PC gaming's best inventory system is hidden in this obscure post-apocalyptic roguelike from the dawn of the survival craze

What's the best inventory system in PC gaming? Resident Evil 4's grid-based briefcase has certainly echoed through the generations, though you could argue it simply builds upon work done in PC games like Deus Ex and System Shock 2. A cursory Internet search also brings up suggestions like Minecraft for its simplicity, and Death Stranding for how deeply inventory management is intertwined with the core experience.

All of these are great for their own reasons, but for my money, juggling stuff in your backpack has never been better than as depicted in Neo Scavenger. Released in 2014, this survival roguelike is in many ways Inventory Management: The Game. That probably sounds awful, and would be, were it not for how ingeniously devised it is.

If you're unfamiliar with Neo Scavenger, it bears some similarity to games like Caves of Qud and UnReal World. Playing as a survivor who awakes from a coma in an abandoned research facility, you must make your way across a hex-based world, searching for resources and dealing with wildlife, monsters, and other survivors as you try to figure out who you are and what the hell happened.

I love everything about Neo Scavenger. I love the cloying atmosphere it conjures out of a few static sprites, some synthy music, and a sprinkling of birdsong. I love the deceptive depth to its text-based combat, which fully accommodates melee fighting, ranged combat, stealth, and specific actions like dodge-rolling and taking cover. I love the tension built into every action you take, from deciding whether to search an area quietly and risk missing items, or more thoroughly, which may attract potential threats through the noise it makes.

Of course, what I love most about Neo Scavenger is its inventory system, which simulates space and scale and personal storage to a level of detail I simply haven't seen anywhere else. Like all the best inventory systems, Neo Scavenger's is grid-based, with items taking up a realistic amount of space relative to their size. Where Neo Scavenger diverges from most games, however, is that the size of your inventory is designed to reflect a human being's carrying capacity as realistically as possible.

At the start of any Neo Scavenger run, you won't have an inventory at all. Your character wakes up wearing nothing but underpants and a medical shift. Consequently, you can only carry what you can hold in your hands.

Your first goal in Neo Scavenger is to find a scrap of civilisation in its setting of post-apocalyptic Michigan, be it a trailer park, a woodland shack, or an isolated small town. Once there, you can pick through the wreckage to (hopefully) find items of use. Among the shattered glass, metal scraps and old newspapers you'll likely (and wrongly) disregard as junk, you might get lucky and find a pair of discarded jeans, an old t-shirt, and possibly an olive-green hoodie (Neo Scavenger loves an olive-green hoodie).

Equipping these will help keep your character warm in Michigan's chilly climate. But Neo Scavenger also simulates any pockets these clothes have—the first clue to its inventory's ingenuity. These pockets give you just enough space to store a few handy items, like rags you can use as bandages, or a lighter that can help with starting fires and illuminating scavenging spaces.

During this early phase, you'll also likely discover my favourite item in Neo Scavenger: a plastic bag. This humble object is hardly the best or most interesting thing you'll find, but it encapsulates the systems and themes Blue Bottle wants to explore.

Plastic bags appear on the ground as crumpled up balls and are easily dismissed with the other detritus you discover. But if you pick one up, it unfurls into 24 glorious squares of inventory space that you can carry in your hand. Find a second plastic bag, and you can carry it in your other hand to instantly double your inventory size, or slip it in your pocket, where it'll take up just a single slot of space until the time comes when you need it.

Such granularity epitomises Neo Scavenger. As you play, it quickly becomes clear that virtually any potential container can be used to carry other things. Water bottles, for example, can obviously be used to carry liquids. But you can fill them with anything that'll fit: pebbles, pills, bullets. Find a multipack bag of crisps? You can scoff them and then use the empty packet like a plastic bag.

I also love the image this system evokes—wandering around the wasteland carrying a pair of shopping bags as if you've done a quick run to Tesco. Some people have crudely described Neo Scavenger as a hobo simulator, but to me the mishmash of everyday items and seeming junk that proves to have hidden value authentically reflects a post-apocalypse scenario. A random shard of glass suddenly becomes a useful weapon in a pinch, while a bundle of rags and some string can be fashioned into temporary shoes until you find a proper pair.

Naturally, as Neo Scavenger progresses, you begin to discover more spacious inventory items. School bags, camping rucksacks, bandoliers and, if you're really lucky, a 'vehicle' like a child's sled or a shopping trolley you can load up with goodies. But you'll also find other ways to suspend items from your body. Like most survival games, Neo Scavenger has a crafting system that lets you build shelters, campfires and so forth. But you can also tie a string to a pair of binoculars to carry them around your neck, or attach a strap to a rifle so you can sling it over your shoulder, leaving your hands free for other things.

The logic baked into Neo Scavenger's inventory makes it inherently satisfying to interact with, especially given the callous caprice with which the rest of the game treats you. You're pretty much constantly in danger in Neo Scavenger. All the standard survival game hazards are here: hunger, thirst, climate, disease, any one of which can topple a run with surprising speed. On top of this, the act of Scavenging poses its own risk. Old buildings can potentially collapse as you explore them, resulting in injuries that you may not have the capacity to treat.

Then there are all manner of human and nonhuman threats prowling Neo Scavenger's hexes, which might attack you while exploring or even kill you in your sleep. In my most recent run, I ended up tangling with the Blue Frog Cult, who wander around wearing medical shifts and royal blue sashes murdering anyone they see. Two of them cornered me in a forest, and I ended up in a gnarly melee fight that ended with me mincing their heads with a meat cleaver. Triumphant, I took one step out of the forest, and was instantly shot dead by a third Blue Frog carrying a hunting rifle.

The sheer array of potential dangers means you want to be as prepared as possible, so any extra space you can create on your person always feels like a triumph. Your hunger for space may also drive you to do some pretty abominable things. Before I was headshotted by the Blue Frog Cult, I spotted a wandering survivor who carried two large rucksacks, one on his back and another in his hand. You better believe I chased that sucker for an entire day hoping to relieve him of his storage (and in all likelihood, life). Ultimately, my quarry slipped away under the cover of darkness, which was a good thing for my soul, if not my survival prospects.

Ultimately, Neo Scavenger is a survival game that's actually about survival, rather than building a pretty-looking base with your mates. As such, it understands that your life hinges heavily on being ready to face any eventuality, which in turn hinges on what you can bring with you. It really is a game where you'd kill a man for his pants. Not because they have +10 armour or whatever, but because they have deeper pockets.