History ScavengerWorld / Videogames

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''

** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' goes further with actual scavenging with the scrap mechanic. All that heavy, cheap ShopFodder you found everywhere in Fallout 3? Now you can break it down for parts and build your own weapons, tools, and buildings!

* In the spirit of post-apocalyptic worlds like ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'', old [=CRPGs=] like "''VideoGame/VisionsOfAftermathTheBoomtown''" and "Scavengers of the Mutant World" are good examples of old survival/scavenging games from the old PC era.

* ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'': This is the state of many of the cities in the country of Iberia, after a disastrous event that left many coastal cities crippled and depopulated. In order to survive, many of the people in these cities have resorted to [[spoiler: forming a LotteryOfDoom with [[EldritchAbomination the Seaborn]] where one person sacrifices themselves to the sea so food will be given to the remainder, in a WholePlotReference to ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth''.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Metro 2033}}'' is a PostApocalyptic CrapsackWorld taking place in the subway tunnels of Moscow AfterTheEnd, when a nuclear strike irradiates the surface almost beyond survivability and plunges everything into a nuclear winter. The few creatures and people who survived above-ground have become horrific mutants of some form or fashion. Most of the equipment found or seen is put together from bits and pieces of pre-war technology or repurposed altogether. This is most evident in the weaponry. While guns are obviously a necessity in the game's setting, all the better to hold off bandits or the occasional monstrosity that approaches a population center, the weapons that are there are generally cobbled together from pipes, plywood, and parts of proper guns. The game's basic double barreled shotgun and SMG equivalents are the guns that are most obviously built from scavenged pieces, as they are visibly and obviously constructed from pieces of old plumbing with receivers and stocks welded on. The sequel adds even more scavenged weapons, like a bolt-action rifle that's visibly built up from parts of two different guns and a flare gun modified to fire shotgun shells.
** The housing situation in both games is no better, with the denizens of most stations living in either shabby huts made out of plywood and sheet metal or ersatz "apartments" built from empty subway cars.
** The "Developer Pack" DLC in ''VideoGame/{{Metro Last Light}}'' actually features a multi-barelled shotgun built with nothing but scavenged bicycle parts.
* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Warzone 2100}}''; salvaging pre-Collapse military technology is a key game mechanic and indirectly kicks off the plot, but when you find it, you have your engineers reverse-engineer it and put it back into production.

* Another prime example is the setting of Rapture in the ''VideoGame/BioShock'' series, where security bots are made from boat parts, turrets are chairs with guns duct taped on with motors to move them, and the grenade Launcher fires canned goods as explosives and it's loaded to a box filled with said canned goods.

* ''{{VideoGame/ProjectZomboid}}'': The player is alone in a zombie-infested land. There is a storyline, but the main part of the game is just to gather food, drink and equipment to stay alive.

* ''VideoGame/Wasteland2'' is this with its UsedFuture. Everybody has to scavenge everything. In the Ranger Citadel, your fellow Rangers have limited weapons, armour and currency - including ammo. Some will pay extra for weapon parts, medicine, and in the case of the explosives expert, animal faeces. Most of all the currency isn't 'dollars', it's 'scrap'.

* In ''Videogame/{{Arknights}}'', this is the state of many of the cities in the country of Iberia, after a disastrous event that left many coastal cities crippled and depopulated. In order to survive, many of the people in these cities have resorted to [[spoiler: forming a LotteryOfDoom with [[EldritchAbomination the Seaborn]] where one person sacrifices themselves to the sea so food will be given to the remainder, in a WholePlotReference to ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth''.]]

* The [=iOS=] game ''VideoGame/{{Rebuild}}'' involves survivors of a ZombieApocalypse trying to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin rebuild]] human civilization while fending off attacks by zombies and raiders, finding more survivors and convincing them to join you, reclaiming zombie-infested areas, sending people out to find food and supplies (which you can't build yourself), etc. You can even reclaim labs and research new techniques in them, including the zombie virus cure (one of the ways to win). Some equipment can also be purchased from or sold to a visiting merchant for food. The equipment includes weapons (anything from a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]] to an assault rifle), dogs (which the game treats as equipable weapons), tools (and yes, some tools, like sledgehammers, double as weapons), leadership items (e.g. a megaphone to talk to survivors or a NiceHat) and scientific equipment. Each survivor has stats associated with various skills (killing, scavenging, leadership, research, construction), which improve with successful use or equipment. The game never has you run out of ammo, though.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'': Pandora very much looks and feels like a post-apocalyptic world where the only way to survive is by pillaging and salvaging gear and tech. However, it's actually not a post-apocalyptic world; it's more like a stark DeathWorld where settling is just impossible, and any attempt at settling there has resulted in mining outposts and research camps that were quickly abandoned after the megacorporations behind them realized it was an absolutely terrible idea. Starting with ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'', it becomes clear that the rest of the universe is way better off.