The Boring Dystopia of Modern Video Games

When IKEA Becomes a Survival Challenge

I stumbled upon a video game recently that was dripping with ‘boring dystopia’.

Photo by Czapp Árpád: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ikea-shopping-mall-building-11498775/

This (like games made by players,) is a new phenomenon to me. When I was young, video games that ventured into dystopian themes were full of jump scares, and darkly terrifying storylines dealing directly with life and death and threat to your limbs. They painted worlds ravaged by zombies, robot takeovers, or the grim reality of post-nuclear apocalypse survival.

The games were thrilling, engaging, and served as a stark warning about the perils of our actions and the fragility of society. But this new game? It’s a whole different kind of disturbing.

In this game, your objective is to live for free at IKEA.

Yes, you read that right. IKEA. Your mission is to build forts out of the display furniture, stay hidden from the employees, and survive the night when the lights go out and the ominous announcement, “The store is now closed,” echoes through the store.

What kind of dystopia is this? A dystopia where the ultimate challenge isn’t fighting off hordes of zombies or surviving in a radioactive wasteland, but simply trying to live in a furniture store without getting caught. It’s bizarre, and yet it feels uncomfortably close to reality.

I understand the appeal of the game on a certain level. It’s unique, it’s quirky, and it taps into that childhood fantasy of sneaking around a store after hours. But the underlying message? It screams of the housing crisis and the rising cost of living that young people face today. It’s not just a game, it’s a reflection of our society’s failings.

When I first heard about this game, I thought it was some kind of joke. Living at IKEA? Seriously? But then it hit me. The fact that this concept resonates with so many people says a lot about the current state of affairs. Housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable, and the idea of squatting in a retail store for shelter is not as far-fetched as it should be.

For those of you who have already recognised the game, and decided to yell at me in the comments. (please do, any engagement is good right? but) I get it, it’s an SPC game (SCP-3008, to be exact), part of the broader SCP Foundation universe. It’s supposed to be weird and unsettling and is in fact about a monster just like those games of old.

But it still feels eerily symbolic of the housing crisis. The game isn’t about fighting off monsters or surviving extreme conditions, it’s about making do in an environment that’s not meant for living, trying to carve out a semblance of home in a commercial space.

It’s reflects the absurdity of our modern struggles really well, the mundane yet oppressive challenges we face daily.

And that’s what makes it so disheartening. Our dystopian nightmares have shifted from fantastical horrors to mundane realities. The scary stuff now zombies (they fight plants not you), it’s the idea that our economic and social systems have become so warped that living in an IKEA seems like a viable survival strategy.