Lone Survivor is a 2012 game from Jasper Byrne.
I would love to take the easy way out and describe it as a 2D Silent Hill but as much as I’d mean it to be a compliment, it would be doing a great disservice to what a great game Lone Survivor is.
You play as a man in a surgical mask known as “You”. The game starts you off some unknown time after an outbreak has mutated people into horrifying monsters. You awaken alone in your apartment after having a dream about a man with a box on his head and a girl in a blue dress. Your receive a radio transmission telling you that something is going on in room 203 and this starts your adventure off.
The point of the game is to scavenge supplies for food and making sure to rest so that your mental state doesn’t decrease. Everything in game has an effect on your character. If you only eat junk food or don’t sleep enough your hallucinations become worse and your character grows more irritable. Will you take the drugs you find to stay awake and plow through the game or will you sleep and eat well, trying to be as responsible and safe as you possibly can in this horrible new world? You meet a few characters and even a cat along the way and how you interact with them also leaves a lasting impression on your fragile mental state.
The soundtrack to this game is wonderful. It is also going to draw comparisons to the Silent Hill series but it does a powerful job of being its own beast. The music adds wonderfully to the atmosphere without ever detracting from it. You will love the songs but the atmosphere of the game is built so well that you will never ignore what’s going on to focus solely on the music.
I have always been a sucker for stories that focus on characters with a decaying mental state and how they either overcome the situation or allow it to break them so this game was an absolute treat for me.
Overall, I can’t recommend this game enough. You can get it right now for 15$ on Steam or Good Old Games and that is absolutely money well spent.
Trailer
The song in this trailer is Sleep Forever from the OST
Director’s Cut Trailer
The song in the Director’s cut trailer is Roost by Big Black Delta