What is the best apocalypse game on your PC? There is something at the end of the world that probably sounds more appealing than it should be. There is no law or order, and no apparent outcomes transform the world into a wild party. If Anarchy isn’t your tea, you can explore the new frontiers that are chaotic and delve into the bombed ruins of civilizations that have been wiped out for consumables. In any case, we cleaned up a mountain of apocalypse games to find the best games.
Whether it’s a zombie apocalypse, a robotic uprising or a nuclear fallout, post-apocalypse ripens for narrative experimentation in all forms of media. And the best PC games can make the most of your settings by deciding what kind you want to be. Will it bring justice? Domination? Salvation? Either way, this list of best apocalypse games offers everything from horror games and heartaches to sandbox games and tactical combat.
Here are the best apocalypse games on PC in 2025:
1000xResist
Visitors to Sunset, an independent Asian Canadian developer, plunged into the scene in 2024 with one of the best story games they’ve seen in years. 1000xResist is an apocalyptic storytelling wonder. It is when we are the millennium after the end of the world, and we are caught up in a clone society dedicated to the worship and slavery of their patriarchal gods. All Mother is the last hope, a war in war with foreign residents who have sent plagues all over the world.
But it’s not all like it looks. As a watcher of the main character, you reveal a plot that threatens to dismantle everything you and your sisters cherish. Nat’s 1000xResist preview delves into some of the main themes: “identity, intergenerational trauma, motherhood, sisterhood, religion, and even language.” As the forefront of the list of 2024 PC games lists, 1000xResist reminds us that apocalypse doesn’t always have to be zombies, wars, or radiation. Sometimes, the apocalypse can be the rage of a teenage girl.
Our Last
A post-apocalypse filled with mankind, and its lack. Society hasn’t completely broken down, but if you’ve seen a hit TV show, you’ll be allowed to think it has. The infections adjacent to the mushrooms are devastating, turning people into completely bloodthirsty monsters, and therefore the remaining pockets of society are ruthless and paranoid. Like many games of its kind, our Last Apocalypse setting is just that. It is the background that promotes the true story of family, love and loss. It’s worth the time just to know what Ellie and Joel will be going on on TV shows before they air.
day to day
While there are certainly some missteps that have passed by unforgettable days, whimsical dialogue is the worst in the lot, Bend Studio’s open world action adventure game successfully captures the sense of despair in a post-apocalyptic world. Stepping into Butler St. John’s shoes, he is a blessed American hunter with his motorcycle and some non-weapon equipment.
You may remember that the original release date in 2019 was repeated and the reviews were interrupted, but the developers tried to deal with some of the major grips before bringing the game to PC in 2021. Read our daily reviews to see why we awarded this game an outstanding score of 8/10.
Horizon Forbidden West
While the qualifications for the Horizon series apocalypse may not be immediately clear, this is the most creative human being. Horizon is an accessible open world adventure game in which Aloy, Aloy (hopefully) plays her role in overcoming her mysterious and humble beginnings and saving the world from another miserable end.
It looks great, plays very well, and you’ll spend hours just as you greedily explore the huge maps as we did. Ah, did we mention the robotic dinosaur? Did we not do? So you should probably ride it. If you want to know more, check out Horizon Forbidden West Review.
Days
Originally an ARMA mod, Dayz is an open world survival game that throws you into a world decimated by the zombie apocalypse. It’s brutal, slow paced and absolutely engaging. Even the simplest survival tool that brings food and water to its premium must be rubbed. Not to mention the horde of zombies who want to tear their limbs from their limbs.
If those odds don’t sound too loud, then every map also has a human condition. Melee chat allows you to create friendships, temporary alliances, and deadly enemies. Despite being 10 years old, Dayz recently hit a steam record of nearly 70,000 users. Therefore, it is more popular than ever and solidifies its position as one of the best zombie games ever.
Fallout series
Despite its retro futuristic world and artistic style, the Fallout series has done a lot to shape our collective ideas about what a post-apocalyptic America would look like. The original isometric game offers enchanting adventures, hybrid turn-based/real-time combat, and endless role-play opportunities thanks to the VATS mechanic, but is visually dated to everyone except perhaps the most dedicated fans. But they contain a lot of lore and are worth exploring in both the town and many vaults and tech vaults. You will also meet many memorable characters, including those who will appear in later games.
Jumping to 3D (and forwarding to Bethesda’s GameBryo engine) will bring the spotlight to Fallout’s aesthetics and world. From Pipboys and Power Armors to insidious vaults – TEC Corporation, which conducts social experiments in hundreds of shelters, Bethesda Softworks has taken the world of those isometric RPG games, saving imagination, details and personality.
The main storyline of the Bethesda game is rarely a highlight. Instead, it’s a be-thing of strange and wonderful side quests that keep you hooked, giving you more details about the world or making tough choices, so you’re always feeling the tragedy and tragedy of the Savior and the Wasteland. While it’s hard to truly separate many fallout games, our personal pick is Fallout 4 Fort, if you want to mess with New Vegas if you want the best Fallout 4 mod or Fallout: the best overall experience in the modding community.
Wasteland 3
In the old days when the aforementioned isometric fallout title became the de facto spiritual successor, the Wasteland franchise feels like a fallout game that many fans thought would never come after Bethesda took on the stewardship of the series.
Fallout embraces first-person 3D design entirely, but Inxile’s unique modernization retains a top-down view, and the series sticks to its roots based on a turn-based strategy game. Wasteland 3 is the latest entry, offering enchanting battles set with crazy characters, deep RPG systems, and unhinged apocalypse. If you want to know more about why I think this is the best in the series, check out our Wasteland 3 review.
Turn-based combat with potentially game-changing consequences can make the wasteland a tough challenge for someone new to the genre, but by inheriting much of its core DNA from its ancestors, Wasteland 3 provides a densely detailed environment filled with life stories before the bombs fall.
Mad Max
Movie-based games are rarely good, let alone good, and Mad Max wasn’t the material for “Game of the Year” in 2015 (when it had the misfortune of launching it with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain), but it won a cult over the years thanks to its epic scene, Combat, white knuckle car.
Despite being released in the same year, the game does not follow the plot line of Fury Road. Instead, Mad Max completes the player with an activity template for Ubisoft Open-World Games, from unlocking the previous post base to hunting bounty targets. What makes that difference is in the vehicle combat that forms an incredibly large component of the entire game.
Max’s vehicle upgrades – Magnum Opus – is paramount to success. Many battles revolve around firing out the vehicle and ripping components from the enemy vehicle. This car is an RPG system in itself, with each customization option offering both positive and negative characteristics. This makes the upgrade tree feel like a seesaw of minimal choices and difficult choices. Walking around the vast, sandy wastelands of Mad Max in your carefully modified murder wagon is all about the apocalypse game.
They are billions
Set in a post-steampunk apocalypse, they are accused of billions of people being strategic colony sims and defending the last traces of humanity against infected horde that grows bigger every day. Start with a few units defending the farming front post base and quickly establish a walled city with elaborate outer defenses that run through as many traps and turrets as possible.
Enter only one person infected in your city. If you do that, you will be terrified to see the reconciliation change in seconds. If you’re looking for a strategy game with a serious sense of fear, then they are billions for you.
Anger 2
Do you remember the original anger? Many feel that the game offers some great visuals, but is not explained in all other aspects. ID Software felt that the series could partner with Just Developer Avalanche Studios and provide a very different apocalypse FPS game for the sequel. For one thing, the world of Rage 2 is packed with a punk rock vibe. There is the fact that spicy hairstyles are just as common as machine guns and gain mutant bashing superpowers.
The open world of Rage 2 may not feature as many side quests and distractions as in the Fallout game, but blowing enemies off the cliff with a “force push” move or blowing groups of dirt into the dirt with ground pounds in the air is what makes up for it. Thanks to the silky smooth movements and gunplay of ID software, Rage 2 plays like a finely tuned FPS game like Doom, rather than RPGs and Open-World games have the rights to do.
Metro Exodus
The latest Russian dome suede sim in 4A games, Metro Exodus, is not a game for the faint of heart. The world has been abandoned following nuclear war, and survivors have been driven underground by radiation – not to mention the annoying mutants of some mutants roaming the earth.
In the Exodus of the Metro, you and the band of survivors leave the claustrophobic corridors and the honorable metropolitan tunnels for an expedition to cross the metropolitan in search of a better life. The post-apocalyptic Moscow grey cold architecture replaces a large open area with patches of lush countryside, in contrast to the dark, dead underground of the series’ previous games. Siberian adventures at the end of your world will look at your ragtag bands of hopeful survivors, turn your old steam locomotive into a mobile base, stopping to clean up the supply and fuel of your journey.
The Metro Exodus genius is a way to know when players can experience an open environment and when to bring back when they offer challenging and diverse combat scenarios. Thanks to Dmitry Glukhovsky’s unforgettable metropolitan novel, the world of Exodus is always rich and detailed and unstable and realistic.
Overland
Overland is probably more so than any other apocalypse – a useless exercise. As you travel across the minimalist landscape, you will be witnessed the fear that remains in your subconscious, long after you leave your desktop.
The illuminated beast does the same as you are looking for supplies. Can we save new party members? How much does it cost to do that? What happens if that new companion is an adorable dog? Overland does not have a guarantee. It’s also a better game.
Every decision feels like it’s being made at the edge of the knife, and it’s a very nice border between success and failure.
Nier: Automatic
The invaders of the intergalactic machine are certainly a new take on apocalyptic setting (at least in the game), and Nier: Automata throws it first into the insanity of its story setup. The main character 2B is a combat android, sent to wipe out the threat of the machine, as humanity licks the moon.
The battles are stylish and deep, but the game shifts genres from third-person action to “shmup” and platformers. That diversity also applies to its ending. The ending has 26 variations incredible.
All this goes without saying that the synths intertwined with mechanical percussion and classic themes to form one of the biggest musical video game accompaniments of the past decade. After all, all the best apocalypse have their own memorable soundtrack.
Stalker 2
After 10 years of dormancy, Stalker, the hit survival series from GSC Game World, has returned to the forefront. Stalker 2 is the groundbreaking achievement of a disastrous apocalyptic video game, even if it’s not released at the smoothest. The calm version of the Cornoville, destroyed by the second nuclear incident, drips down in the atmosphere, with the combination of radioactive beasts and limited supplies straining every encounter.
The outcome of the incident is a city full of monsters called anomalies, and many enter a dangerous area known as zones to search for items or artifacts that award users special traits. A great survival horror, Stalker 2 is tense, frightening, and totally amazing. In PK’s 8/10 Stalker 2 review, he calls it “a very rewarding and punishing survival FPS for those who spend time on being comfortable on the playground.”
Survive the aftermath
Task you by managing small colonies of survivors who survive the aftermath and endure the apocalypse you selected in creating the game in the city building game. You start with a shy tent town, but when you try to harvest resources and revive technology, you can create a new heaven for your citizens.
What sets you to survive in the aftermath apart from similar city builders is that you can unlock access to world maps where you need to explore and hunt rarer resources. You can also contact other survivor enclaves and Raiders looting bands who need to be defeated to keep people safe.
It should be enough game to keep you busy until the end of the world, but if you need more and you like challenges that include decision making and control, why not take a look at some of the best management games? And since money means nothing at the end of the world, be prepared for that post-apocalypse and cleaning with our overall best free PC game.
