While the world is worried about a few hundred cases of Coronavirus in China, we have to put things into perspective by looking at some FPS where the deaths are in the millions and where the future of the survivors comes down to kill kill kill. While many games use a virus as a pretext to turn the majority of the world’s population into zombies, there are a few titles that treat large-scale epidemics quite differently.
Left 4 Dead
How not to cite the perfect license for cooperation in the zombie Left 4 Dead environment? The first opus was released in 2008, then a second very quickly in 2009. It’s a virus, called the Green Flu (Green Flu), who is behind the zombie apocalypse. Despite its name, it was obviously much more than a simple flu as CEDA tried to suggest (Civil Emergency and Defense Agency). According to the various reports, it appears that the virus is a mutated strain of that of rabies. In fact, it is very likely that the disease was originally transmitted by cattle, as evidenced by the many slaughtered animals found in some campaigns, especially in Blood Harvest or Swamp Fever.
The epicenter of the epidemic was in Pennsylvania, before quickly spreading throughout the United States. The mode of transmission is not clear even if it is rather obvious, through several references, that a bite is sufficient to transmit the virus. It is therefore like rabies present in saliva and blood. Nevertheless, some references to a mode of air transmission are present. The survivors we embody are healthy carriers and can infect others, despite themselves. We learn a little more about their immunity through the comic The Sacrifice published in 2010: it would be dependent on a recessive gene on the X chromosome. Finally, Left 4 Dead also contains special infected, but impossible to know if it comes from a strain a little different from the virus or others factors. Note also that in the first part of Dead Center, we can see at the hotel a small graph with the supposed distribution of the types of infected:
Dishonored (attention spoiler)
Cough, weight loss, skin discoloration, subconjunctival hemorrhage (blood flowing from the eyes)? No need to go to Doctissimo, you probably have rat plague, especially if you lived in Dunwall during the events of the first Dishonored. On the other hand, if you were rich, your chances of contracting the disease were less because if it was easy to accuse these poor rodents as the origin of the epidemic, it was in reality a human creation to exterminate the poorest classes . Once infected, without treatment you only had a one in a hundred chance of getting out, but a 100% chance of ending up with a red cross on the door of your house. Finally, rest assured, a remedy was finally found (thank you Sokolov), even if the plague had time to take half the population of the city with it.
Dying Light
It’s the poor town of Harran in Turkey that has been the epicenter of an epidemic that turns the population into the living dead. Here too, it is a virus derived from that of rabies and baptized Harran virus which is at the origin of the catastrophe. It is transmitted fairly conventionally by bodily fluids, so avoid bites, kisses and sexual relations with your infected friends. Scientists quickly realized that the virus was sensitive to UV light, which is a great way to keep it from transforming you if the bite / wound is still fresh. Moreover, once transformed, many infected fear the sunlight and prefer to go out at night. There is no treatment but only one remedy, Antizin, which helps prevent the progression of the disease.
The virus is most likely to have originated from a bad experience in a military laboratory, although some people are convinced that it is of extraterrestrial origin. This is what happens when you watch the Discovery Channel in the middle of the night. As with Left 4 Dead, the infected are not all equal, certain variants induce larger mutations by transforming certain people into particular and much more dangerous forms. Well, you know that a Dying Light 2 is planned (recently postponed), and that it takes place 15 years after the events of the first. We have to believe that humanity has not been able to overcome this small local epidemic.
Fallout 76
It’s a bit of a double penalty: already, a nuclear apocalypse, then an epidemic that ravages the region between 2085 and 2102, leaving no more human soul (which is quite practical when you don’t want to add NPCs to your game ). called Scorched Plague, it is once again of human origin. The creation of Scorchbeasts (Sulfur in French), mutant monsters with the air of giant bats, is at the origin of the epidemic. If your skin starts to turn red or black, you lose your hair and crystals come out of your skin, you have probably come into contact with one of these monsters. You are doomed. Ultimately, you will be nothing more than a simple ash statue. No one will be there to save you, because no one is playing Fallout 76 anymore, so there is no risk of finding a cure.
Besides, it’s pretty funny, because the current epidemic in China could come, according to some sources … from bats.
This list is not exhaustive and we could cite Pathologic and its plague of the sands, or Bioshock and its ADAM which makes people totally crazy and aggressive. In short, enough to put you in perspective in the face of the media screaming at the epidemic. It’s much worse in FPS! Besides, we can regret that most use pandemics as a simple pretext to transform 95% of the population into zombies. There is so much better to do.
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