The Rat Simulator Video Game: Is It Factual Or Fantasy?

The Rat Simulator Video Game: Is It Factual Or Fantasy?

Many video games cemented themselves in pop culture as important pieces of media, thanks to their lovable characters and memorable music. While a speedy hedgehog and a duo of Italian plumbers are enjoyable protagonists in their respective games, a different kind of character stars in a pest-themed simulator that has (unsurprisingly) not caught onto the same type of fame.

We are, of course, referring to the nameless rat that you control in the appropriately-named Rat Simulator. But how accurate is this rat to the real rodents that we know and despise? Let’s find out by diving into the specifics of this PC game and comparing the virtual rat to real rodents.

What Even Is Rat Simulator?

This title is extremely on the nose since Rat Simulator is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a 1-player role-playing simulator that capitalizes on the chaos of a rat invading someone’s house. The game was released on July 27, 2017, on Steam (an online game platform) and is still available for purchase today at $7.99. There are many Let’s Play videos of this game on YouTube if you want to see this game in action.

Developed and published by Visualnoveler, Rat Simulator is “A survival stealth role-playing simulator where you play as a rat in a suburban neighborhood” (Steam). Your goal is to accomplish your given objectives without being detected by the NPCs (non-playable characters) walking around the house. If you are spotted and the Detection meter reaches 100%, three Pestmen enter and try to kill the rat for a given amount of time. Basically, you as the rat want to cause trouble and not get caught. Just like an actual rat!

Reality Versus Role-Playing

It’s no surprise that playing as a virtual rat is way more enjoyable than seeing a real rat running around your home. Creative liberties are expectedly taken to make an enjoyable gaming experience. But it’s worth wondering if there are enough similarities between the rat of Rat Simulator and actual rats to consider this video game a realistic adventure, so let’s dive in.

Appearance

The titular rat in Rat Simulator is not too far removed from reality. It has dark fur, a long tail, and large ears. While the ears are large enough to look more like mouse ears, this is not the worst animated rat we’ve seen. In real life, rats have coarse hair, pointy heads, scaly tails, and smaller ears than mice. They are over 5 inches long and come in a range of neutral colors, including black, gray, white, and brown.

Attacks

Half the fun of video games like this is attacking your fictional enemies, and the rat’s “powers” in Rat Simulator are pretty interesting. It shoots a green energy beam at the humans to temporarily stun them, poisons food after visiting the toxic dumpster outside, and jumps a few feet high to reach higher places. While real rats can’t shoot balls of green energy (thankfully), they do have “attacks” they unleash on residents of an invaded home. Rats bite when they’re threatened or cornered, which is one of the ways they spread their many diseases, but more on that later. They can actually jump 3 feet high in real life, so the game isn’t too far off there!

Death

The “boss battle” you complete in this game is an ongoing fight with the Pestmen who enter the home once your Detection meter reaches 100%. Your goal as the rat is to hide from them until they leave, which is tough to do since these Pestmen are determined to exterminate the rat ASAP. Professional pest control is definitely the easiest way to eliminate rats in real life, so this fictional enemy isn’t far-fetched at all. Real rats live for 1 to 2 years, and the females often outlive the males. Poison is used to end a lot of rodent problems, but people usually opt for traps to eliminate rats since they’re more efficient.

Detection

Speaking of detection, the trickiest part of Rat Simulator is avoiding detection from the comical NPCs roaming the house and neighborhood. The longer that you stay in their line of sight, the more your Detection meter fills up. The humans only call the Pestmen when they actually see the rat running around, but real rats leave many more pieces of evidence around their habitat. If you have rats in the house, you’ll see a lot of droppings, chewed walls, scattered food, and shredded paper. Actually seeing a rat in the daytime is a sign of a major infestation!

Diet

The rat in this game has a variety of conveniently-placed food to fulfill the objective of eating a certain number of items. These foods are cartoonish — a wedge of cheese and a large burger being the standouts — and are quickly eaten by the virtual rat when you press the “F” key. Actual rats eat a huge variety of food since they’re opportunistic foragers that eat whatever they can find. Their favorites are grains, seeds, nuts, insects, fruits, vegetables, and peanut butter.

Doors

One of the more humorous parts of this game is the fact that the rat easily opens doors. Not only that, but it flings each door open with reckless abandon despite the fact that it never touches the doorknob! Real rats can’t open doors (imagine if they could!), but they chew through most household materials with ease. Rats explore around their nests and gnaw through anything in their way with their strong teeth. Considering the fact that they chew through concrete and metal, it’s easy to see how rats would easily eat through a wooden door that’s standing in their way.

Hiding

The whole point of this game — besides exploring the possibilities of life as a rat — is hiding from humans and pets while you accomplish your objectives. They can hear doors being closed and objects being thrown, but the NPCs won’t get scared until they actually see the rat. In real life, rats also prefer to hide from large beings and therefore mirror the rat from the game. The rats in real life hide in dark places, like sewers and wall voids, to feel safe. They don’t like to be active during the day and typically stay in groups at night since they’re stressed when they are alone, as opposed to the lone rat of Rat Simulator).

Objectives

Rat Simulator is like any video game with tasks or objectives, where you get new ones after you complete the last objective on the list. Some of this game’s main tasks are to eat food, destroy items, poison food, rescue another rat, find Rat Companions, and search for new food. The rats in real life are also busybodies who are always on the move at night. Their main tasks are foraging for food and nesting materials, which they can find all around their habitat inside a house or building. Rats are also fast reproducers and can have up to 12 litters a year, so these social pests are also busy caring for their ever-growing families.

Poison & Plague

This game definitely doesn’t glorify the existence of rats, made evident by how a couple of your objectives are to poison the humans’ food and spread the plague. You need to locate the dumpster — which is apparently toxic with its green fumes and never-ending plague supply — outside before going indoors to spread the disease. This might be the most realistic part of the game since actual rats also horrifically spread multiple diseases everywhere they go. They “poison” our food with touch and spread diseases both directly and indirectly, the most common ones being hantavirus, rat bite fever, salmonella, and plague.

Maybe this game isn’t too far-fetched after all…

Who Needs Pestmen When You Have Pointe?

The nameless Pestmen of Rat Simulator make quick work of pixelated rats, but real rodent issues can only be solved with treatments from Pointe Pest Control. Our technicians are fully licensed and experienced in ending stubborn rodent infestations. After inspecting the property to find all signs of rodent activity, we create a treatment plan that’s customized to solve your pest problems ASAP. We don’t consider the job to be done until we’re confident that our long-term solutions are in place. We are always here when you need us, so contact us today for a free quote on the most efficient rodent control in town!

***Disclaimer:  Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act recognizes “fair use” copywriter content as such:  “Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phono-records or by any other means specified by that section, for proposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” This blog post may contain certain copyrighted works and characters that were not specifically authorized to be used by the copyrighted holder(s), however, the content on this post qualifies as “commentary” on the copyrighted works under the “fair use” doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Act and is thereby protected by federal law. Furthermore, we do not claim any ownership or creative rights of any characters on this list, and all rights outside of the fair use doctrine belong to the respective owner(s).

Citations

Rat fact sheet. (2021, May 21). PBS — Nature. Retrieved April 17, 2024, from https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/rat-fact-sheet/

Rat simulator. (n.d.). Steam. Retrieved April 17, 2024, from https://store.steampowered.com/app/596950/Rat_Simulator/

Rodents. (n.d.). Pointe Pest Control. Retrieved April 17, 2024, from https://pointepestcontrol.com/services/rodents/