History Main / UnspecifiedApocalypse

* ''VideoGame/AMindForeverVoyaging'': the world in 2081 is portrayed as a post-apocalyptic ruin filled with barbaric gangs and feral dogs. It's never explained just how civilization collapsed; the player character has no memory of the event and the surviving humans aren't exactly keen to enlighten you.

* In ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'', it's never definitively revealed what caused the {{Gendercide}} that kills every male mammal on the planet (with a [[LastOfHisKind handful of exceptions]]). There are multiple theories purported, some clearly bunk, others somewhat plausible, none entirely satisfying. WordOfGod has it that one of them is correct, but [[ShrugOfGod refuses to say]] ''which''.

* ''VideoGame/AMindForeverVoyaging'': the world in 2081 is portrayed as a post-apocalyptic ruin filled with barbaric gangs and feral dogs. It's never explained just how civilization collapsed; the player has no memory of the event and the surviving humans aren't exactly keen to enlighten you.

* ''VideoGame/AfterTheEndACrusaderKingsIIMod'' takes place centuries after the world underwent some sort of cataclysm, with humanity having managed to work its way back up to [[FeudalFuture medieval society and technology]]. The exact nature of The Event is deliberately left vague and up to the player's interpretation.

** As the main character was in his childhood "when the last of the great cities died" plus at the end he was revealed to be born ca. 1973, we can infer this was probably [[WorldWarIII the Cold War gone hot]]. Europe is also mentioned to have been affected (as they would be in such a scenario) and someone asks how they fared (though no answer is actually forthcoming). Given this, it's probable the war took place in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

* The world of ''Film/MadMax'' takes place in an anarchic society, where all social order is loose and ultra-violent gangs rose up to rampage against decent people. [[AllThereInTheManual Extra material]] for the series states that the first movie takes place after a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which led to an oil shortage. But what happened between the first movie and ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior''? Things got ''worse''. It is never really explained how the world got to this horrific state, but in [[VideoGame/MadMax the video game]], Max basically says that - as far as he can tell - literally everything that could go wrong ''did'' go wrong, all at once, and consequently nobody really knows which specific catastrophe [[TheLastStraw actually caused the apocalypse]]; the collapse of society, massive wars destroying countries, oceans drying up, super-plagues everywhere, and more.

* ''Film/ChildrenOfMen'': It is never revealed what caused the SterilityPlague that resulted in the ChildlessDystopia and no-one seems to know what caused it in-universe as well. There is also quite of few mentions of {{Noodle Incident}}s in [[BigApplesauce New York]] and UsefulNotes/{{Madrid}} that suggest that the rest of the world is being turned into nuclear wastelands or lawless war zones, especially if you believe the government propaganda.
* ''Film/TheBookOfEli'' has Creator/DenzelWashington in a world decimated for an unknown reason (heavily implied to be nuclear warfare). A number of people who were alive at the time of "The Flash" still suffer burns, scars, and blindness from the event.

** General Bethlehem claims to have been there at [[WashingtonDCInvasion "the Battle of Georgetown" and saw the White House burn to the ground]].
** In the opening sequence, the old news reports playing in the background have what is clearly missiles going off. A nuclear exchange can therefore be inferred to have happened, which explains the "three-year (i.e. nuclear) winter" and why no one goes near major cities (likely destroyed and irradiated).

** The events which brought the world to this are varied and unexplained, with events like "the war", "the rains" and "the bad mumps".[[note]]The "bad mumps" is nothing more than having them as an adult, when they are almost lethal and often render males infertile, just like with Abby's husband, although she says he had them "as a boy". It's also mentioned that one catastrophe was "the Bugs". "Bug" being a slang for illnesses, it's not inconceivable that some of the WMD's exchanged were biological rather than nuclear. These "bad mumps" thus might have been a version designed to affect people more that he lived through.[[/note]]
** As the main character was in his childhood "when the last of the great cities died" plus at the end he was revealed to be born c. 1976, we can infer this was probably [[WorldWarThree the Cold War gone hot]]. Europe is also mentioned to have been affected (as they would be in such a scenario) and someone asks how they fared (though no answer is forthcoming). Given this, it's probable the war took place in the early 1980s.

* ''Film/MadMax'' takes place during the collapse of society, where all social order is rescinded and ultra-violent gangs rose up to rampage amidst the ruins. [[AllThereInTheManual Extra material for the series]] states that the first movie takes place after a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which led to an oil shortage. But what happened between the first movie and ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior''? Things got ''worse''. It is never really explained ''how'' the world got to this horrific state, but in [[VideoGame/MadMax the video game]], Max basically says that - as far as he can tell - literally everything that could go wrong ''did'' go wrong, all at once, and consequently nobody really knows which specific catastrophe [[TheLastStraw actually caused the apocalypse]]; there were massive wars destroying countries, oceans drying up, super-plagues everywhere, and more.

* ''Film/MadMax'' takes place after a global apocalypse where any and all social order collapsed and ultra-violent gangs rose up to rampage amidst the ruins of society. It is never really explained ''how'' the world got to this horrific state, and the descriptions of the end tend to include everything from resource shortages to mass social decay to nuclear war. In [[VideoGame/MadMax the video game]], Max basically says that - as far as he can tell - literally everything that could go wrong ''did'' go wrong, all at once, and consequently nobody really knows which specific catastrophe [[TheLastStraw actually caused the apocalypse]]; there were massive wars destroying countries, oceans drying up, super-plagues everywhere, and more.

[[folder:Videogames]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Metro 2033}}'' and ''VideoGame/MetroLastLight''. What caused the war of 2013? The official website shows that the initial nuclear explosions were in the Middle East and the situation then escalated. Beyond this, all we know is that it was probably between Russia and NATO, but even that is unconfirmed. To the residents of the Metro though, figuring out the facts hardly matter.

[[folder:Web Originals]]
* In ''Literature/GoldTongues'', it's heavily implied that most of civilization has perished due to an unknown virus, along with thousands of ravenous, man-sized bugs having preyed on human beings. How the bugs arrived in the world and the kind of virus that broke out and killed most of humanity is never revealed.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''{{Webcomic/Sarilho}}'': Something happened to the modern world, but the details aren't shown. Judging by the maps, this was either accompanied/caused by a raise in the sea levels.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'': The Vaal civilization. Their last leader, Queen Atziri, was obsessed with preserving her beauty, and when she discovered a recently dead serial killer supposedly lived to be 168 years old yet looked youthful, she tried to find how he accomplished that, by any means necessary. HumanSacrifice was already a common practice for the Vaal, but Atziri took it to a new level, since the rumor was that he stole the youth of his victims somehow. One day, her [[CourtMage thaumuturgist]] Doryani did ''some'' kind of ritual, and the entire civilization collapsed instantly. Only a handful of 3000 or so refugees survived the fall. The only thing that remains from the Vaal are ancient ruins, a SealedEvilInACan with the souls of the fallen, and a corrupted dimension controlled by Atziri.

* ''TabletopGames/GammaWorld'' from version to version, the events that destroyed the world are different, but for most versions the details remain in the dark.

* ''VideoGame/MadMax'': It's revealed the social collapse and rise of gang shown in the movie wasn't the only thing. According to Max everything fall on them at the same time but he doesn't elaborate since he probably doesn't know much. All he knows is while people were bombing in unrelated wars oceans dried up and disease spread.

* Played with in ''The Peripheral'' by William Gibson. One half of the story takes place in the future, after "The Jackpot" wiped out a large chunk of humanity, with the survivors — largely rich folks — rebuilding after. A character in the present asks what "The Jackpot" was, and her future contact person eventually explains that it wasn't a singular apocalyptic event so much as various economic, environmental and sociopolitical trends and smaller events (the assassination of the U.S. president, for example) over the course of several decades of decline.

* In ''Literature/AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture'', little detail is given on how, exactly, humans became extinct. There is some vague suggestion that it had something to do with overpopulation and resource depletion, but nothing more than that.
* Similarly, in the original BBC version of ''Literature/TheFutureIsWild'', humans go extinct for an unspecified reason at some point before 5 million years in the future. The American version changes it so they simply left Earth and colonized a new planet.
* Creator/CoryDoctorow's short story (eventually turned into a comic) ''"When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth"'' describes an unspecified apocalypse from the viewpoint of a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin system administrator]], who has to go to work late at night due to a server issue. While there, he gets a call from his wife, who tells him that their infant child has already died from an unspecified cause, and she herself dies while on the phone. Very quickly, the sysadmins lose contact with the rest of the world. Eventually, they manage to re-establish contact with others like them via the still-working Internet and establish an Internet-based government. WordOfGod is that this trope is invoked deliberately, since a regular person is highly unlikely to know the details of a sudden apocalypse and likely wouldn't care anyway. They get an email - purportedly forwarded from Health Canada - that the whole city’s quarantined because of a biological weapon, but as everything falls apart ''very'' quickly, it's never confirmed.

* In [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc the first game]] of the ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' series, the last trial, the Mastermind [[spoiler:(a.k.a. Junko Enoshima)]] reveals that the reason the students weren't actually trapped, but instead choose to stay inside the school for the rest of their lives was because of "The Worst, Most Despair-inducing Event in the History of Mankind" that caused the downfall of society. However, the specifics of the Tragedy aren't shown until [[VisualNovel/SuperDanganRonpa2 the second game]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': The Great Mushroom war is the reason behind the formation of the Land of Ooo, but for the longest time, the end was only hinted at being some sort of war. Even by the end of the show, the details-- who was fighting whom, the exact nature of the weapons used, how or whether it's connected to [[TheMagicComesBack the rise of magic]], etc.-- [[RiddleForTheAges are never entirely revealed]], though enough hints are dropped for you to piece together a vague idea of what happened.
* ''WesternAnimation/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeasts'': Whatever event occurred in the 21st century that resulted in [[ApocalypseHow planetary and societal disruption]], the appearance of huge or otherwise mutated, sapient animals, and forced the remainder of humanity to either live in sheltered underground communities or as lone survivors on the surface is unknown.

* ''Film/LogansRun'': What caused the end is never mentioned, in contrast to the novel, where overpopulation is stated to the cause for the dystopian society.

** The 1956 movie explains away both of the above items to [[CometOfDoom a comet]] and [[CameFromTheSky an explicitly alien plant]]. Whether or not this counts as AdaptationDecay is left to the specific audience member -- they are [[AmericaSavesTheDay far from]] [[KillItWithWater being the only]] changes done in the adaptation.