Oh gawd. One of the points of playing video games is for the rampant escapism that helps quell the raging insanity of the rat race. Well, that’s until you play Unemployment Simulator 2018 (launched in February 2026).

Classed in the survival horror genre, this indie game is by solo dev Samuel Lehikoinen. Set in the year 2018, players take control of an unemployed man and you have to try and survive the mind-numbing drudgery and depression of your existence. Hurray!!!

The Descent Into Depression in Unemployment Simulator 2018

This is one of the darkest games we can recall from recent times, a depiction of mental health struggles in depression as one man plunges further into an unemployment hellhole of no money, no hope.

Similarities to idle games such as THE LONGING (2019) abound as you’re faced with the nothingness of a daily routine, played out over a long time period.

Plus, if you’ve faced unemployment (for example, through a redundancy) you’ll know what the modern job market is like. Here in the UK, it’s been utter shit since 2008. After a mid-2023 redundancy with zero warning and no real explanation, it took us 12 months to get back into work. That’s just how awful and useless capitalism is (“if you’re poor you should work harder” etc.).

What impresses us about Unemployment Simulator 2018 is its willingness to push the depressive extremes. The game takes place in an unemployed man’s flat. It begins with this sarcastic message.

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU’RE UNEMPLOYED!

SURVIVE AND PROGRESS
BY COMPLETING YOUR DAILY TASKS.

KEEP MINDFUL OF YOUR DOPAMINE LEVELS AND OTHER STATISTICS TO AVOID DYING OF BOREDOM.

From there, you must guide your hapless man bloke around the flat competing mundane chores. As each day passes, hopelessness becomes the norm. Behold!

There’s a button combo of Press C to Cry that’s pretty devastating (that’s an intertextual gaming reference to an old Call of Duty title, too).

Honesty is the name of the game in this one. With its emphasis on whimsical escapism, activities people normally find enjoyable become mind-numbing when played out alongside the desperate nature of running out of money, with no work looming on the horizon.

The extremes of the game can get pretty absurd, with the flat catching fire and all sorts of other devastating gubbins. But it’s all there to replicate the idea of a man plunging into total despair.

It’s a reminder not all video games are for outright escapist fun. Many have addressed mental health issues over the last decade, such as with anxiety in the platformer Celeste (2018) or grief and loss in the beautiful Spiritfarer (2020).

With around two hours of gameplay time, it doesn’t outstay its welcome either. What it is represents an increasingly common, unpleasant part of life provided by a severely flawed economic system.

As such, probs best to play this one when you’re not unemployed. Otherwise, it may prove a little too realistic for you. Yet it is that heightened sense of realism that proves to be Unemployment Simulator 2018’s greatest strength.