin Wall. The exception to the rule is there more?

To get a better look at the topic, let’s start from the very beginning. The post-apocalypse is a vision of events, the possibilities of how life will turn out (or not) after the apocalypse. The end of the world or the extinction of humans could be caused by nuclear war, plagues, or something else that would render the Earth unfit for functioning. The latter is a feature common to all subspecies of the post-apocalypse. Life becomes very difficult, almost impossible. The most basic goods and resources, such as water, food, appropriate clothes and weapons, receive the highest value. The post-apocalyptic world carries with it much more threats than before in the form of mutants, monsters or another human being fighting for survival.

Different types of post- apo determine different survival motives for those who are still alive. People with all their strength cling to this already miserable life like drowning razors. Extreme experiences push them to do things that they would not normally be able to do. They often try to repair the destroyed world around them, in order to return to normal at least in part. However, this is not always possible.

Knowing what the post-apocalypse assumption is based on, you can look at the differences and similarities between its subspecies. What is particularly striking is the presentation of computer games from Eastern and Western Europe. These productions seem to be about the same thing, here and here it is about post- apo . It is presented slightly differently in each of the blocks. You can see echoes of the post-war past here. Games, like the entire entertainment segment in the West, are mostly prepared in a slightly infantile way. The graphics are rich in color, just like in Fallout 76 . Anyway, this entire series is given to recipients in a very contractual manner. It shows a rather joyful, even naive version of the post-apocalypse. This can be seen, for example, in the logo or the symbolism of a boy dressed in blue. Gameplayit doesn’t look like it’s about to scare you. It does not bring you into a melancholy mood, adding to your anxiety. After all, we have a mini-ring launcher in our pocket. In addition, the colors are friendly, it just looks nice. Controlling the character, we travel through the United States, a land better organized and governed than the territory of the former Soviet Union. Leading a fairly quiet journey, we pay with caps in the Super-Duper-Market, because they are the highest value, means of payment. Just caps. Probably only out of sentiment to the old days.

The same is true in Rage . Here, the emphasis is more on shooting than the post- apo premise itself . The creators are Doom and Quake veterans . The production focuses on typical American heroism, because the main character is, of course, the chosen one. Despite the fact that the events take place after an asteroid hits Earth, the game, unfortunately, has almost no plot. The differences with Fallout end here. The Rage is also colorful as postapo, we have a lot of flavors and decorations. Zero monotony of areas with the stigma of events ending the world we know. The game is basically just driving the car on the map and shooting in linear locations. Considering the shell, you have to give her back that the guns were constructed like a weapon made from the rubbish left over from the apocalypse. But this is not its main asset. It is only a secondary or even a third element serving as a background. There is also no open world, which makes the area impossible to see from a greater distance. Everything is done very simply, lightly and quite nicely. We will not experience a depressive climate, dark and dark nooks and crannies. And no enemy should scare you, because our character functions like John Rambo. He is able to deal with any opponent with a smile on his face.

Many of the above-mentioned elements can also be found in Days Gone . Also post-apocalypse, also in the United States. These, however, are not completely destroyed and looted. They are not washed out of colors, nature does not control them. The player, in unfavorable conditions, still visits green forests. Buildings still standing, most of which can still be a safe haven. In the production, we lead a rather nonchalant hero, who, dressed in a motorcycle denim vest, travels the United States with the help of a vehicle, being confident in himself and his abilities.

In opposition to those mentioned above, there are post- apo games produced in the eastern part of Europe. In the productions of the STALKER , Metro or native Frostpunk series, things are completely different. In the first one we have a “local” post-apocalypse, because the events are concentrated in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. subwaythis is already a full-blown nuclear war. Both here and here, the world devoid of an explosion of colors is characterized by the ubiquitous gray. It is monotonous, overwhelming and distorted, and full of anomalies. The player explores dark, depressive corridors, faded forests, which are often afraid to venture at all. Especially at night, even in-game, let alone in reality. The climate is exacerbated by the fact, especially at higher levels of difficulty, that we have weapons or personal protective equipment at our disposal as medicine. In addition, even when we are well-equipped, our chances increase only slightly, which the game strongly and acutely reminds of. Additionally, these titles are quite difficult. Their mechanics make the player feel stressed by their actions, because the navigation in interfaces and the shooting model in STALKERdo not make the game easier. Everything takes place in extremely hostile terrain, you have to pay for everything in cash, gained in the sweat of your brow, risking your life at every step. In Metro , we pay with what we have the most valuable. What gives a sense of relative security – rifle cartridges.

In both titles, getting money is motivated only by the desire to get rich. There is no sense of saving the world or even square kilometers of land here. In Frostpunkit is even a procrastination. Quests are similar. Needless to say, they are extremely dangerous for the heroes. They are often associated with the death of comrades, hopeless attempts to save the imprisoned, and searching for long-lost ones. In such environments, people show their true faces. Friends shoot in the back, allies turn into enemies, and quest givers fail to fulfill their part of the contract. The events are located in inaccessible forests, abandoned places, where we find souvenirs of a lost life. Destroyed, or worse, inhabited buildings only give an idea of ​​what forces had to act to turn the bustling centers into dark and cold graves.
The atmosphere of these games is also very influential. They are very suspicious, especially when dealing with strangers. He will insult himself, vulgar, looking everywhere only for a way to get higher than others, even at the expense of the highest values. The law of the stronger. No more and no less.

All this makes the games of the East more believable. Considering how the end of the world events could take place in the real world, a scenario from Metro or STALKER is more likely . We are already dealing with such experiences today, and the apocalypse has not happened at all. People push their elbows and knees over the corpses and pursue their own goals and green rivers. Just like in games, you are looking for people who can be trusted without fear. This is the reality of today’s world, especially in its less prosperous countries, that is, those in Eastern Europe, where the Soviet Union used to be. Themes in post- apo gamesthey did not come out of nowhere from the East. The post-apocalypse in these areas, just as the reality is darker, more depressive, hopeless and definitely more brutal.

It’s hard to say which post- apo productions are on the market. They constitute a niche of the genre. A thesis can be put forward at this point that the games developed in the West are more popular there than those from the Eastern school and, by analogy, on the East side. This is because the players there are looking for and want something they know, are familiar to them, and that they can relate to. In other words, they expect the game to be believable to them. The West has a different mentality, and so it views the post-apocalypse differently. That is why such titles as Fallout , Rage or Days Gone meet there with a great reception. The first two can also be targeted at younger players. The same cannot be said for post- apo gamesemerging in Eastern Europe. Their vision of the end of the world is completely different, thanks to which recipients from Poland or countries created after the collapse of the Soviet Union find there their own ideas of what the consequences of a nuclear war might look like. These are people who used to live in constant fear under the yoke of unpredictable dictators who did not care about the fate of individual individuals. Therefore, productions created there are devoid of a wide range of colors, more subdued, more brutal and bloody, giving no hope for a better tomorrow. Therefore, these games are aimed mainly at an adult audience, which means that they satisfy a smaller part of them, which may result in a lower number of games on the market.

The halo of the player’s place of residence is not everything. It is also important that the studios responsible for post- apo games are located in a given area, powered by local developers. Employees have their own ideas based on their mentality and worldview, which in turn are determined by the past and location. As a result, these people know very well what they want to create, what they have to convey and how to do it, so that the production is credible to similar recipients and meets their tastes.

It all boils down to how the given nations approach the subject of the post-apocalypse as such. What are the ideas and expectations of it? Knowing these facts, the developers create games that meet more or less expectations. That’s why we have such a diversity of productions between postapo East and West. The expectations of players and visions of the end of the known world are determined by universal history and its impact on people, which brings with it the formation of their mentality over the course of decades. Starting from the end of World War II, through the threat of nuclear war in later years, until almost today. All this taken together shapes the specificity of understanding the post-apocalypse, which is reflected in post- apo games .

The situation is similar in other works of culture, such as in films. We have Stalker Tarkowski on one side and 12 Gilliam monkeys on the other . The productions are supposed to be about the same, but the sense is presented in a completely different way, characteristic for a given area and nation. Similarly, in music, pink synthwave falls out as the whole candy of the 1980s and the depressive sovietwave as a never- fulfilled , Soviet dream.

Returning, however, to the game background, it is still necessary to return to the above-mentioned two first parts of Fallout . The fact is that they could very well be built on the eastern side of the Old Continent. They exhibit the features of an Eastern school, but were nevertheless established in the West. For some, it may be an exception that proves the rule, such as the Dutch Horizon Zero Dawn . For others, it may imply that the Western school has simply evolved, as has changed the worldview of the inhabitants who were not completely harassed by communist and post-communist propaganda.

It is impossible not to mention the considered one of the best post- apo games , The Last of Us . This work seems to be in the middle of this juxtaposition. The plot of TLoU is set in the USA. In the USA, even in green places, although this green or quite unspoilt cities do not give even a shadow of a chance for a shelter. The world depicted may not look like it, but it is marrow-broken. Just like in the Chernobyl zone, danger lurks at every turn, not only in the form of mutants or wild flora and fauna. As in the Metro , the second person is the greatest threat here. The two main characters are put in a hopeless situation, in a tightening trap. As in Frostpunkno chance of getting out of trouble. The characters are dry, embittered and do not avoid profanity. They try to survive, suffocating in poisonous vapors, like fish taken out of water, gasping for breath. The gameplay is full of violence. Brutal and ruthlessly treating lonely protagonists, precisely finding and hitting their weak points. Everything feels warped and dirty with no way out.

It can therefore be assumed that the division into games of East and West is a boundary marker, but only in most cases. There are productions that combine the features of the post-apocalypse created by the East and the West, but there are relatively few of them. And this whole discussion shows where the assumptions of both schools came from, how they were implemented and why and, most importantly, what they differ today and what can be expected of them.

Which postapo is closer to you? Show off in the comments!