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10 Best Video Games Set In A Single Night | WhatCulture Gaming
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00:00Now, there's a lot of games out there that narratively take place in a single 24-hour
00:04period, even though it may take you 40 or so hours to play through them. But what might be
00:09even more surprising is the amount of games that take place in a single night. From sundown to
00:15sunrise, these games only take up to 12 hours or less for the heroes you control. So let's waste
00:21no time and get on with this list, as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are the 10
00:25best video games set in a single night. And by the way, we'll give a pass to flashbacks
00:30or opening cutscenes that may give backstory, just to get in there before some people fire
00:34up their keyboards with this doesn't count. Yes it does, and let's get on with it.
00:3910. Observer
00:40One way to really get players into the mindset of your cyberpunk futuristic game is to hire
00:45Rutger Hauer of Blade Runner fame to voice the main character. And Bloober Team did just that
00:51with their 2017 release, Observer, which sees you playing as Detective Daniel Lazarski,
00:56who uses his cybernetic augmentations to act as a police observer, which is somebody who can hack
01:01into people's minds in order to interrogate them. The game starts with Lazarski sitting in his car
01:06daydreaming during a rainy night, when he then gets a call from his estranged son, Adam.
01:12Lazarski heads to a tenement building in a sun district known as The Stacks. After investigating
01:16several murders, possibly including his own sons, Lazarski comes out of the stacks in either of
01:22the two endings while it's still dark. Considering the whole game can be played in a four to five
01:26hour period, if you decide to pick up the upgraded and expanded re-release Observer System Redux,
01:32just imagine you're investigating in real time for that extra added kick to this psychological
01:37techno-horror.
01:399. Batman Arkham Asylum
01:41Now a running theme of the pivotal Arkham series put out by Rocksteady is that each game basically
01:46takes place over the course of a single night. The second title, Arkham City, occurs one night
01:51about a year and a half after the first game, Arkham Origins takes place on Christmas Eve of
01:56Bruce Wayne's second year of vigilantism, and Arkham Knight takes place on Halloween nine months
02:02after City. Now it's hard to reconcile that fact with the dozens of hours, hundreds of Riddler
02:06trophies and various side quests that we can all get caught up in in the course of those games,
02:10but it is true. And while we could talk about all of them, we're going to highlight the first game
02:14in the series today, which was initially designed to be played over an 8-10 hour period.
02:19Therefore you can conceivably imagine the first game, Arkham Asylum, as being in real time for that
02:24purpose. From Joker being delivered to the asylum, to stopping Victor Zaz, escaping Killer Croc's
02:30sewer lair, the battles against Scarecrow, all the way to the final battle with a Titan-fueled Joker
02:34on a rooftop, it is all taking place over the course of a single night for the greatest detective.
02:40And what's more is that the ending of this game implies that he's going to go on to stop Two-Face
02:44before morning, which is impressive even by Batman standards.
02:488. Aragami
02:49If you've been feeling the press for a new Tenchu game, then Aragami is a solid choice. What it
02:55lacks in the fluidity of its mechanics, it more than makes up for in a compelling storyline and
03:00fantastical musical score. The game opens with the main character's birth as a shadow spirit,
03:05an Aragami, that is then tasked with rescuing your summoner, the young priestess Yamiko.
03:11Yamiko explains that you've got a time limit, which comes from the fact that you are a shadow
03:15spirit so of course you will cease to exist when the sun rises in the morning. Light weakens you
03:20and intense light, such as the projectiles that your enemies can shoot from their swords if they
03:24spot you, will kill you instantly. Creeping through the shadows will empower you and restore
03:29the energy you need to use your special abilities. And you'll do just that, sneak from shadow
03:34to shadow all night, resulting in a final boss battle and touching cutscene that ends just as
03:40the sun rises. Discovering the truth about your identity before becoming an Aragami and completing
03:44your mission before daybreak sure is one hell of a ride.
03:487. Metal Gear Solid
03:50Ah, the distant future of 2005, or so it was in 1998 when the original Metal Gear Solid was released.
03:58Forced out of retirement by Colonel Roy Campbell, Solid Snake is tasked with infiltrating Shadow Moses
04:03Island in Alaska and thwarting a terrorist attack by new members of his old commando unit, Foxhound.
04:09The game opens dramatically to snakes swimming up to the dock and rising to the surface under the
04:14cover of Nightfall. And it's still night when you first fight Vulcan Raven, and again is still very
04:19dark when you have to save Merle from Sniper Wolf. And it isn't any less night when you shoot down a
04:25helicopter or confront the final boss on top of Metal Gear Rex. Whether you escape with Otacon or Merle,
04:31the ending occurs just as the sun is rising the following day. Congratulations, you've saved the
04:36world, got the Secretary of Defense arrested, and got the guy or girl, depending on your ending,
04:40of your dreams. All in a night's work.
04:436. Resident Evil
04:44Now like the Arkham entry before this, we could include either of the first two Resident Evil games
04:49on this list. Because Resident Evil 2 takes place entirely on poor Leon S. Kennedy's first day on the
04:54job as a Raccoon City police officer, where he must team up with Claire Redfield and Ada Wong to save
04:59Sherry Birkin and escape the zombie-infested Raccoon City. If not for the three-day period
05:05that Jill is suffering from the T-Virus infection while her new friend Carlos has to find her a
05:09cure, Resident Evil 3 could also qualify as well. But for sure, the adventures of Chris Redfield
05:14and Jill Valentine in the first game are the ones we're talking about today. And the game begins with
05:19Raccoon PD's very own elite SWAT team, Stars, getting thrashed by an unknown menace. Of course,
05:25that menace is zombies and biologically altered people and animals. Through a single and terrifying
05:31night, Jill and Chris have to endeavour to navigate through the trap-ridden Spencer Mansion,
05:36thwart a betrayal, survive so bad it's good voice acting, and defeat a massive tyrant enemy.
05:41Regardless of good or bad results, because the original had multiple endings,
05:45the surviving member zzzzzz? escape the mansion as the sun begins to rise.
05:515. Murdered Soul Suspect
05:542014's ghostly mystery action game Murdered Soul Suspect opens with the main character,
06:00Ronan O'Connor, being, well as the title suggests, murdered. He's thrown out of a window on a brisk
06:05night in the witchy town of Salem, and for good measure, his killer puts a whole clip into his
06:10chest. The rest of the game plays out as Ronan's ghost tries to solve his own murder mystery,
06:15as well as who the murderer actually is, and will take you to various locales of Salem.
06:19From a church to a museum, a police station to an asylum. But for all the travelling,
06:24investigation and deathly flashbacks of our ghostly anti-hero witness, it all takes place
06:29over the course of a single night. From Ronan's murder to his eventual resolution of the bell
06:33killer case, the sun never rises on his adventures. The ending has a positive note with his long-dead
06:39wife Julia possibly opening a portal to heaven so that he can join her. Or it could also be the
06:44developers leaving open sequel bait that never came because the game unfortunately didn't sell
06:48well enough for Square Enix to give it another night.
06:514. Inside
06:52Much like Limbo before it, Playdead's 2016 game Inside is a dark, spooky, atmospheric adventure.
06:59But unlike Limbo, there are actually colours in this one, which if you've seen the gross
07:03ball of human flesh in the end stages of this game, you might wish it didn't. Inside opens,
07:08surprisingly, on the outside, with the unnamed main character sliding down a hill and running
07:12from flashlight-armed guards searching for him. A major aspect of the opening stages of this game
07:17is that it's night time, which is presumably your only chance to escape. By the time our
07:21underage, unnamed fellow joins the disgusting mass of bodies called the Huddle, he has travelled
07:26through much of a farm, a scientific facility, and a flooded underwater city. But as the Huddle
07:31comes to rest, completing its absorption of the poor boy and escaping the facility, the sun begins to
07:37rise, bathing the coast and the Huddle in the light of morning as the end credits begin to roll.
07:423. Hotel Dusk Room 212
07:45With the exception of an opening cutscene and a few flashback memories, the entirety of the 2007
07:51DS detective game Hotel Dusk Room 212 occurs during the evening of the night of December 28th,
07:571979 into December 29th. The main character, Carl Hyde, arrives at the titular hotel at 5pm and finally
08:04solves a mystery at 2am the following morning. During that time, it's a little hard to tell if it's
08:10night time outside, because the game is played entirely within the confines of the hotel's
08:14interior, but each chapter is designed to express a block of time between 5pm and 2am. By 2 in the
08:21morning, Hyde is in the last stages of solving multiple mysteries for the hotel staff and
08:25customers, as well as for himself. Then he presumably just goes to bed. Waking later in the
08:30morning, he departs in the ending cutscene, possibly with his new partner enjoying the sunlight on her
08:35face from the passenger side of his car. Unfortunately, due to the developer's bankruptcy in 2010,
08:40the sequel Last Window The Secret of Cape West never got a North American release, and who knows
08:45how quickly Hyde solves the mystery in that one.
08:472. Luigi's Mansion
08:49How lucky for Luigi, finally getting his chance to shine back in 2001, and again in 2018 for the
08:553DS re-release. Not only does he get to star in his own game, but he also wins a bloody mansion,
09:00but he doesn't actually remember entering the contest, but that's detail shmeetails, right?
09:04Luigi and Mario decide to meet up and check out Luigi's new home that evening, but unfortunately
09:09Mario gets captured by King Boo, and Luigi must use a flashlight and a special ghost-sucking
09:14vacuum cleaner to clear the mansion of Spectres and save his brother. All four stages of the game
09:19take place across one night, and ends with Luigi's new ally Professor E. Gadd helping him release
09:25Mario from his prison inside of a painting. Of course, with King Boo's illusionary mansion
09:29disappearing, E. Gadd builds Luigi a new house on the spot based on how much treasure Luigi
09:35brought back to him. What a nice guy.
09:371. Night Trap
09:39Night Trap, the 1992 controversy-laden interactive film that helped to get the US Senate to create
09:44the ESRB, is, by modern standards, pretty tame, honestly. You can see wilder stuff on primetime
09:50TV nowadays. Regardless of whether or not you're entertained by the B-movie antics of some girls
09:55being kidnapped by dudes in terrible rubber suits, or the fact that you play as a member of an
09:59elite police force known as SCAT, or even the fact that Night Trap is technically a vampire
10:05game by theme. Like I say, there's a lot going on, and what really matters is the plot, for
10:09what it's worth is that you have to save a group of teens from getting kidnapped by the
10:13aforementioned dudes in rubber suits, called Augurs, who are basically vampire drones.
10:18From the time the girls begin getting picked off to the end of the game, it's all played
10:21in real time, with roughly 30 minutes going by. That's right, Night Trap only lasts 30
10:27minutes. And that's still 29 minutes too long for some people.
10:30And there we go, my friends, those were the 10 best video games set in a single night. I hope
10:34that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comment
10:38section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJ,
10:42but the O is a zero, or you can swing by Instagram where it's the same handle, RetroJ,
10:47but the O is a zero. Hope to see you over there. But before I go, I just want to say one thing,
10:52I hope that you're treating yourself well with love and respect, my friends, because you deserve all the best
10:56things in life, alright? Like love, happiness and success. And I want you to go out there and
11:01absolutely smash your life goals today, because I believe in you, and you need to believe in
11:04yourself as well. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that,
11:09and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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