10 Best Zombie Games With Emotional Stories

Most zombie games don’t pay enough attention to the mental toll it takes on the characters. These games are an exception to this rule.
People usually think of zombie games as action-packed games where the main characters rush in with guns firing to kill the zombie horde. Most of the time, though, people don’t realize how hard it is on the characters in the story.
Some games about zombies do a great job of showing how spreads affect the characters as they deal with isolation, loss, and the truths of human nature when they have to stay alive.
The Last of Us
In The Last of Us, the characters go through heartbreaking mental traumas and lose people they love. Joel is cold and distant at first because of his sad past, but he finally gets to know Ellie and starts to show his feelings. Ellie is still young, but she has already been through a lot of pain and sadness. Together, they travel through dangerous places and face the infected and cruel people who want to kill them.
Characters’ moral battles and hard choices add to the sadness of the story. Also, the game has morally questionable situations that make players think about the value of life, suffering, and what it means to be human. Most of the time, the results of these choices are heartbreaking and make players feel sad and think.
Telltale’s The Walking Dead Series
Telltale’s The Walking Dead series is mostly about Clementine, a young girl who is left alone in a world where zombies have taken over. Players follow her trip as she makes friends and deals with the constant threat of death and loss. As players move through the game, they see the emotional toll that these situations have on the characters, such as the stress of having to make hard decisions and seeing loved ones die.
The Walking Dead by Telltale also deals with tough topics like survival, betrayal, and the loss of innocence. The game puts players in tough moral situations where there isn’t always a clear right or wrong answer. These decisions have long-lasting effects that can lead to heartbreaking times and even tragedies. The bonds that Clementine builds with the other characters will make players care about them, which will make losing one of them hurt even more.
Dead Space
Dead Space is a zombie game that takes place on a spaceship called the USG Ishimura. It is a unique take on the zombie theme. Players follow Isaac Clarke’s story as he searches for his lost girlfriend Nicole on a ship overrun by scary undead creatures called Necromorphs.
As the game goes on, players learn more about Ishimura’s past and the events that led up to the outbreak, which is scary. The story is about loss, being alone, and making sacrifices. The characters go through personal tragedies and try to keep their minds straight. Isaac, in particular, goes through a lot of mental turmoil as he tries to stay alive and find out what happened to Nicole.
Dead Island
The game Dead Island puts players in a tropical paradise that has been turned into a bloodbath. A disease has spread across the island and turned its people into mindless zombies. As soon as the survivors see the damage and death around them, the joy and excitement of being on vacation turns into fear and hopelessness. In one of the saddest trailers for the game, a couple tries to protect their bitten child from the zombies, but the child finally gives up and turns on them.
Throughout the game, players will meet different NPCs who will share their stories of sadness and loss. These people have lost friends, family, and everything they cared about, which has left them with no hope. The story of the game is mostly about how the zombie spread affects the survivors’ fears, guilt, and the weight of the situation as a whole.
Prototype
Most zombie games put the player in the role of a normal person who is thrown into the middle of the end of the world. In Prototype, though, players will follow the story of Alex Mercer, who can change into many different things but has no knowledge of his past. Alex slowly learns about his past and the evil plans of those responsible as he finds out the truth about his powers and the plot surrounding the virus outbreak that turns people into mindless zombies.
Alex’s journey explores themes of loss, betrayal, and the dark side of humanity as he tries to figure out who he is and the terrible effects of his actions. Throughout Geometry Dash Subzero, Alex sees the damage and pain that the virus causes. He sees harmless people die and society get worse and worse over time. As Alex fights his inner demons and strong enemies, the game also looks at the moral choices he has to make.
Days Gone
Players follow Deacon St. John, a biker and past outlaw, as he goes through his life. In the book Days Gone, Deacon’s life falls apart when he loses his wife, Sarah, during the outbreak and thinks she is dead. Throughout the game, Deacon’s grief over this loss drives him to find a purpose in what’s left of the world after the end of the world.
As players move through Days Gone, they see Deacon go through hard times and terrible things. People are trying to stay alive while zombies they call “Freakers” and other survivors loom as a threat. As Deacon tries to make sense of the world and find a reason to keep going, the story looks at grief, guilt, depression, and redemption.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human
People often find the story of Dying Light 2: Stay Human sad because it shows how bad the world has become. Players take on the part of Aiden Caldwell, a survivor who is very good at parkour and has to deal with the results of his decisions. In the game, players have to make hard choices that can lead to bad things happening to characters and groups, causing them to suffer and die.
Also, the story looks at themes like loss, betrayal, and the bad side of people. It looks at how morality is complicated and how despair and greed can lead to terrible things. The journeys of the characters are often marked by tragedy and the weight of their actions, which gives the story a sad and gloomy feel.
Resident Evil 7
People know the Resident Evil series for its scary survival games. But what most players miss is the sadness that goes along with the characters. In Resident Evil 7, players take on the part of Ethan Winters, a normal person who is looking for his missing wife Mia.
As the game goes on, players will meet the Baker family, who will make it impossible for Ethan to save his wife, both mentally and physically.
Deadlight
The story is about Randall Wayne, who is the only person left alive and is looking for his family in the chaos. Throughout the game, players see Randall’s struggles and hardships as he moves through the barren landscape and faces different tasks. The story explores themes of loss, being alone, and how fragile life is in the face of a terrible event.
Randall’s desperate search for his family and the harsh facts of the world he finds himself in. The sad music gives a feeling of helplessness and emphasizes how sad Randall’s world is. Deadlight looks at the moral choices and sacrifices people make when they are fighting for their lives. It makes you think about how much life is worth and how far people will go to protect their loved ones.
Project Zomboid
Project Zomboid shows how relentless and grim a zombie-filled world after the end of the world would be. The harsh truth of the outbreak is shown by the fact that players are always at risk of getting sick, that resources are scarce, and that zombies are always a threat.
Even though the game doesn’t have a story built in, players can make their own, which is sad and makes a bigger effect. Players have to deal with being alone and having to fight hard for resources, knowing that one mistake is all that stands between them and their eventual death. Also, when players die, it’s permanent, and it’s always sad to run into the zombieized corpses of their old characters on their new playthrough.