Video games have often looked to the future, and while the views and expectations of what the distant future will hold have changed over time, there are some eras that are still so far off that modern-day ideas about what the world could one day look like still haven’t been fully formed.
The 2090s are still many decades away, and while there are many things that people think they know about how the world will look, it is still mostly complete guesswork. As such, it is interesting to look to video games both past and present to see what kind of thoughts the medium has produced about what the 2090s will be like.
6 Spider-Man: Edge Of Time
One of the few Marvel properties that are well-known for having stretched as far through time as the 2090s is Spider-Man. While the scope of Peter Parker and his adventures are often linked with being small and neighborhood-related, those of other characters bearing the Spider-Man name have been vastly different.
Edge of Time features Miguel O’Hara, the Spider-Man of 2099, trying to help the modern-day Peter Parker to stop a scientist from the 2090s from creating a dangerous company and killing Parker. The cause-and-effect system and seamless transitioning between the player using both Spider-Men helped make Edge of Time a fun look at the future and at a beloved character who rarely jumps off the pages of comic books.
5 Syndicate (1993)
The original Syndicate game was a real-time tactics and strategy game that was set in a dystopian future in which corporations had taken over the world from governments. Players are placed in control of a corporation trying to take over the world and must fight other corporations with cybernetic operatives to control various countries around the globe.
The game was ahead of its time in predicting the global dominance of companies that had bought up many other companies and remains an impressively realistic take on how the world could come to be in the 2090s. Syndicate not only featured great writing but also violent and expansive gameplay, which helped it to remain a hugely fun and intriguing play for years after its release.
4 Wipeout 2097
The Wipeout games are a series of futuristic racing games that take place in an Anti-Gravity racing league. While the original Wipeout (based in the 2050s) was a flawed success though, the direct sequel Wipeout 2097 improved drastically on many aspects of gameplay and as such, has been praised to no end as one of the greatest video games of all time.
With a great soundtrack, much-improved controls and graphics, and a similar but marginally improved gameplay system, Wipeout 2097 improved on the original game in many ways and became one of the most beloved racing games in history. It may not get involved in the details of how the world would operate in the 2090s, but it is a hugely fun snapshot of how the time period could end up looking.
3 Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2
Spider-Man 2099 once again was responsible for bringing the video gaming world into the 2090s in this time-traveling LEGO adventure that was a hugely fun examination of how the MCU could soon delve into time travel because of Kang the Conqueror. The game featured a series of Marvel heroes from different time periods teaming up and manipulating time to fight against Kang.
While Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 is only partially set in 2099, and there isn’t an awful lot of backstory material about how the time period looks, it is another fun example of Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099) bringing the decade to life in the video gaming world.
2 Ion Fury
A prequel to Bombshell, Ion Fury is a cyberpunk FPS that has players take control of Shelly Harrison, a bomb disposal expert who must fight through an army of cybernetic soldiers in Neo D.C. While the game drew many comparisons to Duke Nukem on release, it was also praised for having exceeded the former in many aspects.
Ion Fury quickly became one of the most iconic FPS games in recent memory, and with the unique, beautiful use of the Build Engine, it garnered an excellent critical response. Despite some controversies around the release, Ion Fury is worth exploring as a great example of a cyberpunk FPS game for any players that love the artistic cyberpunk style.
1 Crystalis
While it doesn’t provide the most up-to-date views about how the world might look in the 2090s, Crystalis is an excellent early version of a great game set in that time period with an intriguing view of the world. An action RPG, Crystalis is set in 2097, a hundred years after a global nuclear war ravaged the world and left it filled with mutated creatures.
Magic has taken over from science and the protagonist awakens from cryogenic sleep to help four sages build Crystalis, a legendary sword to be forged from the swords of wind, fire, water, and thunder. While the game isn’t all that interested in the scientific ways the world may end up by the 2090s, it does have excellent writing and an elaborate plot that was highly praised upon its release in 1990.