I want to start this entry in Not Just Another World by giving some credit where credit is due. If, in my desperate dig for ideas, I hadn’t remembered Doug Otto’s recent Bitmob post on the post-apocalyptic wasteland in games, I probably wouldn’t have overcome my writer’s block for this post.
The term “wasteland” gets used all-too often in reference to games that take place in a post-apocalyptic setting. I’m not saying that it gets used incorrectly; certainly, scorched earth and radioactive atmosphere constitute a wasteland. But not every post-apocalyptic world is a wasteland and, likewise, not every wasteland is what it seems.
For such worlds I’ve created a new (as far as I’m aware, at least) term: Apocalyptia is a world that is at an end, whether that’s the end of the world or merely the end of a cycle. Upon concocting this term, two games jumped into my mind: The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Continue reading
