Hurricanes, earthquakes, lightning storms, and wildfires are just a few things that can be labeled as natural disasters. Preventative measures can be taken to try to lessen the damage and save as many lives as possible, but once a natural disaster starts there's no stopping it. Dealing with these destructive forces of nature in real life can be terrifying, but they make for interesting gameplay mechanics in video games.
Some games take a more realistic approach to natural disasters and others go to the extreme, pitting the player against the worst-case scenario and challenging them to survive. While no one wants to face a natural disaster, video games about them can be a reminder to always prepare for the unexpected.
8 Raw Danger
When one thinks of games about natural disasters and surviving them, the Disaster Report games are probably some of the first to come to mind. Raw Danger is the second game in the franchise and a sequel to the first Disaster Report. While the first game has players trying to survive the aftermath of an earthquake, in Raw Danger, players have to find their way out of a city flooded by torrential rains.
There are six different characters and the game is split up and seen through the perspective of each character. Every one of them has their own backstory and reasons behind their actions and depending on the choices a player makes, they can have a good or bad ending.
7 Disaster Report 4
Disaster Report 4 is the newest addition to the Disaster Report game series. The premise remains the same as the other games, where the goal is to escape the city safely. Disaster Report 4 takes place in a Japanese-inspired city that was hit by a massive earthquake.
Players have numerous original characters they can come in contact with and work together with to escape the city. For the first time, players can explore collapsed buildings for additional escape routes and survivors. They can also customize their own characters and can find different clothing options as they explore the city.
6 Disaster: Day Of Crisis
Disaster: Day of Crisis is an action-adventure, rails shooter that features not only the threat of natural disasters but also the threat of a terrorist organization. Players take on the role of Raymond Bryce, a former US Marine mourning his partner's death after a sudden volcano eruption interrupts the rescue mission the two were performing.
He doesn't get much time to mourn him as he's summoned by the government to help in rescuing his dead partner's sister from a rogue military force. And things go from bad to worse, as several natural disasters occur around Ray, including hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and even more erupting volcanoes.
5 Civilization 6: Gathering Storm
Civilization 6 is the newest game in the Civilization series. The game offers new ways for players to build their empires and achieve total victory with how cities grow and spread across the board, a new mechanic called "Boost" and the introduction of the World Congress. Along with the base game, there have been several expansion packs.
Civilization 6: Gathering Storm turns natural disasters into environmental effects. From different storms like blizzards and tornados to floods, droughts, and even climate change, all of these can affect a player's empire for better or worse.
4 Cities: Skyline - Natural Disasters
Cities: Skylines is the game for those looking for a city simulator where they can build their own city from the ground up and customize it in any way they want. Cities: Skyline allows players to oversee every aspect of their metropolis from a top-down view. Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters is an expansion pack that adds in new natural disasters, like tornados, sinkholes, and even meteor strikes that can spell doom for a player's city.
Along with these disasters, emergency helicopters have been included along with new services that players can use in both fortifying their city and helping it recover after a disaster hits.
3 911 Operator
The job of a 911 operator is important. When it comes to getting people the right kind of emergency service the decisions and actions taken by a 911 operator can make all the difference. The game 911 Operator gives a first-person experience of the kind of difficulties operators face on the job. In the DLC Search & Rescue, new events and incidents are added to test the players' skills in how to respond to an emergency.
One of the events is called Snowstorm, where a blizzard in Anchorage, Alaska presents a major problem to the city's residents as most emergency and rescue vehicles cannot move or have to move slowly to avoid crashes.
2 The Long Dark
Many survival games feature an occult element to it as players have to survive a world inhabited by monsters or overrun by zombies. The Long Dark is a first-person survival horror game that doesn't feature anything like that. It's just the player versus the cold Canadian wilderness as they fight for survival.
The world of The Long Dark is set in the aftermath of a geomagnetic storm that destroyed all the power sources. There's a survival mode that has permadeath and a story mode where players alternate between the perspectives of two characters, Dr. Astrid Greenwood and bush pilot Will Mackenzie.
1 Icarus
Icarus is a survival game where players explore and mine resources from the terraformed planet Icarus. Icarus has many similarities to Earth but with air that's toxic for humans to breathe. Plans for colonizing the planet ended, though it was still of use to humanity as a source of exotic resources. Players are 'prospectors' who descend onto the planet to collect as many exotic resources as possible.
Toxic air isn't the only thing that poses a problem for prospectors, Icarus is full of dangerous apex predators and intense weather that can turn things quickly from very good to bad. There are weather events that generate storms of various intensities. Depending on which biome players explore, they might find themselves dealing with extreme snowstorms, lighting storms, forest fires, and more.