Decline What is the most post-apocalyptic setting in any video game?

[Beastro]

I realized Starflight 1 qualifies: The human empire has collapsed, you're based out of a small, relict colony that just managed to send itself back out into space, and gameplay wise, no other traces of human civilization remain besides the Mechans, which have been waiting for another colony ship that never arrived to meet them.

You visit Earth, analyze the planetary data to see it's a quiet, empty world filled with the remains of civilization to explore with traces of news and information about things right before everyone died. Nothing's there lifeform-wise and not much minerals and stuff to get, gives off an empty, desolate feeling like a world filled with ruins should after centuries of abandonment.

I'm pretty sure the apocalypse in Nosgoth is actually still waiting to happen - I think it's heavily implied if not even stated outright that the world is held together by a shoestring in the form of the corrupted Pillars of Nosgoth. But once those finally collapse on themselves for good, it's game over man.

That ignores the ol' Elder God and how he's effecting things underneath it all.

 

[Talby]

Oblivion. All intelligent life is extinct.

 

[Life of the Party]

It was long after the passing of the second shadow, when dragons ruled the twilight sky, and the stars were bright and numerous...

— Clothos, Loom: The Audio Drama


The events of the game are preceded by a 30-minute audio drama. It is established that the Age of the Great Guilds arose when humans once again tried to establish dominion over nature. The world of "Loom" is not defined in relation to ours, but many hold that it happens on Earth in a greatly distant future, since the game takes place in the year 8021.

People banded together to form city-states of a common trade "devoted to the absolute control of knowledge, held together by stern traditions of pride, and of fear." The humble guild of Weavers established themselves as masters of woven fabric, though they eventually transcended the limits of cloth and began to weave "subtle patterns of influence into the very fabric of reality." They were persecuted for these acts of "witchcraft," and purchased an island far off the mainland coast, which they called Loom, after the great loom that was the symbol of their guild.

Lady Cygna Threadbare is introduced as a bereaved mother who begs the Elders of the Guild of Weavers to use the power of the Loom to end the suffering of the Weavers. Their numbers are failing and their seed is barren. The Elders Atropos, Clothos, and Lachesis, who are named after Greek mythology's three Fates, reprimand Cygna, telling her that it is not their place to play gods.

Cygna, despite their warnings, secretly assumes control of the Loom and plants one gray thread. She inadvertently draws an (unforeseen) infant out of the Loom, incurring the wrath of the Elders. She surrenders the child to Dame Hetchel, the old serving woman, and accepts her fate. The Elders cast the "Transcendence" draft on her, transforming her into a swan and banishing her from the pattern (the name Cygna is the feminine form of swan in Latin). Hetchel names the child Bobbin, and cares for him as her own.

Bobbin grows up ostracized from the rest of the Guild. The Elders note that the presence of his gray thread has thrown the pattern into chaos, and the Loom foresees the very unraveling of the pattern. For these reasons, the Elders ban him from learning the ways of the Guild until a decision can be made on Bobbin's seventeenth birthday ("until his coming of age seventeen years hence," as it is described in the game's audio drama). Hetchel, however, defies the Elders and secretly teaches him a few basics of weaving. This is where the game begins.