A new trend?

As I watched the press conferences at E3, I noticed something that set two of the games apart from the rest. As they were easily two of the most anticipated games, I began to wonder if they may become trendsetters. I'm talking about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Another possible example is ReCore, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Both games represent a shift in what types of games are the most anticipated. For years, first person shooters have been the games garnering all the attention at press conferences, and rightly so. With soaring budgets poured into the latest graphics technology, shooters have been quite impressive with each iteration. I seem to remember a time when the most anticipated games were third person action/adventures (I'm being generous and adding stealth and shooters to this genre), such as Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto 3, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I was curious if we are beginning to see the pendulum swing back in the direction of action/adventure from traditional shooters? Perhaps, and I may be completely wrong on that. But there was something else I noticed which I was hoping the community at Giant Bomb could help me with.

At last year's E3 (2015), many of the game critics related how they were at a private demonstration for Horizon: Zero Dawn in which the development team described the setting as the post-post-apocalypse. The game takes place in a time far removed from the technological crescendo and subsequent collapse of a society in our future. The inhabitants of the world lead what appear to be relatively primitive lifestyles, compared to our current standards, and yet they have pieces of technology that are beyond our current abilities. The setting melds sword and sorcery with sci-fi, possibly without the sorcery aspect. The main character, and presumably others, struggle to survive in a world in which they are competing against animalistic robots far in advance of our current technology, while simultaneously using weapons and tools that, like the animal robots, are the last remnants of a long dead world, a cresting wave that left a high water mark for society for barely anyone to see or understand centuries or perhaps millennia later.

The overwhelming consensus after E3 was that Nintendo blew everyone away with their upcoming game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This game also shows elements of this post-post-apocalyptic vision for its setting. In the opening sequence, Link awakens in what appears to be some sort of chamber designed to keep him in stasis or suspended animation for untold amounts of time. As he emerges, he finds himself leaving a cave that had glowing glyphs and angular architecture, implying design from an advanced intelligence, human, elf, or otherwise. As he traverses the great plateau, he passes by hulking octopus-like robots, but they have lost the battle against time, they are now rusted, inanimate, and have moss and vines growing over them. We see later in the demo as well as in a previous E3 trailer that link will have to face these robotic enemies at some point. These robots are replete with similar glowing glyphs as to the ones seen in the cave in the beginning. I like the idea of seeing a world that is low fantasy in nature but is in fact taking place in an arguably science fiction setting, the idea that the world will inevitably revert back to a medieval state after the great collapse.

While both games settings intrigued me, I began to wonder: Are there other games that take place in the post-post-apocalypse?

Sure, we have seen games like Fallout, Metro, Wasteland and Mad Max, but these games seem to take place in a time that is still close enough to the event so that characters still generally use the technology of the previous era such as guns, cars, etc.

In Horizon and Zelda, it seems like the advanced technology that remains from the lost age are not only rare but almost magical in their abilities, reminiscent of magical items in traditional role playing games.

So will we see other publishers start to develop more games in the nascent post-post-apocalypse genre? And are there other games that already exist in similar settings?

JRPGs have done every setting imaginable, so I would not be surprised if they have already done it a hundred times, but are there other genres that have? Action/Adventure games perhaps?

ReCore could fall into the PPA (post-post-apocalypse) genre, but I feel like the main character uses items almost exclusively from the current or prior period. It seems less Horizon and more Mad Max if you know what I mean.

I can't think of other games in this (new?) genre, can anyone else?

Uhmm what overwhelming consensus are you talking about exactly? From what I can see this years E3 was incredibly divisive. Among my friends the most exciting games are Titanfall 2 and For Honor. Zelda could be summarized as "well they Skyrimified Zelda, that could be cool".

As for your question, I think it's way to naive to think this could be some kind of trend. This "post-post apocalyptic" setting is nothing else than regular post apocalypse with some pretty vegetation.

I disagree with your premise and your methods. People don't care about zelda's setting and even if they were two games don't make a trend.

I didn't say it was a trend. I was asking if you see it becoming a trend.

I disagree with the assumption that is just pretty vegetation added to a standard genre. For the most part, post-apocalyptic games feature guns, gears, and gasoline.

The point being that it replaces magic with advanced technology.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke

Are there any examples?

Wasteland 2 has sections were its pretty much Horizon with fewer robots and less dreadlocks, I'm assuming the original Wasteland was the same, 25-30 years ago. Enslaved is literally your "post-post" setting. That's just of the top of my head. Also, a setting is not enough for a game genre. You could put all kinds of genres in a post-post-post-post-adnauseam setting. Wasteland is a tactical RPG, Enslaved is an action adventure. Change the camera perspective and you'll have an FPS.

I'll check out Enslaved. Thank you.

Still not sure why everyone was so hostile with me for asking a question. If you disagree with the premise, that is fine. However, I've seen far worse threads than this treated with far more respect.

Didn't mean to be mean. Text, hard to convey emotion and all that jazz.

Instead of immediately dumping on OP, why don't we try and have a bit of a discussion? It was never said to be a trend, they were just making an observation.

It's possible that we could see this idea of a post-post-apocalypse become a trend, and it's certainly one I'd be interested in. The Fallout 2 and New Vegas explored that idea quite a bit, as those games were all about society rebuilding itself and humanity learning to cope with what had happened.

I'd also like to think that, with the horsepower of the new consoles and the new iterative nature of them, that devs could really make some crazy and imaginative settings. Horizon: Zero Dawn really stands out in terms of creature design in a way that normal human enemies or monsters just really don't.

The distinction I was trying to make between the post-apocalypse and the post-post-apocalypse was the idea of technological and societal regression. And while the term may be off putting, please remember that I did not invent the term post-post-apocalypse, Guerrilla Games did.

My mistake was failing to attempt to clearly define what I perceive to be the differences in these settings. I feel that the traditional post-apocalypse trope seems to revolve around time periods that may be distant from the cataclysmic event, but much of the previous world is retained. Whether the setting is virtually modern such as The Last of Us, or set hundreds of years after the event like in some of the Fallout games, characters continue to utilize many of the tools, weapons, infrastructure, occupations, and social structure of the pre-apocalyptic world. We see characters using guns, driving vehicles, occupying hotels, repurposing baseball stadiums, running casinos, and organizing into cities and towns. Some games still have abundant electricity and laser weapons, while going so far as to having doctors, plastic surgeons, and bartenders, beyond the usual vestigial military and resistance factions. I know I'm referring to Fallout heavily, but the Mad Max universe serves this analogy as well. To me, if we can discriminate between a post-apocalypse and a post-post-apocalypse, it is not determined by the amount of time from the initial catastrophic event, but rather how far society has fallen.

The main traits I would point to in identifying a post-post-apocalypse would be the loss of nearly all modern comforts. No more electricity, vehicles, guns, well organized social structures or large towns are readily available or even hinted at. While the Great Khans and Caesar's Legion tried to mold their societies in the veins of Mongolian Khanates and Roman Legions respectively in Fallout: New Vegas, they still inhabited a world with plenty of amenities that they either rejected or coveted for one reason or another. By contrast, the social structure in Horizon: Zero Dawn has seemed to have reverted past feudalistic fiefdoms all the way back to hunter/gatherer culture. Additionally, guns, vehicles and the like seem wholly unavailable. And yet the aspect that intrigues me most is the idea that anachronistic, advanced technology takes the place of what normally would be spells and magical weapons in a low fantasy setting, essentially grounding the narrative in a more cohesive manner. The heroine of Horizon is using rare technology to survive that she may not truly comprehend how it originally worked or its intended purpose. Furthermore, in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Link uses an arrow that has powerful properties but is clearly energized by technology rather than the incantation-like blessing of Princess Zelda. In this way, I feel that we can begin to identify the subtle differences in setting based on how drastically removed the characters are from The Great Fall.

This leads me to believe there are still more examples of said setting we have yet to identify in this thread.

[tl;dr] Post-apocalypse: Survivors use guns to endure a harsh environment.

post-post-apocalypse=Caveman finds a lightsaber.

To be fair, none of the games you mentioned were in the common eye all that much and definitely not as popular/gaining as much attention as Horizon or the new direction in Zelda, so you're just stepping around the argument.

I think OP has made a valid observation. I just don't think the conclusion is entirely accurate. I think games are still expanding, both the possibilities and creativity of developers and the userbase themselves. I do not necessarily think shooters are becoming less popular, but I do think other genre's are becoming more popular (more wanted in the general public's eye) than before. There is just more choice of amazing games than there was before. The best games of the show that keep popping up are indeed Zelda and Horizon, but I also see a fair amount of Titanfall 2 and Call of Duty. The latest hype game is Overwatch, also a shooter.

To say that games with survival elements are not rising in popularity though, is absurd. Fallout New Vegas was about as close to a survival game we had a few years back. Now almost every game is trying to offer you a survival experience, if not in the main campaign then sold separately through DLC or woven into the base game.

I don't think there is a pendulum swing anywhere though. There's just more stuff bolted onto games and more and more different types of games are being made. Almost no one is chasing Call of Duty anymore, because you don't have to.

It's going to be a trend, and I share your appreciation of games quickly attuning themselves with contemporary culture.

Surprised at how hostile those first few comments seem, I think that's a really interesting observation. Didn't ever think about how much less we see shooters in press conferences, RPGs do get a lot more focus now than they did around beginning of 360/PS3 generation.

I think what we're seeing with the games listed is a shift in creative focus from the degradation of our current world as a setting. Stuff like Mad Max, Metro, Fallout, (and in film) I Am Legend, Children of Men and basically every zombie movie creates it's fiction by basically saying "look how scary things are when what we have is being lost." And that's great.

I think what we're seeing with an increasing amount of new properties is a slightly more forward thinking of "Well, what comes after that which we know is gone?" Which is pretty exciting to me. It also allows game makers to make new versions of 'Fantasy' worlds without calling them 'Fantasy'. The term has so much cultural baggage and is so fuckin' typecast I'm happy for anything that lets me not have to ignore another Dragon Age game.** Something like Horizon: Zero Dawn might as well be fantasy, but with they premise they have it avoids the negatives of being categorized as a 'Fantasy' game while reaping all the benefits of having creative freedom. And just looking fun!

So I think 'trend' is a bad word for it, I don't disagree. Culture in game development has finally moved away from the 'dark and gritty realism' that dominated the last 10 - 15 years and we're seeing now takes on familiar concepts. Which I'm super happy about.

**I have nothing against Dragon Age. I just find 'Standard Fantasy' universes really boring now-a-days

Post-apocalypse is super boring, but I do find the post-post-apocalypse to be pretty cool! Even though both those genres make no sense.

Two games that come to mind are NieR and Enslaved. Both games take place way in the future and have lots of good ruins overgrown with nature. I will say if you're interested in games that are technologically regressed, that is basically most of the Final Fantasy series and many other JRPGs. They love having "ancient" technology like guns and airships and the like showing up.

EDIT: Man, yeah, lots of JRPGs do this. The more I think about them the more common the occurrence seems to be.

I'm not sure if there is a trend but I don't mind seeing more games that deal with the idea of nature reclaiming our fallen cities and what stories they can tell.

Not a game, but I just read a series of books that if I told you they were post-post-apocalypse would be a huge spoiler, so...

Good books. I recommend them heartily.

Hint: the author wrote a science fiction trilogy first. You only find out closer to the end of his fantasy trilogy that it's the far-flung future of that sci-fi trilogy.

Look Link can climb!Look Link can cook, set traps, and start fires!

Yeah, he climbs as roughly, with less hand and foot placement accuarcy than Ico from 2001. In the mean time Assassin's Creed, Uncharted and Lara Croft all do their animations better and make teh character look like they are actually climbing.

Yup, Monster hunter does that...in fact lets cut to the chase - the so-called new Zelda look more like a Monster Hunter knock-off..

The game looks fine, but all it shows me is that Zelda won't be a showcase of NEW game play, animations, art, or anything else. A solid entry in the series, but one entirely done better by other games. I can understand being a fan of these games, but to look at this like some sort of "wonder" is totally diminishing that the state-of-the-art in gaming. Everyone else is MILES ahead of Zelda. I've sort of noticed that over the past five years Nintendo is not just behind Western developers they are BEHIND Japanese developers.