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| 7 | {{Apocalyptic Log}}s in video games. |
| 8 | ---- |
| 9 | |
| 10 | * ''VideoGame/NinetySix'' has only one. That's Cherry's diary, which details what happened to her after she got released from the hospital during the initial outbreak. |
| 11 | * ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'', of all games, has one of these in the notes you find during your run through the creepy and horror-tastic Summit of Insanity questline. [[spoiler:It's from the adventurer you're here to find, who was captured by Darkon and subjected to experiments that turned him into an EldritchAbomination that you have to kill]]. |
| 12 | * ''VideoGame/AkaManto'': You can find tape recorders throughout the school. Each one contains a message you can read. |
| 13 | * In ''Videogame/AlienLegacy'', you are the captain of a colony ship sent from Earth (which, by that point, has likely been destroyed by a vicious alien race), arriving at its intended system only to find out that another colony ship got there first (it was sent later but had a faster engine). However, instead of thriving colonies, you find nothing but ruins and messages. Besides surviving and establishing colonies of your own, the main task of the game is to discover the fate of the original colonists. And yes, by the end, the messages get more ominous and vague, even suggesting that those same vicious aliens have found you. |
| 14 | * Used for a BaitAndSwitch in the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' game trailer for ''Videogame/AliensDarkDescent'' which has a Colonial Marine apparently doing a [[InterrogationFlashback post-mission debriefing]]. The end of the trailer reveals the two figures seated across the table from him are corpses, he's dictating into a tape recorder [[ThatWasTheLastEntry and he's about to be killed by the xenomorphs]]. |
| 15 | * ''VideoGame/{{Alisa}}'': There are notes scattered about the dollhouse describing things that happened there, as well as messages directed at certain people. Unlike most examples, however, these ones can't be picked up. |
| 16 | * In the original ''Videogame/{{Alone in the Dark|1992}}'', Jeremy Hartwood's diary is a chronicle of [[HauntedHouse Derceto's]] increasing doom. One of the first things you find is the suicide letter of Jeremy Hartwood. It is literally written just after he has unwittingly released [[SealedEvilInACan the evil of the mansion]] and hears the footsteps of the newly awakened [[EldritchAbomination abominations]] closing in. |
| 17 | * ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent'' is basically built upon this trope. The main character, Daniel, wakes up in a castle with, you guessed it, Amnesia. His only clues to any backstory or objective come from diary entries he wrote to himself, on account of his amnesia being self-inflicted. These entries tend to sound more and more unhinged as the player finds them throughout the game. |
| 18 | ** Also Mandus' final journal entry in the sequel ''VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs'': |
| 19 | --> "I doubt I will ever be found, yet I leave you this, scrawled in the malodorous half-light, whilst my tormentor shuffles below, my fellow prisoners keen and squeal in the gloam, and where I wait for the knocking upon my cage that signifies it is, finally, my turn to make that dark journey into the interior." |
| 20 | * ''VideoGame/AnnieLastHope'', a game set months after a ZombieApocalypse, have you regularly coming across diaries and journals in ruined buildings, belonging to survivors who ''didn't'' make it. Including one belonging to [[spoiler:your friend Mike that details how his 6-year-old daughter, Jessica, was infected, forcing him to perform an OffingTheOffspring before he's DrivenToSuicide]]. Ouch. |
| 21 | * ''VideoGame/Antarctica88'' has these. One is available in a folder in the rescue team's garage. |
| 22 | * ''VideoGame/ArkSurvivalEvolved'': |
| 23 | ** The Dodorex dossier is covered in bloodstains, suggesting that whoever tried to document it was killed by it. |
| 24 | ** The Grad Student Journals from the ''Abberation'' [=DLC=], written by a group of college students who've awoken in the hellish world of Abberation and get picked off by its creatures one by one, with one student taking upon the role of writer after the previous one is killed. The writing and incidents described are surprisingly disturbing and depressing for a game that's mostly light on plot. Given the more horror-based nature of ''Abberation'' in contrast to most other worlds which have more of a {{Prehistoria}} vibe, it's likely that this is a GenreThrowback to the works featuring Apocalyptic Logs. [[spoiler:Though given what we learn later in the game, the students are probably clones with artificial memories]]. |
| 25 | * ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' has something like this with Subject 16's encrypted messages and voice clips, especially towards the end of his sanity streak. |
| 26 | * The story of ''VideoGame/Asteroid5251'' is told entirely through these, usually in the form of letters and diary entries. |
| 27 | * ''VideoGame/BackIn1995'' has its share of notes. One of which is found on a whiteboard. |
| 28 | * ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'' has Patient Interviews with idealistic doctors trying to cure some of Arkham's worst inmates hidden throughout the game. Each has five segments and they all end up getting more and more unnerving as you find them. |
| 29 | ** The worst is definitely Zsasz, whose doctor truly tries to cure him... so he tries to kill her halfway through. The last bit has him escape, and his current doctor giving an urgent call to warn her... but she can't talk, there's someone at the door... [[spoiler:but an observant player will note that the doctor is actually alive on the island right now, and a [[{{Feelies}} preorder bonus comic]] reveals that Batman stopped Zsasz before he was able to go through with it.]] |
| 30 | ** Croc's is a close second for most unsettling. His doctor simply can't believe that he's cannibalistic like the rumors say...Well, in the end he escapes -- she makes it out unscathed, but the scene she sees... [[AnArmAndALeg isn't pretty]]. |
| 31 | ** Scarecrow's interview tape 4 ends with him exposing his doctor and guards to fear toxin, leaving you to wonder how worse things will get [[spoiler:only to learn they don't. Tape 5 has Batman arrive, save everyone, and [[BreakThemByTalking break Scarecrow by talking]].]] |
| 32 | * ''VideoGame/{{Belladonna}}'' delivers most of the early plot this way. |
| 33 | * ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheDarkRevival'': Like ''Bendy and the Ink Machine,'' there are audio logs -- starting with the game's promotion, hinting that something big is coming. By the time PlayerCharacter enters the studio, there are many horrors waiting for her. |
| 34 | * ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'': Joey Drew sent Henry Stein to the studio where they used to work on cartoons together with the claim that there's something he needed to show him. However, by the time Henry gets there, the place is falling apart and overrun with monsters. There are [[CassetteCraze audio logs]] scattered around the studio from various employees that, when pieced together, explain how the studio ended up that way. |
| 35 | * Caynan's log in ''VideoGame/{{Bioforge}}'' as he slowly succumbs to insanity after his UnwillingRoboticisation. {{Lampshade}}d; as the MadScientist Dr. Mastaba notes, the victims of the cyborgization process after a certain point typically begin to obsessively write down everything that's happening to them. |
| 36 | * ''VideoGame/BlameHim'' has notes you can read found around the game. |
| 37 | * ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'': [[spoiler:Arakune]] actually becomes oddly sympathetic [[spoiler:for a cannibalistic swarm of insects held together by a mind hanging off the brink of insanity]] thanks to this. His arcade ending starts with an audio log on tape, detaling his undisclosed job and how he hates meetings regarding turning a local phlebotonium into weapons because of the "hard chairs and harder people" involved. Eventually, the logs become slightly more detailed as he begins to find out things about the power source that "everyone uses, but no one quite understands". He thinks he's cracked it when it fast forwards forward again... [[spoiler: and we slowly hear his descent from coherent, normal speech into the scattered, stuttering voice he speaks with in game, slowly detailing the process of his becoming Arakune.]] |
| 38 | -->"Of cour[[spoiler:se i]]f [[spoiler:I]] don'[[spoiler:t]] ha[[spoiler:ve a]] face, I[[spoiler:'ll]] j[[spoiler:u]]st make one." |
| 39 | * The journal collecting missions in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' plays this for laughs where you collect the journal entries of scientist Patricia Tannis. The entries depict her SanitySlippage as she progressively becomes more AxCrazy and more {{Cloudcuckoolander}} with every day (including [[CompanionCube developing a relationship with her audio recorder]]). |
| 40 | ** An early mission in the ''Zombie Island of Dr. Ned'' DLC plays this straight, by way of the ECHO correspondence of Jakobs Cove logger Hank Reiss. Gradually, his ECHO logs detail the zombie outbreak on Jakobs Cove, though for his part Hank remains hopeful throughout the ordeal -- why, the company physician, Dr. Ned, thinks he can develop a cure! Hank volunteers to be a test subject for the cure, and his last log ends as he's just about to go see Dr. Ned. [[spoiler:As you find out a little later, Dr. Ned turned him into a wereskag. You're forced to kill Hank after Ned sics him on you.]] |
| 41 | *** In the same DLC, there's a mission where you collect the logs of various other adventurers who tried to tackle the zombie problem at Jakobs Cove. Most of them are very confident in their first log, and near tears, overwhelmed by the creatures in their second. |
| 42 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' has a number of these. In particular, one mission involves collecting the notes of an adventurer named Taggart, an old pal of Sir Hammerlock's. It appears Taggart went missing after he set off to study Stalkers. As you collect his notes, you discover that for a while, Taggart had fun punching Stalkers and learned quite a bit about their behavior, until a big one he calls "Henry" (after his mother) stole a special mother's day present. An incensed Taggart vows revenge, and in his next log [[spoiler:he is dying, having had his hands eaten by Henry. Henry comes back to finish the job as Taggart screams for his beloved mother.]] The game also establishes that Tannis makes a hobby of recording her insane ravings, scattering them across the lands and hiring people to get them back for her. |
| 43 | ** In the Caustic Caverns, there are ECHO logs detailing the Dahl mining operation that discovered Crystalisks, giant rock creatures with precious crystals on their bodies. At first, Crystalisks were friendly to humans, and a big one called Blue seemed to take a particular shine to Security Officer Boothe. When Boothe was killed by her boss over the matter of 'killing Crystalisks for their crystals, yes or no', the creatures went berserk and killed the whole crew. It's implied that this was the StartOfDarkness, so to speak, for the Crystalisks, as they've been hostile to humans ever since. |
| 44 | * "D's Journal" in ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' is increasingly this as it progresses. It starts to get dark around Ancheim. It casts Agnes as a DarkMessiah (which is a bit of UnreliableNarrator) but gets into some unambiguously bad stuff, like D. being subjected to torture by a man on his own side, and then failing in his mission to prevent Agnes and her companions from triggering the apocalypse. The final entry is a sketch of a terrible monster and an ominous smear. The entire thing can be read end-to-end as soon as Ringabel joins the party. |
| 45 | * ''VideoGame/{{Brink}}'', as unlockable Audio Logs. |
| 46 | * Bungie has a long history with this sort of exposition. Their early games ''VideoGame/PathwaysIntoDarkness'', ''VideoGame/{{Myth}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' all relied almost exclusively on this method of story telling. |
| 47 | ** This trope is also invoked to the letter on at least one computer terminal in ''Marathon Infinity''. |
| 48 | --->"The shields are gone, not down, but gone, and so are the engineers. It's coming back, I'm sure: and my last mercy is immolation." |
| 49 | ** There's also: |
| 50 | --->"I am [[Film/ZardOz Arther Frain]], Chief Petty Officer, USEC Marathon.\ |
| 51 | Arther Frane calling all USEC personnel.\ |
| 52 | Calling Cmdr. Robert Blake...\ |
| 53 | Calling Security Chief Jones...\ |
| 54 | Arther Frain calling any USEC controlled ship in vicinity... \ |
| 55 | Station hull breached, we are losing pressurization. More than half the men are without vacuum suits. Patrols reporting intruder, last location unknown.\ |
| 56 | Any USEC controlled ship surviving nova event, transport when ready.\ |
| 57 | Arther Frain calling.\ |
| 58 | That is all..." |
| 59 | ** ''Pathways'' in particular took this even further, as instead of reading the journals lying next to mangled corpses in order to progress, you can use a mysterious artifact to ''talk to them''. Needless to say, most people aren't very talkative after spending twenty or forty years trapped in their corpse as the Horror-spawned monstrosities that killed them shamble by and occasionally nibble on them in the darkness. |
| 60 | * In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', seeing the video playback of the Day of Lavos is what prompts our heroes into trying to prevent it from happening. |
| 61 | * ''VideoGame/Clea2019'': These take the form of noted taped to walls, and diaries. |
| 62 | * Plenty of these can be found in ''VideoGame/CorpsePartyPC98'', recording the thoughts of various people who've been pulled into Tenjin Elementary before. The [[FanSequel Fan Prequel]] ''VideoGame/CorpsePartyZero'' actually hinges on the ''creation'' of one of those notes... while other notes seem to directly mirror their experiences to a startling degree... |
| 63 | * ''VideoGame/CorridorZ'': Audio Logs, pages from [[TheUnseen Jill]]'s diary, and others serve as this. You know they're coming up if you hear a cell phone ringing. |
| 64 | * Inverted in ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}}'': after being dropped into a cavern near a buried alien spaceship, the PlayerCharacter, Nomad, narrates his observations as he moves through the spaceship, becoming more and more nervous as the extent of the danger becomes clearer. By the end of the level, he's pleading for anyone who hears his transmission to evacuate the island, because the aliens are waking up. In a later level, naval officers on an aircraft carrier are playing back Nomad's transmissions in classic Apocalyptic Log style. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Nomad is there to hear them.]]]] |
| 65 | ** Played straight with the CELL blackboxes in the third game. |
| 66 | * [[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]] adores these. |
| 67 | ** Episode 1 of ''VideoGame/TwelveThirteen'' includes a document of the days before an orderly's demise at the hands of the [[spoiler:mutants]], ending with said orderly holding his pistol to his head, ready to fire. |
| 68 | ** In ''Trilby's Notes'', the third installment of the ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'', diaries are found belonging to a dead traveler, telling of the death of his wife and his own slow loss of sanity, concluding with the series' ArcWords: [[spoiler:it hurts]]. |
| 69 | ** Not forgetting the tie-in fiction, ''The Expedition'', charting a journey in the Mythos DarkWorld, [[spoiler:with repeated ArcWords at the end, signifying the narrator's continuing terrible, painful existence.]] |
| 70 | ** Additionally, if Trilby dies during ''Notes'', you are treated to a brief note stating that these were the last words written in a notebook found in the wrecked hotel (as Trilby was himself keeping a log during the game). |
| 71 | * Parodied in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'' with the plaques of the Plunder Island Naturalist Society. |
| 72 | -->'''Guybrush:''' ''(reading the last plaque, found on the edge of a quicksand pit)'' [[QuicksandSucks Quicksand]] pit. [[QuicksandSucks Quicksand]] pits of this type are common throughout Plunder Island's nature trails. Many an unwary traveler has found himself trapped and unable to esca-- Someone, anyone, please, please help me, I'm sinking... |
| 73 | * Not a few of the journal entries you find during your adventures in ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' turn out to be these. |
| 74 | * ''VideoGame/DeadIsland2'' combines this with, of all things, a YouTuberApologyParody. When going through Bel Air, one of the mansions you go through is the Goat Pen, a parody of the real-life Hype House where a group of social media influencers lived. Upon entering the mansion, one of the first things you find is the script for an apology video written on a whiteboard, where the last survivor reacted to their impending doom in exactly the way you'd expect from an influencer. |
| 75 | -->''I'm alone in the house, it's 1 AM, and I just wanted to say sorry to all many fans that I disappointed, but [[SkewedPriorities most importantly my sponsors]] -- I'll do better next time. ''<[[CrocodileTears CRY HERE FOR SYMPATHY]]>'' [[BlatantLies This isn't scripted, this is from the heart.]] Please take the evacuation seriously, it was a mistake, I shouldn't have joked about it -- love you all.'' |
| 76 | * The player character in ''VideoGame/TheDeadMines'' finds notes scattered throughout the abandoned mine. |
| 77 | * Much of ''Franchise/DeadSpace'''s story is told through these. |
| 78 | ** In the first game [[spoiler:the opening recording is ''also'' an Apocalyptic Log, but you don't get to see the apocalyptic part until the end of the game]]. |
| 79 | ** The first game features, among others, a log of a man saying goodbye to his wife and child before shooting off his own limbs to prevent himself resurrecting as a necromorph. As you find out later, it didn't work. |
| 80 | ** You can also find the logs of an ''Ishimura'' crew member named Jacob Temple and his girlfriend, Dr. Elizabeth Cross, detailing their frantic efforts to find each other in the middle of the necromorph outbreak. Against all odds, they eventually manage to find each other and start trying to look for a way off the ''Ishimura''. [[spoiler: [[ShootTheShaggyDog Then they're captured and murdered by Dr. Mercer in front of Isaac]].]] |
| 81 | ** In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2'', Stross is carrying one of these on his person detailing his SanitySlippage and the things he sees in his visions. You can only find this log if you [[spoiler:desecrate his corpse after Isaac kills him by driving a screwdriver into his brain]]. But since Stross is TheMillstone, most players didn't mind going through the extra trouble. |
| 82 | * ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' |
| 83 | ** In the undersea lab level of ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', at least one scientist attempts to send a message for help all the way to the last moment. The message, retained in text format, is notably filled with spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, as would be expected. In several other points in the game, the last words of the dead are to be found on datacubes left beside their bodies, including in the Hong Kong Canal Road tunnel collapse, X51's underground section and the [=MJ12=] base under [[spoiler:Hell's Kitchen]]. |
| 84 | ** The Antarctica level of ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'' is also strewn with Apocalyptic Logs. |
| 85 | ** It is to be noted that the designer of ''Deus Ex'', Warren Spector, had previously worked on ''VideoGame/SystemShock'', which used this trope effectively as a core means of plot progression. |
| 86 | * ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' is loaded with these. Some people leave them on lecterns or with abandoned personal possessions, and others carry them around until they die and you find their corpses (or until after they die and you defeat their undead corpses). Sanctuary may be a CrapsackWorld but at least it seems to have a high literacy rate. |
| 87 | * ''VideoGame/{{Diacrisis}}'': You can find notes around the prison detailing thoughts from the prisoners. |
| 88 | * ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'': |
| 89 | ** ''VideoGame/Doom3'' and ''Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil'' both have a few [=PDAs=] in them with this. Though your protagonist is present for the beginning of the Apocalypse, most of the story of the game, as well as the How and Why of said event, is told through the scattered Apocalyptic Logs of Mars City's scientists, soldiers and workmen. Most of them are members of the task force complaining about security problems, other members, or the occasional ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight, however a few [=PDAs=] involve people trying to relay a last minute message, and the one inside of Hell details two logs about a man being toyed with for nearly two days by the demons. One man involved in the storyline gives you a data disc he asks you to send back to Earth when you escape which details the entire plan that [[spoiler:Dr. Betruger and]] the powers of Hell had for Mars. |
| 90 | ** ''VideoGame/Doom2016'': The codex entries found on Mars detail the decline of UAC as more members succumb to demonic influence. Amusingly, the demons have their own in the form of the Slayer Testaments found in Hell, which tell the tale of the Doom Slayer's nigh-unstoppable rampage through their realm before the events of the game. |
| 91 | * ''VideoGame/DreadOfLaughter'': There are papers and videotapes scattered around the house detailing the goings-on in the house before [[PlayerCharacter Catheryn]] arrived. |
| 92 | * Practically every book you can find in ''VideoGame/DungeonSiege'' and its expansion. For bonus points, most of them contain variations on "The rest of the pages are covered in what appears to be blood." |
| 93 | * The Dorfs of ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' will often make artworks depicting significant events in the fortress. "Significant events" usually means "terrible, bloody violence": "On the item is a finely-designed image of a goblin and dwarves in pink tourmaline. The dwarves are dead. The goblin is laughing." |
| 94 | -->"[[Blog/{{Boatmurdered}} Engraved on the wall is an exceptionally designed image by a dwarf and a frog demon by 'Emperor Sankis' Gatinbomrek. The frog demon is striking down the dwarf]]." |
| 95 | * In ''VideoGame/DustyRevenge'', the titular protagonist uncovers what happened to his long-lost father from a diary left behind in a safe. Dusty's father went missing during an expedition years ago when Dusty was still a child, and said diary reveals that out of the expedition's group of eight they're betrayed by one of their members after finding a doomsday artifact. |
| 96 | --> "Do not look for me, son, for by the time you read this I've been long dead." |
| 97 | * In ''VideoGame/DyingLight'', there are pages of a "battle journal" and notes to be found lying around, as well as the recording from the side quest Catching Past. |
| 98 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' |
| 99 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'': |
| 100 | *** In the dungeon of the tower Tel Vos, a construction crew was working on building the place and fragments of the foreman's journal are all that is left. They are scattered around to be found by the player. What's mildly funny is that the Telvanni wizard who owns the place doesn't actually care that much there's a monster loose under his tower. Or that he sent the construction crew to their deaths, or even hired them in the first place. |
| 101 | *** The ''Bloodmoon'' expansion includes an expedition to Solsteim in a restored Dwemer airship [[{{Magitek}} powered by magic]]. As one can expect, it crashed, leaving everyone dead but the man who had spent his life designing the ship. He records the days he spent stranded in the Solsteim wilderness, slowly freezing and starving to death. The last sentence trailed off, due to his hand becoming too frozen to write. You later have to bring the journal back to the man who funded the whole trip, which starts an annoying FetchQuest. |
| 102 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'': |
| 103 | *** Several quests have this. For example, the [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:The_Forlorn_Watchman_%28quest%29 Forlorn Watchman]] quest allows the player to read the log of an abandoned, haunted ship and the [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Lifting_the_Vale Lifting the Vale]] quest involves collecting the journal of a messenger who was headed to the same place as you. [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Origin_of_the_Gray_Prince The Origin of the Gray Prince]] has one of these at the end in the form of [[spoiler:a diary]]. |
| 104 | *** There is also a miniquest near Kvatch involving a man that believes he must appease "The Sunken One" to prevent the rest of the world from suffering the same fate as Kvatch. You don't meet him while he is still alive, learning of his quest (and its depressing ending, as he died believing that his failure to appease The Sunken One will doom the entire world) through journal entries. |
| 105 | *** A [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Trolls_of_Forsaken_Mine Fighter's Guild quest]] sends the player to find out why some comrades (including the guildmaster's over-protected son Viranus, who [[IJustWantToBeBadass desperately wants a chance to prove himself in battle]]) haven't come back from clearing out a troll-infested mine. They're all dead, of course. The son's journal, found on his body, explains how it all went wrong. For bonus sad points, in his diary he writes about another Fighter's Guild member that he had a very, um, [[HoYay special]] relationship with. Four feet away from Viranus is that guy's corpse. |
| 106 | ---->''"I hear trolls..."'' |
| 107 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'': |
| 108 | *** In a great deal of dungeons, most commonly those featuring the Falmer, the player will find already slaughtered bodies and the remains of those who went through the dungeons before. The player will also often find the journals of those ill fated travelers, often involving the situation leading up to their grisly demise. Many involve them noticing [[HellIsThatNoise strange sounds]] or [[BrainwashedAndCrazy strange]] [[GoMadFromTheRevelation behavior]] [[MoreThanMindControl in their compatriots]] with increasing frequency, just before everything goes horribly wrong... this is usually the only way to gain any kind of background as to what happened in these places, and most are quite harrowing. |
| 109 | *** One example can be found in Japhot's Folly. Japhot's journal chronicles his ill-fated attempt to start a settlement on the inhospitable hellhole of an island. Even when the rest of the settlers went ScrewThisImOuttaHere, he stubbornly refused to leave. He was eventually reduced to eating ice-moss before starving to death. The journal is found in a small locked room with Japhot's desiccated body. The final entry in the journal? ''"OH GODS HELP ME"'' |
| 110 | *** Labyrinthian is another good example, and one involved in a major questline. As the player delves deeper into the dungeon to find the Staff of Magnus, they come across ghostly imprints of a group of eager young wizards who seek to discern the secrets of the place, serving as an Apocalyptic Log the player can see unfold before their very eyes. The expedition is marked failure -- one of the explorers dies before they reach the final chamber, and another is forced to be left behind in a room with a trap. The group visibly starts cracking mentally before they even reach their goal, which they have to force themselves to continue towards... and [[spoiler: then they accidentally free [[SealedEvilInACan a trapped Dragon Priest...]]]] |
| 111 | * ''VideoGame/{{Eldervale}}'': From memos in the Institution, to newspaper clippings, this game most certainly has these to read. |
| 112 | * In ''VideoGame/EnderLiliesQuietusOfTheKnights'', the player can find several notes and diaries throughout the game that gives more insight to what happened to Land's End prior or during when the Blight and the Rain started. Many of them are people going through various stages of SanitySlippage, including several who realize that they are going to die or lose their minds and resolve [[MilesToGoBeforeISleep to do one final thing while their mind is still their own.]] |
| 113 | * The Mo'ia Atoll tablets in ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'', albeit a lot less disturbing than most. Also, the emails you get after discovering parts of the Deity Idol. |
| 114 | -->''There is something... from the window...'' |
| 115 | * In the fifth chapter of ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'', Max Roivas picks up three notes from his father, each more distressed than the last. Four if you count the envelope with the key. There's also Brother Andrew's diary entries in Paul's chapter and Private Jackson's letters in Peter's chapter. |
| 116 | * ''VideoGame/EternalEvil'' have plenty of logs depicting the zombie outbreak, as well as a video recording you can recover before the [[BearsAreBadNews zombie bear]] boss in which you see two hunters trying to record the fearsome bear monstrosity before they're suddenly ambushed, ripped apart, and caught on tape. |
| 117 | * In ''VideoGame/EverybodysGoneToTheRapture'', there are several examples, in fact -- radios and phones can be tapped for information regarding the townsfolk, such as their relationships with one another, and even some information about when and where they were "Raptured." The balls of light take this even further, constructing entire scenes of what happened before the events in question. |
| 118 | * ''VideoGame/Evie2018'': You can find 16 pieces of paper in the building, each one being a page out of Evie's diary. |
| 119 | * ''VideoGame/{{Exmortis}}'' |
| 120 | ** In this online game , while exploring the abandoned house you discover the journal of the most recent inhabitant, a man who found the house while hunting deer in the surrounding forest. The earliest entries report that shortly after he started exploring the house, he heard countless voices screaming at him in rage before he fell unconscious: when he awoke, he found himself unable to leave, forced to listen to the ghostly voices speaking to him -- voices belonging to "The Exmortis." Over the course of the next few entries, the writing grows increasingly deranged, as the man is slowly brainwashed into a pawn of the Exmortis. The final entry claims that a party of five hikers is approaching the house, and all of them are to be sacrificed in a ceremony to release the Exmortis into the mortal realm. Later [[spoiler:it's revealed that the writer is none other than the player character, suffering from amnesia after making four out of the five sacrifices needed to release the Exmortis.]] |
| 121 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Exmortis}} 2'' features the diary of a farmer who found himself unlucky enough to observe the destruction caused by the Exmortis in the months after they were released, recording the news of initial attacks on isolated communities, the first autopsy of an Exmortis creature, the [[RedSkyTakeWarning sky turning red]], the assaults on capital cities, the failed [[NukeEm nuclear retaliation]], and the [[RageAgainstTheHeavens fall of major religions]] and [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt most of human society]]: he also kept several newspaper clippings of each event, most of which are found pinned to a cork board in one of the rooms of his home. Eventually, the farmer finds himself directly in the path of the oncoming Exmortis horde, and has no choice but [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled to kill his wife and two children, and then kill himself.]] |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/FableII'' |
| 123 | ** In one quest, you can find pages from the increasingly illegible diary of a man who escaped being sacrificed by cultists, befriended a band of hobbes, and started to think ''he'' was a hobbe too. |
| 124 | ** The promotional site for ''Fable II'' also included one of these to explain the fall of the Heroes Guild, covering the journals of an unnamed Hero who survives the fall and then tries to escape extermination at the hands of the anti-Hero mobs. [[spoiler:He even writes a journal entry as he's dying of a gunshot wound with the mob breaking down the door to his house. What a trooper.]] |
| 125 | ** Another chilling example is "Terry Kotter's Army", the area behind the Wraithmarsh Demon Door. Cotter was a shy, young MommasBoy who befriends an army of silent golems called the Knights. His journal, which lies beside his corpse in a room filled with suits of armour, details his first encounter with the Knights and his ever-more frequent trips to the cave where he found them. His final entry simply repeats over and over the phrase: "They watch. They watch. They watch. They watch." |
| 126 | ** Also, the first cave you enter also has three pieces of paper -- a journal entry, a letter and a suicide note -- written by three dead treasure hunters who grew to mistrust each other and, amusingly, poisoned each other at the same time. |
| 127 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fairune}} 2'' has the texts displayed whenever unlocking the next set of floors in the Administrators Tower, written from the perspective of the world's creator as his work is complete and Fairune begins rejecting his presence. |
| 128 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series is packed with these: |
| 129 | ** In the original ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}'' the most notable is [[EvilutionaryBiologist The Master's]]. |
| 130 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'': |
| 131 | *** Probably the best example is in the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Dunwich]] [[ShoutOut Building]]. Something about the building is conducive to turning people into [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier radiation ghouls]]. In the days after nuclear war, you can read the journals and track the progress of the building's residents as they lose higher brain functions and end up as violent, mindless [[ImAHumanitarian cannibals]]. |
| 132 | *** Also in the Dunwich Building, there's a computer terminal with a dictation program that transcribed spoken words into writing. The final entry is dated October 23d, 2077, the day of the Great War, and consists entirerly of a series of transcribed, deafening explosionns... |
| 133 | *** The Keller Family Tapes one must collect in order to get the Experimental MIRV in ''Fallout 3'' detail how one family desperately tried to survive the coming war by finding a vault in the National Guard Depot to huddle in. One is even recorded as the bombs are falling. The last of the logs is from a member of the family who refuses to spend life inside the vault with his father. He decides to give them his part of the passcode and walk into a mushroom cloud. "Have a happy Holocaust!" There are also some holotapes in Little Lamplight that shed some light on him the city started up. |
| 134 | *** [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Diary_of_Candace_Keller There's a cut tape that provides an epilogue]] for the Keller family's saga that can be obtained in the PC version through the console. It was originally meant to be found in the shelter that the other tapes are about trying to get to, and indicates that at the very least Dad and Candace survived. However, Candace complains that her father keeps leaving the shelter and going out into the bombed-out DC ruins to scavenge for useless junk and that everytime he does, he lets a little more radiation in... |
| 135 | *** There's also the notes and holotapes from the residents of Vault 92, and the scientists performing experiments on them. |
| 136 | *** And Peter Stevens' journal entries in Vault 87; in the last entry he appears to be [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness going mad]] after losing his son Jason and hearing the laughter from Little Lamplight on the other side of the door. |
| 137 | *** The logs of the Canterbury Commons search party that was looking for Cheryl. [[NeverFoundTheBody Neither they nor you are able to find her]], although you find the corpse of one of the searchers, which spawns a Super Mutant Behemoth. |
| 138 | *** There's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-5hd5DSNsU this]] in the Point Lookout DLC. A crashed plane with a blackbox recording, a ParachuteInATree, and a soldier's skeleton. |
| 139 | *** The radio signal Oscar Zulu consists of a man broadcasting a distress call asking for medicine for his sick son, repeating over and over. [[spoiler: If the player investigates they will find an improvised fallout shelter in a nearby sewer drain, with one room containing the skeletons of a man and woman, and another the still active ham radio. However a child's skeleton cannot be found, leaving the son's fate unknown.]] |
| 140 | *** In ''Mothership Zeta'', you find recordings from the people that the aliens have captured, most of which are deceased by the time of your arrival. One records a captive being mutated into an Abomination, the alien version of a Feral Ghoul. |
| 141 | ** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': |
| 142 | *** Vault 11 is a major example; the first thing the player hears when searching is an audio log of five people swearing they can never let anyone know what happened inside, before they all commit suicide (excluding one who cannot bring himself to go through with it). Searching the terminals inside, you learn that [[spoiler:the citizens of the vault had to make a human sacrifice once a year or else the computer system would kill them all. The first sacrifice was their Overseer, because [[ShootTheMessenger he was the one who told them the bad news]]. After that, they decided that whoever was elected as the new Overseer would be the sacrifice every year, just to keep things simple. [[DemocracyIsBad This led to the creation of a heavily corrupt voting bloc that could elect whoever they wanted to get killed off]]. At one point they extorted sexual favors from a woman by threatening to get her husband elected if she didn't comply, and then went ahead and elected him ''anyway''. She then started killing as many of the bloc as she could get her hands on, which naturally led to them electing her next, which was just what she wanted them to do. Her first act as Overseer was to do away with the elections in favor of purely random selection done by the computer, stripping the bloc of all their power. The bloc was furious over this and started a civil war, after which there were only five citizens still alive. With so few survivors left and their guilt weighing down on them, they went to the computer and told it to GetItOverWith and finish them off, because they were done with sacrificing people... and the computer congratulated them for their "commitment to human life" and rewarded them by unlocking the vault door, as the whole thing was a SecretTestOfCharacter]]. |
| 143 | *** You also find four letters at the Matthews Animal Husbandry Farm, showcasing the mental collapse of the writer who is forced to kill their own parents when they become feral ghouls, then develop the paranoid conviction that the farm animals have become ghouls too. The last note is found in the burnt-out house, as the writer decided to burn themself to death to prevent the ghoul animals from eating them. (How the last note survived the fire is a mystery.) |
| 144 | *** In the ''Honest Hearts'' DLC, there are the logs left behind by Randall Clark, AKA "The Father In the Caves", a survivalist who had been camping in Zion National Park when the Great War broke out. The logs span decades and details his initial survival in an abandoned research station inside the caves, his trek to Salt Lake City in the hopes of finding his family, and eventual return to the park upon discovering that the city had been completely vaporized in the war with no possibility of survivors, several suicide attempts he's never able to go through with, and finally, becoming the protector of a group of children who'd escaped from some place only refered to as "The Academy". After several years of watching and helping them from the shadows, Clark begins to succumb to cancer and old age, and leaves his final log as his own epitaph before climbing to the highest point in Zion to die. You can find his skeleton there, alongside his unique Service Rifle. |
| 145 | *** One can find a lot them in the ''Lonesome Road'' DLC, not surprising given the nature of the Divide, [[spoiler: nuked during the great war then nuked again by accident two centuries later, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero thanks to the Courier]], turning it into an irradiated treacherous hell hole]]. these include a soldier's diary that ends with a series of random letters from when the apocalypse happened, numerous travelers and NCR scouts who tried to cross the Divide and ended up defeated by it, a silhouette of a flash-vaporized person, and some haunting graffiti of unknown vintage proclaiming everyone is dead. There also several holotapes left by BigBad Ulysses describing his travels in the Divide itself, the Big Empty, and Zion Canyon. |
| 146 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' has one in one of the first terminals you can access in the game; after being unfrozen and discovering the entire population of Vault 111 either dead in their cryogenic chambers, or nothing but decayed skeletons around the Vault, the Sole Survivor can read a security terminal revealing that the Vault didn't have enough food and medical supplies, and the Overseer refused to open the Vault without Vault-Tec's all-clear signal, which clearly wasn't coming. This eventually spiraled into a mutiny that left everyone dead, and if anyone else survived, they were long gone by the time the main character wakes up. |
| 147 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' revolves around these logs, since every human character in the game is dead thanks to a mysterious plague. Any story is found via holotapes, notes, terminals, and robots. |
| 148 | * The ''VideoGame/FatalFrame'' series of games include text diaries, audio logs and, as appropriate to the genre, ghostly apparitions that record exactly what happened before the whole situation went to hell in a handbasket. Sometimes, the last expression can be taken quite literally... |
| 149 | * ''VideoGame/FearTheDarkUnknown'': The Beresford Mansion contains the diary of someone named Robert. |
| 150 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 151 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'': The DS remake features a sort of mental example. When you pause, you can see a small sentence that the leading character is currently thinking. Switch to Kain just before he is taken over by Golbez again at the end of the Sealed Cave, and you get lines like "this feeling... I've felt this before" and "No... not... not again!" |
| 152 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' includes one of these on the spaceship ''Ragnarok''. In an odd subversion, the crew apparently ''succeeded'' in destroying the aliens infesting the ship, and made the log in case anyone else encountered the creatures. [[spoiler:Considering that the Ragnarok was left orbiting the moon, abandoned, and with more of the same aliens on the ship, however....]] |
| 153 | ** ''[[VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy Dissidia 012 Duodecim Final Fantasy]]'': One of the secret Reports found in the game is written by a [[spoiler:Lufenian]] scientist. It's a log of the events happening around his lab in [[spoiler:Cardia]], including a few things about [[spoiler:Garland]]'s growth and [[spoiler:Cosmos]]. When disaster strikes, his final log is this: |
| 154 | -->''Military on orders to [[DeadlyEuphemism expunge]] all persons with knowledge of experiments.\ |
| 155 | Lab is on fire as I write this. But I'm not letting go of these documents. This will be my final stand.\ |
| 156 | Sucks to know you're going to die.'' |
| 157 | * In the remake of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'', the post game allows you to explore the ruins of Thabes that were first seen in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight''. While the destruction of the civilisation isn't recorded (and was actually the reason why the games final boss was banished to Valentia in the first place), the ruins record the actions of an alchemist named Forneus from both his own perspective and that of the Thabean senate. The senate record how he was obsessed with resurrecting the dead and the creation of... [[NothingIsScarier something]]. When they sent messengers and later soldiers to stop him none returned, so they sealed both him and his experiments in the ruins your now exploring. Go deeper and you find Forneus' research notes, first on how he was able to raise the dead and later create life. He feeds the creature his blood, and his final note is mad rambling as the creature invades his mind. The Creation is the games superboss... [[spoiler: [[OhCrap and it's a six winged, six eyed Fell Dragon]]. This isn't just a tomb, ''it's the birthplace of [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Grima]]!'']] |
| 158 | * In ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtVault5'', we have the pre-recorded messages from the Overseer, Nicolaus Ainsworth. Each depicts how the situation goes FromBadToWorse in a Vault from which you cannot escape and which has an Arena that people must be sent into on a regular basis until someone wins, or else the entire place will get flooded with radiation. |
| 159 | * ''VideoGame/FleshBirds'': You can find papers in the cabins which reveal what happened that lead to the birds [[FeatheredFiend attacking you]]. |
| 160 | * ''VideoGame/{{Forewarned}}'': You can find notes in the tombs of the Mejai from previous archaeologists who went there. |
| 161 | * The first ''Descent: VideoGame/{{Freespace}}'' game has the main plot hinge on one of these. The log itself is shown in segments during cutscenes, and documented the rise of an empire, their conquest of hundreds of star systems, their contact with a powerful new race, and ends just before their destruction by the [[OmnicidalManiac Shivans]], thousands of years before the game starts. Bonus points for being the last recording not just of an individual, or a group, but an entire species. The last message, which is found by the player's side of the war late in the game, is the key to the survival of the human and Vasudan race. |
| 162 | -->[[spoiler:"There is little left for us. Little time. But much irony. The galactic destroyers that darkened out skies are not invulnerable. They can be stopped, but we have no way to deliver the blow. This, then, will be our legacy. In subspace, they cannot use their shields. And into subspace, they can be tracked."]] |
| 163 | * ''VideoGame/FobiaStDinfnaHotel'' have the various logs and diaries Roberto can uncover in the titular Hotel, where he discovers the building is a site for an evil cult's experiments. There's also an audio recording from a tape belonging to an unknown woman which chillingly details the building's last few days. |
| 164 | --> The Hotel has gone to shit. And these creatures seem to have taken over just about everywhere - inside and out. |
| 165 | * In ''VideoGame/FromNextDoor'', Namie can find diary entries from the previous tenant revealing more of the backstory. [[spoiler:Sen became aware of strange things about the house next door and began researching the house, which caused problems with his girlfriend. She then vanished without a trace, with Sen being convinced she was taken by the creature in the house. Sen quickly vacated the house, leaving behind all his research notes for the next tenant]]. |
| 166 | * At least one of the ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'' games does this, detailing [[spoiler: Shou Tucker]] cracking under the pressure of having to create [[spoiler:a chimera that can speak]], while you may not see him or Nina in the game, knowing the adaptations and seeing what went on in his head is ''horrifying''. |
| 167 | * After things go wrong in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'', it is possible to read the minds of corpses, many of whom are recalling their last moments. [[BlackComedy Most of them are full of snarky commentary and]] LampshadeHanging. |
| 168 | * In ''VideoGame/Grandia1'', the party finds a captain's log on a ghost ship detailing an attack by a sea creature that killed the crew. Guess what promptly happens. |
| 169 | * In ''VideoGame/TheGuardianLegend'', the SoleSurvivor of NAJU's native population left a ton of helpful notes, including the introduction to the premise of the plot. The full text can be read in the quotes page. |
| 170 | * Bones are scattered throughout the Crystal Desert in ''VideoGame/GuildWars''. Examining some of them lets you read the last written entries by the person when they were alive. The desert really, ''really'' sucks, by the way.... |
| 171 | * ''VideoGame/{{HAAK}}'': You can find computers on the walls in buildings, which contain messages left behind by those who came before [[PlayerCharacter Haak]]. |
| 172 | * The ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' mod ''VideoGame/TheyHunger'' has a series of audio logs left by a doctor experimenting on the... [[NotUsingTheZedWord creatures]]. His final recording (which describes his own infection) plays [[spoiler:right before he attacks you]]. |
| 173 | * ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' (Creator/{{Bungie}} is quite fond of this trope): |
| 174 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' includes a series of hidden Terminals which contain reports, memos, and recordings made by the Forerunners chronicling their war with the Flood. |
| 175 | ** ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' first introduces the Flood by way of a video recording from the helmet cam of a (deceased) Marine named Jenkins. If you read the novelization ''Literature/HaloTheFlood'', though, you find out that the marine whose video the Chief watched wasn't dead at all -- he'd been turned into a combat form, but had somehow retained his consciousness, turining it into an "AndIMustScream" scenario. |
| 176 | ** ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'' features 30 hidden Audio Logs littered about New Mombasa that reveal a subplot called "Sadie's Story," in which a girl attempts to reach her scientist father during the panic of the Covenant attacking the city. [[spoiler:She gets out safely, but it's best described as a BittersweetEnding. Ironically, she finds herself in more danger from the [[JustForFun/DyingLikeAnimals panicky, opportunistic, and stupid actions]] of the people around her as she is from the genocidal aliens.]] |
| 177 | ** ''Halo CE Anniversary'' also had terminals added, telling the backstory of Alpha Halo's Monitor 343 Guilty Spark through his own words and detailing how he gradually [[GoneMadFromTheIsolation went mad during his 100,000 years of isolation]] (and giving a little preview for ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}''). |
| 178 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}''[='s=] terminals primarily tell the story of [[spoiler:the Didact]]'s fall into madness from the perspective of the Domain, an ancient information repository [[spoiler:which, according to the expanded universe, happens to be a sapient UnreliableNarrator]]. |
| 179 | ** The audio logs in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians''[='s=] second level detail how all the humans aboard the ''Argent Moon'' died after [[spoiler:a bioweapon test went horribly wrong]]. |
| 180 | * ''VideoGame/HeavenDust'': There are plenty of journals and notes from other employees in the facility strewn about the place. You can read them for things like clues about what happened, and how to solve certain puzzles. |
| 181 | * ''VideoGame/{{HEPH}}'': You can find, among other things, a text recording of an audio log about people looking into a disturbance. |
| 182 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hollow}}'': There are papers strewn about the ship detailing just what went down. |
| 183 | * ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': Bashar Mati's "Apocashitstorm Tour", a series of twelve notes found at the game's twelve vantage points where he describes his life story: his fraught relationship with his stepfather, the death of his mother, his battles with [[AddledAddict drug addiction]], and his career as an engineer at [[MegaCorp Faro Automated Solutions]]. When he found out about the coming end of the world [[spoiler:at the hands of rogue Faro machines]], he recorded the logs as an attempt to FlingALightIntoTheFuture. |
| 184 | -->"Sure, in the end, it would probably all just come to nothing... like everything else. But for 50,000 years or more, whatever data I left behind would still be there. It wouldn't be much. But it wouldn't be nothing, either." |
| 185 | * In ''VideoGame/IansEyes'', Ian can find cassette tapes around the school that he can play on his tape player, which act as these. |
| 186 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'', some of the few logbooks written by humans are quite apocalyptic, but it's nothing next to those [[spoiler:the Tasen]] write when [[spoiler:the Komato attack]]. |
| 187 | * The game ''VideoGame/{{Implosion}}'' has you landing on Earth 20 years after an alien invasion has destroyed everything, and your hack drone is gathering more info by tapping into the remnants of local messaging systems. Since the messages are somewhat random, you collect not only the history of the alien invasion, but also engineering status reports, interoffice memos, and the results of a company betting pool. Messages that aren't part of the storyline tend to be {{ShoutOut}}s, written by people like "Stephen Jobbes" (Head of I.T.), "Albert Weinstein" (Head of R&D), and some lowly researcher named "Nikola Telsar". |
| 188 | * ''VideoGame/InunakiTunnel'' has these, which are written on red paper and folded up into origami cranes. |
| 189 | * ''VideoGame/IronHelix'': The crew of the ''Jeremiah Obrian'' recorded video journals shortly before they were killed by the ship's automated ''Defender''. Finding these journals is required to gain access to the ship's systems. |
| 190 | * ''VideoGame/Kabus22'' has its share of these, such as newspapers. |
| 191 | * ''VideoGame/{{Killer7}}'' has as its second-to-last level a high school in Seattle dotted with old style tape-recordings containing the details of a detective's investigation of the murderer and assassin Emir Parkreiner. The tapes become increasingly disturbing, as the facts presented seem bizarre and contradictory (much to the exasperation of the detective). The final tape ends with him mentioning in shock that Emir is standing ''right in front of him'', with his final words cut off by a gunshot. |
| 192 | * Ansem's Reports in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''. Especially subtle in the first game, where you only have the odd-numbered logs to begin with, showing Ansem under steadily increasing threat from the Heartless... then you're handed the even-numbered logs in the second-to-last area, [[spoiler:and learn that he ''created'' the things.]] |
| 193 | * ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' |
| 194 | ** In the first game, whilst out on a particular quest on Kashyyyk, you find the corpses of several Wookies -- all murdered by the shape-shifting assassin you're looking for. Thankfully one of his victims was smart enough to keep a diary of the systematic murder of an entire hunting party: |
| 195 | --->We found Grarwwaar's body last night: what was left of it. If we do not leave the Shadowlands soon, I fear we will all become victims of the Faceless One. |
| 196 | ** The logs of the Republic ship ''Harbinger'' in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords''. |
| 197 | ** As well as the entire Peragus level before it, containing holographic recordings of the crew being systematically killed off by an assassin droid turning the station's automated systems against them. |
| 198 | --->'''HK-50:''' Mocking Query: Coorta? Coorta, are you dead yet? |
| 199 | ** ''KOTOR'' enjoys this trope quite a bit. ''KOTOR 1'' let you find the journals of a Terentatek hunting party, each written shortly before the final fights of their owners, each written in a manner that suggests doom. At least one Sith student heading into a tomb left a datapad on how he or she was going to get around the traps and monsters left in there. A party going after a malfunctioning assassination droid with oversensitive hearing and using stealth belts takes a moment to log this and note with irritation that one of their number is clumsy. ''KOTOR 2'' had these in multiple places, from the holorecordings on Peragus to the journal left inside the Jekk' Jekk Tarr's ventilation system...It's hard to find a planet that doesn't have one of these. |
| 200 | ** Malachor V. Unfortunately, this only serves as a stunning reminder that the entire planet and everybody on or around it were obliterated too fast for even The Force to catch up, so maybe it doesn't much count. |
| 201 | *** Not to mention a reminder that level is no where near finished. |
| 202 | * ''VideoGame/{{KOJOUJI}}'': You can find notes all over the factory detailing the goings-on that lead to the events of the game. |
| 203 | * ''VideoGame/{{Kreed}}'' have plenty of these accessible on an abandoned space station, left behind by the staff before alien monsters wipes out everyone. Some of them crosses into NothingIsScarier territory: |
| 204 | --> "I also found out that the quarantine guys are preparing to attack us in a couple of days. The dying man I picked up in the hallway told me that. He will go soon, like all of us..." |
| 205 | * ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs'' several can be found throughout the game in the form of journals, including one from a boy whose parents make an attempt to escape long after the infection has hit and [[spoiler:the leader of a doomed DisasterDemocracy]]. |
| 206 | * ''VideoGame/LisaThePainfulRPG'' has a diary found in the Nice Homes behind a Joy Mutant. There, a scientist rants about a "Doctor Yado" and how he was happy that Yado's project ended in failure, claiming that such experiment had no value to the army. Also, something about polkadots. In the last pages, scientist wishes he could see his wife one last time... to bash her skull in, before trailing into incoherency. No a real guess who was the mutant fought to have access to the diary. |
| 207 | * ''VideoGame/LivestreamEscapeFromHotelIzanami'': The titular hotel has "memos" that can be found around the hotel. |
| 208 | * ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'' |
| 209 | ** One of them is the Book of Mazarbul from the original saga, which you actually get to write the final entry in during the "We Cannot Get Out" session play in Moria. |
| 210 | ** In an early quest, you are tasked with recovering the journal of a dead Dwarf outside a cave filled to the brim with spiders. Piecing together the pages reveals an Apocalyptic Log that ends with the Dwarf preparing to take the battle to the spiders to keep himself from being used as bait for his cousin, a spider-slayer who has passed his prime. |
| 211 | * ''VideoGame/Madman2022'': There are papers from someone named Alex strewn throughout the AbandonedHospital about his experience with the killer. |
| 212 | * ''VideoGame/{{Majesty}}'' has several day-in-the-life stories for different hero classes [[AllThereInTheManual on its website]], and "The Ranger's Tale" takes this form. The Ranger's journal starts brightly and then becomes ominous when he realizes he is being stalked by a demonic hunter-entity called Rrongol. His entries become increasingly despondant and aware that this will be his last record, with his only hope being that his journal will serve as a warning to others. And then... the ''final'' entry opens with the words "Rrongols' roasted flesh was a little gamey." Two of his guildmates turned up at the last second. |
| 213 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'' has a few of these. |
| 214 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'': |
| 215 | *** Vigil is a textbook example; though originally designed as the overseer of the research station, [[spoiler:Vigil was modified by its creators with the most complex translator algorithms they had so that it could communicate to future species, and contained every piece of information they had on the Reapers and their plans, in order to buy future cycles more time. Per its programming, Vigil shut off most of the stasis pods it was charged with preserving, in order to keep itself operational -- making the messenger complicit in the very same kind of slaughter it existed to prevent.]] |
| 216 | *** In one case, the party boards a spaceship that is seemingly abandoned besides one brain-dead man on life support. It eventually becomes clear that the comatose man's lover, a powerful biotic, was violently opposed to his being taken off life support. Logs left by the captain and the ship's doctor reference her declining mental state, and it's fairly obvious that she eventually killed all the other passengers. [[spoiler:If you turn off the man's life support, she will appear behind you and attack.]] |
| 217 | *** And then there's Ilos, where you can hear recordings from the Protheans [[spoiler: as they try to get the word out about the Reapers in the vain hope of fighting them off.]] The fact that the recording is slightly garbled doesn't help. |
| 218 | ---> ''Cannot be stopped... cannot be stopped...'' |
| 219 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': |
| 220 | *** The second game lives on this trope; nearly every mission or sidequest includes, at a minimum, a datapad or two documenting events in the process of going horribly wrong. Notable examples include the excavation site with the datapad reading, "If you're reading this, GET OUT RIGHT NOW," the [[spoiler:logs of the quarian scientists on the ''Alarei'' (including Rael'Zorah's last message to Tali)]], and [[spoiler:the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1APcaqh0jJs logs of the Cerberus team]] studying the derelict Reaper, which depict the horrific course of reaper indoctrination, even though the reaper is supposed to be dead.]] |
| 221 | --->'''Scientist:''' [[spoiler:But a dead god can still dream!]] |
| 222 | *** That last has one log that stands out, at first seeming more banal and harmless than the others. Someone talking about his wife Katy's anger management issues. The other exclaims that Katy is ''his'' wife, he must have told the first the story. He hadn't. They wonder how the hell they can remember the same thing. In context, you can see that this is part of the LossOfIdentity and indoctrination they're going through. |
| 223 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': |
| 224 | *** Part VideoGame and part WebOriginal, in the days and hours leading up to the release of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', the Twitter account [[https://twitter.com/#!/AllianceNewsNet Alliance News Network]], [[AudienceParticipation along with hundreds of fans]], performed a flawless viral ad campaign, releasing tweets in real time of the [[EldritchAbomination Reaper]] "invasion" of Earth, not unlike the radio show ''Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds''. |
| 225 | *** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' itself has far fewer instances of this trope. Most logs are made with no hint or inkling of the fate that befell the writers, like at the Ardat-Yakshi monastery and the hopeful, doomed staff and refugees [[spoiler: at Sanctuary]]. The situation devolved too quickly for them to write about it. On Mars there's one memorable instance of a banal email that suddenly became an allcaps warning that the atmosphere was venting. At the end, on Earth, there are a few logs scattered around |
| 226 | *** A demo for the {{DLC}} [[http://uk.gamespot.com/mass-effect-3/videos/mass-effect-3-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea-6390079/ Leviathan]] certainly makes it appear that they're making a strong comeback, with a level on a crashed ship whose crew ran out of food. [[spoiler: And were [[MindRape indoctrinated]], though arguably this was a kindness -- the crew would have died of starvation either way, but this way they did not feel hunger.]] |
| 227 | *** Crossing over with FlingALightIntoTheFuture, we have the [[spoiler:Refusal ending of Mass Effect 3]]. |
| 228 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'': |
| 229 | *** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' keeps the tradition going. Exploring the failed colony on Eos finds a few notes from the settlers as things get increasingly worse. One side mission ends with Ryder and SAM finding a very short, succinct message: "''Run.''" Cue one very angry Fiend. |
| 230 | *** The exploration of [[spoiler:Khi Tasira yields a few. The first notes Ryder finds are things like scientists noting their experiment's progress, or a note essentially saying "yes, we know the weather system's not working. Stop bugging us about it!" Then Ryder goes through a bit that's been smashed to hell, with the note there saying "grab what you can and run." It's not until Ryder gets to the top of Khi Tasira that they find a wholly intact recording from the Jardaan explaining what happened in full.]] |
| 231 | * The final level of ''VideoGame/{{Messiah}}'' contains a couple of scientists' logs to that effect -- they chronicle [[spoiler:how Satan broke free of imprisonment, how only a handful of people survived, and how they managed to find out how to defeat Satan.]] |
| 232 | * ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'': |
| 233 | ** The first ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' also had Chozo Lore scattered throughout the world (mostly in the Chozo Temple stage). Some of these detail Samus's past, while others talk about the spread of Phazon and the death of the Chozo on Tallon IV. |
| 234 | *** Space Pirate logs and computer scans in the ''Metroid Prime'' are largely a record of memos, announcements, and reports detailing the Space Pirates' [[MookHorrorShow increasingly desperate attempts to stop Samus from killing them all]]. Let's emphasize that: your enemies are keeping Apocalyptic Logs about ''you'', the hero. Since the game, in fact, largely consists of Samus killing them all, this alternates between mildly depressing and extremely awesome. |
| 235 | ** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' includes several logs from the doomed Marine crew. The corpses of certain Luminoth warriors (which mark the locations of PlotCoupons in the Dark World) can also be scanned to get accounts of their deaths (generally concluding with a BolivianArmyEnding). |
| 236 | *** The best logs are in ''Prime 2'', when Samus and Dark Samus inadvertently attack the same Space Pirate installation. Their logs read something along the lines of "oh ''crap'', there's ''two'' of them." |
| 237 | ** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'' loves this, as it has a series of journals for each [[spoiler:corrupted]] planet you visit. The Space Pirate lore gives you a bit of a twofer as [[spoiler:it begins with Dark Samus corrupting them, and continues on as Samus begins killing them all. Again]]. |
| 238 | *** Bryyo is also a variant, as [[spoiler:it details the literally planet-shattering civil war that drives the surviving natives to savagery, ''before'' TheCorruption arrives.]] |
| 239 | *** There's also a message from [[spoiler: the Aurora Unit of the destroyed Valhalla? First you have to activate the message by getting a code from a dead trooper, then you have to listen to its deep voice go on about how it feels the "Darkness Coming..." Add in the effects such as the ship rattling and it just adds to the apocalyptic factor.]] |
| 240 | ** The entire plot of ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeHunters'' is revealed by reading lore datashades with the scan visor on the way. It's impossible to miss several crucial messages that refer vaguely to something called Gorea, but unless you actively look for the log it's basically a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere when it arrives, and you never get to know what's going on. |
| 241 | * ''Videogame/{{Minecraft}}'' has music disks, which can be played by crafting a Jukebox and putting them in. Most of them are just fun little tunes, ranging from silly (C418-Chirp) to creepy (C418-13). However, a damaged, black disk labeled "C418-11" plays the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing, accompanied by creepy ambience. While the person recording it never talks, it's easy to hear what happened to them. They stop running as the ambience dies, panting and coughing as they catch their breath. Paper can be heard rustling before the ambience kicks back in. The person starts and breaks into a sprint before an animalistic howl sounds and the recording cuts out. |
| 242 | * ''[[VideoGame/CognitiveDissonance Mother: Cognitive Dissonance]]'': |
| 243 | ** Played straight on [[spoiler:Mars]], where a series of computers offers access to log entries describing [[spoiler:the arrival of Giegue's "extrasolar race," the subsequent conquest of Mars, and the conscription of its people as the Starmen]]. |
| 244 | ** Used more subtly in [[spoiler:Giegue's Magicant,]] where scattered [[spoiler:tombstones mark the progressive deaths of more and more of Giegue's Flying Men, who represent his courage. Each tombstone's epitaph is bleaker than the last, with the final one reading, "Here lies Flying Man. He abandoned me." This, just outside the final door leading to the location of the mad alien's deteriorating ego]]. |
| 245 | * Either subverted or mis-handled in the casual game ''VideoGame/MysteryCaseFiles: Dire Grove'', in which you collect videotapes from some graduate students' Apocalyptic Log. [[spoiler:The video clips include footage of things the students couldn't possibly have filmed themselves, like the four of them driving off in their car. While this ''could'' be a HandWaved continuity error, it's later implied that the supernatural forces in Dire Grove have [[UnwittingPawn lured you there deliberately]], so those same forces might have doctored the tapes' contents.]] |
| 246 | * ''VideoGame/MysteryOfMortlakeMansion'': The later diary entries of "R", a previous inhabitant of the mansion, become this, describing his experiences with [[spoiler:BigBad Cagliostro's]] magical power. |
| 247 | * ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'' Storm of Zehir has an example of this in the wizard tower "Tempest's Fury". In this tower, they were experimenting on a djinn. Then the obvious happens, as it does with most [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters unpleasant experiments on extremely powerful entities.]] You can find a journal in one of the rooms, of which the last two entries are "I'm certain the wards on my room can keep him out," and, presumably moments before being obliterated, "I was wrong about the wards." |
| 248 | * ''VideoGame/NightDelivery'': First, there's a letter to a tenant from their mother ofund in the dumpster. [[spoiler:Then you find a number of notes in apartment doors on the red side.]] |
| 249 | * ''VideoGame/NinjaOutbreak'': There's notes to find around the research facility of the various staff and what they did leading up to the events of the game. |
| 250 | * ''VideoGame/{{Notrium}}'' has you the player writing a log each day you're trapped on the planet for any who find your corpse, it can very easily turn apocalyptic after you've been on the planet awhile and succumb to one of the many ways of dying. |
| 251 | * ''VideoGame/{{Oakwood}}'' features several notes player character Madison finds written by people either confirmed, or at the very least heavily implied, to have been killed by the LivingDinosaurs that turn out to be inhabiting the titular campsite and surrounding area by virtue of entering it from a hidden LostWorld. |
| 252 | ** One particularly notable note Madison finds is written by her friend Dylan in the game's AbsurdlySpaciousSewer [[DownTheDrain level]] that indicates that he's been separated from their mutual friend Zoey (whom he had been accompanying the entire game up to this point), that he has a bad feeling he won't be able to make it out of Oakwood alive, and for whoever reads the note to tell his mother something important before [[KilledMidSentence ending abruptly before he can reveal just who or what he'll miss]]. |
| 253 | ** Another notable one can be found in the game's SecretRoom written by the assistant of a scientist implied to have done extensive research on the LostWorld hidden within the Oakwood campground and ended up killed by the prehistoric fauna within. The note in question involves the assistant admitting that he's terrified out of his mind after having gotten lost and separated from his boss, aware that there appears to be something watching him from where he's currently positioned, and that he just wants to go home. |
| 254 | * ''Videogame/{{Observo}}'': There are notes strewn throughout the hotel directed at the employees, as well as little memos. |
| 255 | * ''VideoGame/OneDogStory'': The ElaborateUndergroundBase you explore has diaries and computer logs detailing the goings on there. |
| 256 | * ''VideoGame/Onryo2020'': There's a number of notes in the house detailing what happened inside of it. |
| 257 | * ''VideoGame/OutbreakTheNightmareChronicles'' has its share of notes from people who have been in the mansion before Lydia came. |
| 258 | ** There's also notes from other survivors in ''VideoGame/OutbreakLostHope''. |
| 259 | * ''{{VideoGame/Outlast}}'' and [[VideoGame/OutlastII it's sequel]] go all out with this. Not only do you learn much of the backstory through documents detailing the lead up to the disaster, but your character has a camcorder and journal that you use to make your own Apocalyptic Log as the game unfolds. |
| 260 | * ''VideoGame/{{Overload}}'' features audio logs spread throughout the levels of the game, most of which are recorded by the facilities' human employees from before or during the attack by mining bots gone berserk. |
| 261 | * ''VideoGame/{{Pacify}}'': In the single-player campaign, you can find papers strewn throughout the house detailing what went on in their. |
| 262 | * ''VideoGame/{{Paranormal}}'' has you making a video diary of the bizarre haunting your character is experiencing. [[spoiler:There are multiple ways for the log to end, all of which involve you dying; the GoldenEnding, however, has [[TakingYouWithMe you take the ghost down with you]].]] |
| 263 | * Both ''VideoGame/{{Penumbra}}'' games had plenty of these type of logs. First with Dr. Roberts' (the spider hater) insane diary, then with Eloff Carpenter (who recorded on cassette his horrifying final moments) and at last, with Philip himself. |
| 264 | * ''VideoGame/Persona2'': |
| 265 | ** ''Innocent Sin'': In the Abandoned Factory, you can find diary entries written by various people who used to work there ten years prior, with the first one being a random worker telling everyone a made up ghost story. Over time the diary entries become increasingly creepy detailing bizarre events, with the final entry being from the owner [[spoiler:closing down the factory because the demonic infestation became too much to handle. It's basically the story of how the [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve rumor curse]] turned the factory into a demon den.]] |
| 266 | ** ''Eternal Punishment'': In the bomb shelter under Kasugayama High you can find diary entries written by a little girl who took shelter there with her mother and several other people back during the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. |
| 267 | * ''VideoGame/Persona3'': The tape left by Yukari's father, and the Old Documents found in Tartarus. Interestingly, the writer of the Old Documents ''survived'' -- according to the last one, [[spoiler:she now runs the Antique Store in Paulownia Mall]]. |
| 268 | * ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'' has the character find the logs of Red Ring Rico, a fellow hunter who is always one step ahead of the player. The logs mostly serve as a guide for the levels, enemies, and bosses the player encounters. It's not until the final level that Rico notices all the creepy architecture and realizes something is wrong. The final log found right before the last boss [[spoiler:which Rico unknowingly released, killing her]] was presumably recorded minutes before the player got there. It makes the whole thing a lot more personal than something that was recorded a while ago. |
| 269 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' |
| 270 | ** The original ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' (and their {{Videogame Remake}}s ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'') feature logs throughout the abandoned, Pokémon-overrun Cinnabar Mansion detailing the discovery of Mew, and its giving birth to Mewtwo. The last entry obliquely notes Mewtwo's "vicious tendencies". |
| 271 | ** The movie adaptation goes on to use the same trope in describing Mewtwo's origin, through a narrating scientist who's almost Lovecraftian in his devotion to finishing his report. "We dreamed of creating the world's strongest Pokémon...and [[GoneHorriblyRight we succeeded]]." |
| 272 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness'' has one during the [[spoiler:Cipher takeover of Phenac City]] when the player goes to the mayor's house, only to find [[spoiler:he's not there. There is a note, however, to Justy on the second floor, which shows his growing concerns over the increasing Cipher presence in Phenac. The letter abruptly ends.]] |
| 273 | ** A subversion also appears in the first ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'': Late into the game, Rui's grandfather sends Wes an email, but most of it is cut off, causing Rui to fear that her grandpa may be in trouble. They arrive at Agate Village, and learn that her grandfather's perfectly alright: It was cut off because her grandfather was unfamiliar with current technology. He then supplies Wes with the thing he alluded to in an email: a Master Ball. |
| 274 | * Throughout ''VideoGame/PoppyPlaytime'', you find VHS tapes left featuring workers dealing with Playtime Co.'s policies, science logs on the companies inhuman experiments, etc.. The gray tape has audio of a scientist lamenting that something has gone awry with Experiment 1006, while screaming and banging noises can be heard in the background. It ends with the scientist claiming he isn't afraid to die, convinced he'll be back after "one more breakthrough". |
| 275 | * At various points throughout ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'', you can escape the testing facility into the 'warehouse' areas, and there you find various notes, clues and mementos left by previous test subjects... including [[spoiler:lovingly enshrined pictures of the Weighted Companion Cube.]] |
| 276 | * In ''VideoGame/PotionPermit'', you can find research logs scattered in the overworld detailing the accidents that destroyed Moonbury's environment, causing the residents to be distrustful of modern medicine. |
| 277 | * In ''VideoGame/ProjectFirestart'', the science logs detail the initial conception of the genetically-engineered organisms all the way to when they become too aggressive to control. |
| 278 | * ''VideoGame/{{Propagation}}: Paradise Hotel'' have quite a few from the hotel's staff, trapped in the midst of a ZombieApocalypse. Some wished to let their loved ones know their fates, while some are implied to be DrivenToSuicide after writing their letters. |
| 279 | * Some of the Blackboxes in ''VideoGame/Prototype2'' are records of KickTheDog moments. The others are these. |
| 280 | * ''VideoGame/Psych2021'': From newspaper clippings, to letters, to notes, there are plenty of these. |
| 281 | * The summer camp in ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' has a history of the area display, complete with gradual decent into madness of the entire town. The display is matched with the rings of an ancient tree, making it a literal Apocalyptic Log. |
| 282 | * '''Every''' ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' game has these, often including succumbing to TheVirus and committing suicide. Generally, since everyone you meet in the average ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' game is dead or crazy, nearly the entire {{backstory}} of the game series is told through this trope. One obliviously continues writing about how ''itchy'' and ''hungry'' he's become. [[spoiler:After you read the last page, the author bursts out of the closet behind you.]] |
| 283 | ** The remake of the first game for the Gamecube even has one written by one of the ''monsters''. [[spoiler:Lisa Trevor, the daughter of the architect of the Spencer Mansion, and the first test subject of the Mother virus. By the time you face her (and her diary ends) she is essentially a 45 year old woman with the personality of an insane 14 year old, that being the age at which she was infected. The final entries of her diary are broken, incoherent, desperate cries for her mother, whom she had become obsessed with and had murdered several years earlier, believing her to be an imposter and tearing off her face.]] |
| 284 | ** Saving the game requires a typewriter and consumes a typewriter ribbon, meaning the player's save files are an Apocalyptic Log. |
| 285 | ** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' is different from the others in that the logs are generally written by your enemies, and usually detail either general orders or what plans they happen to have for you. Nevertheless, there is at least one "Oh crap the protagonist has killed us all" note to be found. The ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4Remake'' added more notes that fit this and explained most of the backstory of what life was like for the people in the region before Saddler came and transformed them. |
| 286 | * ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}} 2'' has a live version of this: At various points in the game, you can listen to live radio broadcasts delivered by Henry Stillman from the [[ZombieApocalypse overrun]] city of Philadelphia. After running out of food and booze, his last broadcast ends with: "I think I'll go for a walk." |
| 287 | * ''VideoGame/RootsOfInsanity'': You can find a note from a dead nurse telling you to get out of the hospital to tell the world what went on in there. |
| 288 | * Journals found in random chests in ''Runefall'' tell the story of an anonymous soldier whose unit invaded the kingdom of Silverdale only to perish due to harsh weather and a supply shortage. |
| 289 | * In the beginning of ''VideoGame/RuneScape'''s Stronghold of Security is a corpse. Looting it gets you a journal written by the explorer as he wandered through the place. It vaguely describes the monsters and atmosphere of each level, and at the end he writes that he has run out of food and needs to head back through the dungeon, and just prays the monsters don't get him. [[FridgeLogic There are no monsters in the area where you find his corpse,]] and you can bypass most of the monsters by using the nearest ladders to go back up. |
| 290 | ** Later on you'll find one in Mort'ton, a ruined town where the populace has gone mad with a strange affliction. The log tells of the affliction's spread and concludes with the author succumbing and writing gibberish. [[spoiler:The quest in the area deals with using the author's research to develop a cure.]] |
| 291 | ** However, easily the most literal use of this trope is during the quest Ritual of the Mahjarrat where you have to go to a ruined plane called Kethsi and, after an extensive puzzle, find a bunker with a log sitting at a desk detailing how [[spoiler:The natives of this plane found the Stone of Jas and, upon using it for a few months, learned rather unfortunately that its use causes creatures known as the Dragonkin to appear and [[DisproportionateRetribution destroy every living thing on the plane the stone was used on.]]]] |
| 292 | * ''VideoGame/SecondSight'' |
| 293 | ** While searching the abandoned village of Dubrensk, John Vattic finds a diary belonging to one of the dead villagers -- apparently the mother or father of one of the psychic children being experimented on nearby. As the writer refused to leave the village when [[spoiler:Director Hanson]]'s mercenaries invaded, it's safe to assume that he or she was murdered some time after writing it. |
| 294 | ** Also, scattered throughout the Zener facility under Dubrensk are notes on the various children that were held in the facility: almost all of them ended up horribly deformed by their medication. |
| 295 | * ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' is jam-packed with diaries, research-logs and half-finished emails documenting the incoming horrors of the setting. Easily the most common of these are lab notes left behind by researchers from [[MegaCorp the Orochi Group]] -- hardly surprising given, the attrition rate at their labs. Among the more notable examples throughout the game are as follows: |
| 296 | ** The quest-giver duo known only as "The Smiths," only provide mission introductions in the form of video logs, and given the fact that they're Orochi researchers stranded in the middle of the Carpathians with no backup, a vampire army roaming the mountains and a [[LittleMissAlmighty juvenile superbeing]] in their care, just about every intro has a strong flavor of this trope: "Breached" ends with Julia being blasted across the room and Winston being left facing down their increasingly-uncontrollable ward; "Contagion" features Julia being exposed to a dose of [[MysticalPlague the Filth]]; and at least one tier of "Mortal Sins" provides a tense look at the immediate aftermath of the vampire invasion. |
| 297 | ** Issue #5 is all about this, with players following the tracks of Tyler Freeborn through the video journals he left scattered across Solomon Island; most of these are featured as mission intros, illustrating his ongoing investigation into the [[FishPeople Draug]] and [[FogOfDoom the Fog]] while also giving players a start on where to look next. Ultimately, Tyler's quest for answers led him to [[spoiler: don a gas mask and stride off into the Fog itself... and players have to follow him in. After a very trippy run-in with [[EldritchAbomination the Dreamers]], players ultimately wash up on the shore of the island, where they find Tyler's waterlogged corpse -- along with his final entry.]] |
| 298 | ** The Fear Nothing Foundation Headquarters in Tokyo is a goldmine of this trope. There's actually three sets of Apocalyptic Logs here, one of which is an actual quest: the counselor's journal, Kinji's letters to his parents, and Sabrina's diary; all of them concern the brainwashing of the FNF's members, with the former managing it and the latter two experiencing it firsthand. [[spoiler: It all ends with Kinji and Sabrina being fully indoctrinated and the entire membership heading upstairs for a mass-suicide.]] |
| 299 | ** Another goldmine crops up at the Morninglight clubhouse in the form of the missions "Torn Pages" and "Dead Letters," which both charge the players with collecting the final diary entries and correspondence of the young cultists. Beginning with the Clubhouse being locked down in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Tokyo's subway system, the notes chart the membership's attempts to cope with remaining under siege, the first escape attempts, the gradual descent into cannibalism, and the unexpected appearance of [[MouthOfSauron The Black Signal]] -- which was bad enough to drive at least one member to suicide. [[spoiler: The final entry ends with the writer deciding to escape and risk tangling with the monsters outside.]] |
| 300 | * The Japanese Famicom version of ''VideoGame/{{Shadowgate}}'' has first-person narration, rather than the third-person narrator all English versions have. This includes TheManyDeathsOfYou, which are even more ludicrously melodramatic. |
| 301 | * In ''VideoGame/ShinSuperRobotWars'' [[Anime/BlueCometSPTLayzner Eiji Asuka]] is able to identify an artifact that [[Characters/SuperRobotWarsAlpha Eri Anzai]] brought back with her: a storage device which despite its age he may just be able to get running. After some fiddling with it, he gets it to project a hologram -- a hologram of a beautiful woman. With an expression of deep sorrow, she relates that her people are the descendants of refugees from war with the Balmar. They had scarcely begun establishing their own culture on this distant planet when the offworldly assault came again, and the battle rages on even as she records her words. She tells of a massive battle of attrition, the destructive fruit of which is a ravaged surface of the planet soon to be submerged as the polar ice melts. Believing their destruction to be imminent, her people have created twelve special children using the DNA harmonizing apparatus, and sent them to the highest spot on the planet in the slender hope that they can one day revive her people, and with her people's last reserves of Tronium. With a sad smile, she says that even the faintest glimmer of hope that one day her words will be heard and understood makes the undertaking worth it, and says that all depends on the twelve children, and the Mutron-powered combat robot, Raideen. |
| 302 | * ''VideoGame/Shivers1995'' |
| 303 | ** Professor Windlenot's tape recorder plays back an audio journal in which he discovers the [[SealedEvilInACan Ixupi]] have been released from their vessels and are loose in the museum. The player hears how the professor is dying due to the Ixupi sucking out his life. |
| 304 | ** Both of the two kids (who unwittingly released the Ixupi) leave behind notes too. The boy's notebook is instructive and helpful at first, but end in panicked scribbles about having to find some place to hide. Do some poking around near where you find it, and you'll find... his dessicated corpse, curled up inside one of the displays. Hiding didn't help, evidently. |
| 305 | * From Sierra's games: |
| 306 | ** ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestVTheNextMutation'' has this as Roger Wilco pokes around in Genetix, finding around what causes the BodyHorror disease he has been witness of, explained in the scientist logs. Pretty chilling when combined to the creepy BackgroundMusic, and when you realize they dumped this vicious mutagen where they could dispose of it, by bribing high-ranking [=StarCon=] officers. |
| 307 | ** A Second example is on ''Klorox II'', where Roger digs up the doomed colonist's log. A third is in ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestIVRogerWilcoAndTheTimeRippers'', where Dr. Lloyd is describing the destruction the Vohaul-possessed supercomputer has done to Roger's homeworld. For a comedy series, ''Space Quest'' was nasty about inducing FridgeHorror. |
| 308 | ** In another Sierra game, ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryIV'', the hero will find, in the adventurer's guild, the story in the logbook written by a paladin Pyotr of how he attempted to defeat the [[EldritchAbomination Dark One]] cult and lost most of his men, and how the mage Erana tried to seal it away and was trapped with it for eternity. Another log, in the thieves' guild, tells of the guild's demise as things in the valley got FromBadToWorse, the chief thief was transformed into a monster and members got killed one by one. Yet another log is obtained shortly before the end from the monster who used to be the leader of the Dark One cult. |
| 309 | * ''VideoGame/SilentHill4: The Room'' had a version of these in the red memo pages the main character collected in his scrapbook -- so many red pages, in fact, that between [[GottaCatchThemAll catching them all]] and traveling among different worlds, it felt more like a diabolical version of ''Myst'' than a ''Silent Hill'' sequel. |
| 310 | ** The other games feature this to an extent, such as the scattered pages near the beginning of ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' (which are basically a tutorial on how to deal with enemies). However, it is often the ''absence'' of explanation as to [[MindScrew what on earth is going on that makes things creepier]]. |
| 311 | ** The final tutorial you find, though, greatly increases the creepiness: it's just the phrase "Run away!" [[MadnessMantra repeated over and over]]. |
| 312 | ** In the first ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' has the main character himself doing this: before you save for the first time he mentions that he'll write his experiences down and leave them behind, in case someone else ends up going through the same thing. Sure enough, in ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'' you can find Harry's notes from the first game in the amusement park. |
| 313 | * ''VideoGame/TheSims3: World Adventures'' has a plaque on the wall you can read about how an adventurer will get out the tomb you are exploring any day now. You find a skeleton next to it on the floor. |
| 314 | * ''VideoGame/{{Skyhill}}'' has these in the form of cassette tapes, newspaper clippings, and abandoned cellphones. |
| 315 | * Parodied in ''Videogame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'', where during the spaceship section of the game you can come across audio logs from a hobo who notes that he keeps coming across audio logs from other people, each more "boring and irrelevant" than the last and wonders why everyone (including him) is taking their time to make these rather than focus on escaping. Predictably, the final log ends abruptly after [[spoiler:the hobo finds some green goo, turning him into a [[NaziZombies Nazi Zombie]]. The last we hear is him spouting Nazi propaganda in German]]. |
| 316 | * In ''VideoGame/{{SOMA}}'', you learn about the events that lead up to the current events of the game through various notes, logs, and audio diaries left behind. [[spoiler:The undersea station, Pathos-II, was the only place left on Earth with any surviving humans after a comet impacted on Earth. You also learn that the black goop surrounding the station is under control of [=WAU=], an [[AIIsACrapshoot A.I. gone bonkers]], having interpreted its directive of "save humanity" in ways that's quite horrifying.]] |
| 317 | * In ''VideoGame/SoulVoid'', the player can find pieces of [[GentlemanAndAScholar The Seeker's]] research scattered around the soul void, documenting his quest to find out why everyone is stuck in the void. |
| 318 | * You find one right near the end in ''VideoGame/TheSpiritEngine2'', attempting to FlingALightIntoTheFuture, warning not to use [[spoiler:the World Eye]], as it will cause the user to become [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity insane]]. The villains find it as well, but they're too impatient to translate it all. [[spoiler:It's anybody's guess whether reading its warning would have changed their course though]]. |
| 319 | * ''[[VideoGame/SpookysJumpscareMansion Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion]]'' has several examples of this, from victims to [=GL=] Lab personnel [[BadBoss Spooky let die]]. However, the most prominent is the "romantic", a poor fellow so desperate to drink he ''drank ink'', only to die anyway. |
| 320 | * In ''VideoGame/StarControl II'', your {{Redshirt}} lander crew will discover some logs left by the Androsyth. Apparently, the entire race managed to catch the attention of [[EldritchAbomination an unseen something from "outside".]] And now... they're all ''gone'', bar the cities full of crazy. Predictably, the guy reading the log doesn't escape with his sanity intact. |
| 321 | * ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' |
| 322 | ** In the mission "In Utter Darkness", the Protoss [[spoiler: create and seal one of these, along with the history of their species, into a temple as the last of their civilization is destroyed by the Xel'Naga hybrid-controlled Zerg Swarm. The mission is a prophetic one that takes place in an alternate future.]] |
| 323 | ** Egon Stetmann's logs on the Zerg and Protoss specimens read like this (''"it grew an ocular organ today"'', ''"it must be getting power from somewhere"'', ''"at the first sign of trouble I'll throw it out of the airlock myself..."''). By the end of the game, [[spoiler:it's subverted with the Protoss specimen, which has been helping Stetmann all along, whereas the log on the Zerg specimen still seems to be playing straight.]] |
| 324 | * The tradition of dying words holograms continues in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' where you find multiple examples of quest instructions and macguffins from such holograms. Apparently, it's remarkably easy to set up and record your dying words and still look directly into the camera while you're being murdered or mauled by wild beasts. |
| 325 | * ''VideoGame/StigmatizedProperty'': The tenant's diary pages. The point of the game is to find and read them in hopes of finding out what happened to him. |
| 326 | * ''VideoGame/StringTyrant'' logs are over the place, detailing the adventures of previous guest of the mansion. They come in three types and range from fluff to giving hints necessary to complete the game. |
| 327 | * The Sunken Ship level in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG Legend of the Seven Stars'' has scattered notes about how the ship was pulled underwater by a giant squid, how the crew locked the beast in the hold, and hints on how to unlock the door to proceed. |
| 328 | * ''VideoGame/{{Supplice}}'' is set on a mining outpost on Planet Metheusalah, where the Flux Gate project (meant to revolutionize space travel) accidentally opens a portal to another realm filled with monsters who proceeds to massacre and assimilate everyone. You'll frequently come across plenty of logs detailing the last moments from the outpost's workers before their deaths, including one where a scared worker was forced to kill a mutated colleague before (unsuccessfully) trying to hide from the monsters. |
| 329 | * Ledo discovers an ancient recording in the Remnant Sea route split of ''Third VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsZ: Tengoku-hen''. Turns out [[spoiler: Hideauze were created by Chrono reformationists as a method of shinka, and that the project was started as a result of the Axis drop in the Black History. It also mentions the Civilians and the Moon Race]]. |
| 330 | * One of the trailers for ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' has the last surviving crewman of a crippled [[SpaceNavy SolForce]] destroyer describing the disastrous FirstContact with the [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] and the Tarka (well, technically, they didn't even get to talk with the Liir before the latter were destroyed by the Tarka). The Tarka opened fire on the small [=SolForce=] flotilla. Only one ship managed to complete a [[SubspaceOrHyperspace node]] jump, but the ship's reactor was hit, and deadly radiation flooded all compartments. The survivor explains that he will die soon from radiation poisoning and is sending this message to both warn [=SolForce=] about the Tarka and warn other ships not to board their destroyer. According to ''The Deacon's Tale'' novel, the message was received. |
| 331 | * ''VideoGame/{{Syndrome}}'' has plenty of digital logs scattered throughout the ship. |
| 332 | * A staple in the ''VideoGame/SystemShock'' series; logs from personnel can be found scattered everywhere and frequently out of order. |
| 333 | ** ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2'' in particular, contains an audio log which follows this trope word-for-word, where a scientist tries to focus on conveying useful information about [[BigBad The Many]], even as he is being devoured. In ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2'', the logs each come with a little icon of the speaker's head and face, not moving, probably just there to show players what they looked like. One, Anatoli Korenchkin, is infected by the Many early on, as the logs show. At one point he leaves a log full of him speaking in a warped voice about the glory of the Many; the icon, rather than his face, shows a mass of unfacelike tissue, vaguely like a jellyfish. At a later date he sends the player character an e-mail which contains the same icon. |
| 334 | ** You find quite a few of these through the course of ''VideoGame/SystemShock'''s SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'', regarding both the destruction of the UnderwaterCity in a civil war and personal tragedies. For example, Dr. Steinman's logs detail how, thanks to [[PsychoSerum ADAM]] abuse, he went from an ambitious plastic surgeon to a deranged, self-proclaimed "[[MadArtist Surgery's Picasso]]" whose motto was "Aesthetics are a moral imperative." And it gets the bonus points too. In one log, Dr. Suchong, a man the player has been given some ''very'' good reasons to hate, is reporting that the plasmid he designed intended to force the Big Daddies to bond with Little Sisters and protect them, violently for preference, is more or less a failure. At the same time, a Little Sister can be heard in the background, trying to get his attention. Fed up with her bugging him, Suchong slaps her, and then a Big Daddy's whalecry can be heard. Guess what happens next. [[spoiler:You find it on a body stuck to a desk by a [[LightningBruiser Bouncer]]'s [[ThisIsADrill drill]]. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Gee, how could that have happened?]]]] ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' maintained this trend for the most part; the few people the player makes direct face-to-face contact with don't live long after the meeting, with the exception of the eerie Little Sisters and Dr. Tenenbaum. (''Videogame/BioShock2'' also shows those tape recorders are very resistant, given they are even found in an area that was flooded prior to the player's actions) |
| 335 | * Every dungeon in ''VideoGame/TalesOfMajEyal'' has some form of records or diary entries, and almost all of them end with the writer about to die horribly at the hands of the dungeon boss. Twists include: the writer let the boss kill him, the writer allied with the boss, the writer ''is'' the boss, and, at least once, the writer may possibly have gotten out alive. |
| 336 | * A subtle (though increasingly less so as you get deeper in the game) example in ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'', where you can read or listen to logs about the fall of civilizations and the direction of humanity, with the implication that humanity was going extinct as they were being written. |
| 337 | * Parodied in the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' official blog with [[http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=3692&p=1 A Week in the Life of the TF2 Team]], where they depict themselves as insanely devoted to making new nice hats, to the detriment of everything else. |
| 338 | * ''VideoGame/ThanksKillingDay'': The game has plenty of papers scattered about the game world, detailing what happened before. |
| 339 | * The infamous "The Cradle" level of ''VideoGame/ThiefDeadlyShadows'' was built around this, allowing a separate (and chilling) diversion from the main story line. |
| 340 | * ''VideoGame/TheThing2002'': Blake finds [=MacReady=]'s log from the film at the destroyed Outpost 31 site and listens to it. |
| 341 | * ''VideoGame/ThreadsOfFate'' has a somewhat silly example of this: Mint comes across the remains of a workshop and finds a diary. There are only a few entries, but the second to last one has the magician howling about how incredibly genius he is for hiding the item inside a monster. The final entry has his lamenting his foolishness for doing the same thing, once the monster escapes. Mint's only response the situation: "Moron." |
| 342 | * A quest-related diary in ''VideoGame/{{Tibia}}'' ends like this: |
| 343 | -->''It's just [[AloofBigBrother Arthei]]... he got burnt really badly... I barely recognise his face... Kala is sitting at his bed 24 hours a day with red swollen eyes and praying for his life. When she falls asleep in exhaustion we are keeping watch.''\ |
| 344 | (from here on, all of the pages have been torn out, only the last page remains:)\ |
| 345 | ''[[CameBackWrong THE FIRST DAY OF ETERNITY I CAN SEE NOW. FOOLS. ALL OF YOU. HAHAHAHAHA.]]'' |
| 346 | * ''VideoGame/TodayIsMyBirthday'' has notes strewn throughout the game written by various characters. |
| 347 | * In the 2013 reboot of ''[[VideoGame/TombRaider2013 Tomb Raider]]'', the history of the island Yamatai, on which Lara is stranded, is mostly told through a whole collection of documents, which range from the personal diaries of a court priestess two thousand years ago to the last words of an unfortunate WWII-soldier. |
| 348 | * Alric's journals in ''VideoGame/{{Torchlight}}'' as he gets crazier and crazier from the effects of Ember. |
| 349 | ** And, in [[VideoGame/TorchlightII the sequel]], we get one in the form of scattered diary entries spread around an abandoned sawmill whose inhabitants were gradually picked off by werewolves, along with another in the form of a diary entry in one optional ice cave that's a direct shout out to ''Film/TheThing1982''. |
| 350 | * ''Videogame/{{Transistor}}'' features an ongoing log, with Red being able to read news reports from a reporter covering the slow [[AssimilationPlot processing of Cloudbank]]. [[spoiler: By the end of the game, the reporter is standing with the last surviving citizens of Cloudbank, and Red can read her final news report just before she and the others are processed.]] |
| 351 | * ''VideoGame/Trenches2021'': This game has these that take the form of, for one, letters from soldiers who came before you. |
| 352 | * In ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'', the party stumbles upon the captain's log of a GhostShip. The last page is nothing but "death" (or "die") repeated over and over again, and one party member is cursed to become a ghost soon afterward. |
| 353 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' has two sets, found in the same location. One are Alphys' research entries on the walls, detailing her attempts to [[spoiler:revive deceased monsters with "determination" (a tangible force in the game) and the tragic abominations that result from her failures]], which explains her present personality. The next are the old [=VHS=] tapes of [[spoiler:Prince Asriel and the First Human, which reveal that 1. the child's fatal illness was a ThanatosGambit, and 2. the "fallen child" you named at the start isn't the PlayerCharacter, it's this kid]]. |
| 354 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undying}}'': Letters and newspapers can tell you what's happened in the game world. |
| 355 | * ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' has no movies, no dialog and no explanatory scenes. The plot (along with random facts) is relayed entirely through logs, some of which are of the "oh no we're doomed" variety. |
| 356 | * The ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004'' mod ''VideoGame/AlienSwarm'' (which basically [[PoorMansSubstitute lets you play out]] the ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' movie in an "original" and copyright-free environment) has a number of these scattered around the Swarm-infested outposts and drifting space hulks. One even involves a crewmember on a colony, who was LateToTheTragedy because he was outside when the Swarm attacked. He complains and wonders where everyone is, [[DramaticIrony then notices that there are a lot of lifeforms in Sub-Processing.]] He ends the log saying he's going down there to ask them what's going on. [[spoiler:You can find his body later on, in two separate rooms.]] |
| 357 | * ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' |
| 358 | ** The recordings of doctor Grout, the LA Malkavian Primogen, in the madhouse sequence. Hey, he's a Malkavian. They ''all'' go insane. |
| 359 | ** There's also less logical examples (Grout wasn't in any direct danger when he wrote his last log) found in the Ocean House Hotel and the LA sewers, with people even writing down "aaaaah!" ''while they were being assaulted''. |
| 360 | ** The Ocean House Hotel is a terrible offender, where a woman's diary describes how during their stay her husband was basically acting out ''Film/TheShining''. It ends with an entry where she wrote down that her son seemed to be knocking on her door (who writes that in their diary?), then the woman apparently went to open the door, found her husband who just murdered their son, and then WENT BACK to write so panickly in her diary before being murdered herself. |
| 361 | * ''VideoGame/TheWedding'' has scribbled notes and diary entries of Uncle Jack's, which reveal what has been going on in his house for an apparently long time and show his descent into madness. |
| 362 | * ''VideoGame/TheWhiteChamber'' has three "reports" by one Arthur Anderson that gives insight into what the hell was going on prior to all hell breaking loose. [[spoiler:He happens to be responsible for what the protagonist goes through, and makes TheReveal in person... Sort of.]] |
| 363 | * ''VideoGame/{{Wick}}'' tells the fate of both the protagonist and Weaver family this way. |
| 364 | * ''VideoGame/{{Withstand}}'': While exploring the island the game is set on, [[PlayerCharacter Howard]] can find notes left behind by people to read. |
| 365 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has ''lots''. Some of the most memorable: |
| 366 | ** A journal found in Azsuna written by the tauren Paladin Aponi Brightmane details how she and her comrades have fought the Burning Legion for days, only to fail. The final entry claims they've been captured and are about to be dragged through a portal to the Legion's hellish domain. (A subversion, as she still lives, and can be rescued and recruited.) |
| 367 | ** In Suramar, a journal left by Arcanist Kel'danath, a Nightfallen mage, details his attempts to find a cure for the Nightfallen's condition. While he came very close to success, the Legion's initial invasion ruined his research, and the last entry suggests he is about to succumb to his addiction and become withered. (Which is exactly what happened; when the player actually find him, he is a mindless husk of what he once was. However, his work was not in vain, because the player can bring it to the other Nightfallen to continue and improve it.) |
| 368 | * According to the [[AllThereInTheManual manual]] for ''VideoGame/XComTerrorFromTheDeep'', one of the signs that the aliens have reappeared is an increase in the disappearances of ships and aircraft in the ocean in 2039. However, since this behavior is inconsistent with the original aliens, no one wants to admit the possibility of another impending war. Scientists keep writing them off as natural occurrences, while the governments refuse to act. While investigating a UFO crash site from the First Alien War, the submarine operated by X-Com inexplicably implodes. Hours later, investigators are unable to find any signs of foul play. It's not until two months later that someone discovers the submarine's distress call at the Pentagon's X-Com War Room. The message ends with "[[OhCrap I think they're back]]." |
| 369 | * ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' implements a very subtle form of this kind of log with the [[http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=News_Items_%28EU2012%29 News Ticker]] in the Situation Room. If you are doing poorly, the news reports that come up on the ticker will paint a very grim picture of the consequences of suffering defeats against the aliens. |
| 370 | * The generally weird ''VideoGame/YouAreEmpty'' had a level set in an abandoned farm. Along the way you'd see written notes from the former owners indicating that the chickens were growing strangely quick, and that something was wrong with them. Sure enough, near the end of the level, you have to fight van-sized chickens. |
| 371 |
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