In many video games, you hunt, skin, and eat animals. Whether you are exploring old ruins in Tomb Raider or playing cowboy in Red Dead 2, hunting is a vital part of the gameplay loop. In survival games, it is even presented as a vital means to survive. But is that true? Might it not be possible to survive and thrive in these games as a vegetarian or vegan?
While this is a fun enough challenge as it is, a special reward for your effort is always appreciated. So, these are the games where you can play as a vegetarian (or vegan) and are rewarded for it.
8 Green Hell
Rarity: 0.5 percent of all players completed the Vegan! achievement.
For a game that is so aptly named, how could there not be an achievement for surviving 25-days solely on plant-based food? To obtain this reward, you simply need to survive off bananas, water, coconut flesh (yes, that's vegan), and various unknown mushrooms and fruits. This may be business as usual for you or a literal green hell.
While not technically required for the achievement, make sure you only use coconut shells to collect rainwater and not tortoise shells. Otherwise, you're not role-playing correctly, are you?
7 The Forest
Rarity: 2.8 percent of all players completed the Vegan achievement.
The Forest, like Green Hell, also has a 'Vegan' achievement. It is a lot stricter though. It requires you to beat the entire game without killing any animals. This means if you are chopping down a tree, and it lands on a poor bunny, or if you kill a bird in self-defense while fighting off cannibals, you are unable to get the achievement. Oh and yes, eating cannibal meat also causes you to fail.
So, the best way to obtain this achievement is to rush to the game's ending. Take note that you cannot collect rainwater, since this requires a turtle shell and thus the killing of a turtle, just like in Green Hell. Unlike Green Hell, there are no coconut shells to use for the same purpose, so you are stuck drinking lots and lots of soda.
6 The Flame in the Flood
Rarity: 2.1 percent of all players completed the Vegetarian achievement.
In this roguelike survival game that takes place in a flooded post-apocalyptic America, you control a raft to traverse the waters and explore whatever islands remain with your dog. Apart from protecting yourself against the elements, you also need to eat to survive.
There is plenty of fish and meat available, but to obtain the Vegetarian achievement, you need to survive in Endless mode for 40 days without eating any meat. This achievement is bugged though, since, in reality, you need to survive for 20 days without killing any animals, which is a bit easier. We can only assume it counts day and night separately.
5 Stranded Deep
Rarity: 1.3 percent of all players completed the Gone Green achievement.
Stranded Deep is an underrated survival game that can best be described as a combination of the television series Lost and the video games Subnautica and Raft. After a mysterious plane crash, you are stuck in the Pacific Ocean and need to survive at all costs. If you do not drown or starve, a shark might just chew off your leg.
As an additional challenge, you can try to survive for ten days without eating any meat, and you will be rewarded with both the Gone Green and the Fish are Friends achievements. Those sharks must be friendly, right?
4 Dread Hunger
Rarity: 1.6 percent of all players completed the Vegetarian achievement.
Dread Hunger is unique because it puts up to eight players in the videogame version of the movies The Revenant and The Grey. Together you need to fend off wolves, stay warm, and hunt for food, but you can also betray your friends and stab them in the back.
If you want to betray your friends and still feel like a moral person, you can try getting the Vegetarian achievement at the same time. This requires you to survive an entire match without eating meat. However, this does not leave you with a lot of options. Your best bet is to drink lots of tea and try winning the match as soon as possible.
3 The Sims 3
Reward: A slightly longer lifespan
In the third installment of The Sims series, if you make your Sim a vegetarian, he or she will live longer than an ordinary sim, although not by much. This makes sense since research in real-life shows that men and women may live six to nine years longer on average if they are vegetarian.
Unfortunately, they did away with this extended lifespan in The Sims 4, and there was also a bug where your sim would feel sad from eating eggs & toast. Or perhaps he or she was secretly a vegan all along? Nonetheless, this remains one of the most fitting rewards in gaming for playing as a vegetarian.
2 Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
Rarity: 1.8 percent of all players completed the Purewal Memorial Cup achievement.
Somehow, a lot of achievements for playing as a vegetarian or vegan can be found in games with zombies. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is no exception. To obtain the Purewal Memorial Cup achievement, you not only need to avoid eating any meat until the military arrives, but you also need to avoid all dairy products and alcohol.
That still leaves you with plenty of options though, since there are multiple locations with blenders where you can mix a juice, such as the Americana Casino, Silver Strip, or Uranus Zone. There are also plenty of snacks and fruits to whet your appetite.
1 Resident Evil 2
Rarity: 10.8 percent of all players completed the Grim Reaper achievement (which unlocks the Tofu Survivor mini-game)
In both the original Resident Evil 2 and in the Resident Evil 2 remake, you can unlock a special mini-game called The Tofu Survivor. Here, you control a Tofu (yes, you read that right) as you wreak havoc on the meat-eating zombies. In the Resident Evil 2 remake, if you happen to take damage, you become visibly deformed and lose a chunk. By completing the mini-game, you unlock more flavors of tofu (does tofu even have flavor?). Each flavor comes with its unique load-out, like a chemical flamethrower or a mini-gun.
While the mini-game does not offer any additional achievements by itself, being able to play as tofu should be enough of a reward in and of itself.