There is, frustratingly, a severe lack of games like Fallout. The series has been burdened with a reluctant ownership of the retrofuturism aesthetic and the first-person shooter RPG subgenre, something it, unfortunately, has utilized to poor effect on account of their having been only two Fallout titles released in the past decade. Beyond the likes of Atomfall and The Outer Worlds, there have been too few Fallout-likes to satiate the endless appetite of fans smitten with its alluring blend of 60s Americana and the apocalypse.
Fortunately, while the trickle is painfully slow, there are a handful of games like Fallout slipping through the cracks in the hopes of usurping Bethesda's legendary RPG or, at the very least, offering fans an alternative. One such title is a brand-new first-person game that blends Fallout with Jurassic Park to surprisingly good effect, delivering a truly unique experience that prospective fans can try for free on Steam. If you've been longing for a game like Fallout, this may just be the title for you.
In lieu of a Fallout 5 release date announcement or really any news regarding a new Bethesda release, fans are understandably turning to indies and AA experiences. Fortunately, Wilderdark, the aforementioned Jurassic Park meets Fallout game, aims to appease those fans, so long as they don't mind a little bit of Dino Crisis-esque horror thrown in for good measure. Wilderdark is a first-person title focused on investigating an island inhabited by dinosaurs, all while desperately attempting to survive.
Much like how Atomfall veered more toward enhancing Fallout's focus on survival, Wilderdark leans closer to being a survival horror experience than a full-blown RPG. Indeed, in many ways, it appears to have beaten the upcoming survival horror-focused Jurassic Park game to the punch, thus appeasing the fanbases of two criminally underserved franchises. Wilderdark, naturally, also leans further into the horror elements of Fallout, leveraging its developer, Team Junkfish's expertise in the survival horror genre to deliver some genuine scares.
In Wilderdark, you explore assorted areas in search of evidence and samples, all while avoiding the blighted dinosaurs roaming around. You'll need to take photos using your trusty camera, gather resources in order to survive, and pay close attention to your surroundings as you piece together the mystery of the island and its prehistoric inhabitants. Team Junkfish's last survival horror title, Monstrum, proved it understands the genre, and Wilderdark looks set to further its ambitions of delivering cinematic horrors.
If Wilderdark sounds even remotely interesting, you can try it for free via its official Steam store page. The available demo offers a small slice of the overall experience, ostensibly serving as a proof of concept for the full game. Some users have reported that the demo is riddled with bugs and crashes frequently, which is something to take into account should you encounter any issues. The full game doesn't have a release date yet, but one can hope that this Fallout-like title ends up releasing soon, if only so that fans have something to enjoy while awaiting Fallout 5.
