Often in video games that focus on an ecosystem's resources, you take up the role of the plunderer. In a world full of verdant forests, roaring streams, and piercing mountains, the goal is to harvest as much of the land's riches as you can, with little regard for any other goal besides forward progress. You are rewarded by building a home or a civilization; you stuff your coffers full of wood, water, and ore. The disruption that this unchecked harvest has on the surrounding environment is seldom explored.
♔The games below take a different approach. Though varying in style and scope, these titles prompt you to think about ⛄the consequences of your actions on a greater ecological community. And instead of being rewarded for mastery over the planet, they invite you to view yourself as a small piece of a large ecosystem. These are ten games where it is not your job to decimate the environment but to save it.
10 Climate Quest 𓆏
Bringing up the rear of the list is Climate Quest, Earth Games' 2016 mobile game about environmental crises. Created in a nostalgic pixel-art style, this game asks you to embody four environmental specialists: from an ecologist to an urban planner.
As the game progresses, crises like flood warnings, endangerment of animals, and agricultural waste will arise across the United States, and you'll be assigning the most appropriate expert to solve the problem. A valiant effort in terms of scope, this game prompts you to think about the environment through the lens of different specialties and consider that the future will require interdisciplinary solutions.
9 ꦛ ♈ World Rescue
This mobile game received praise upon winning the 2014 UNESCO Gaming Challenge, where contestants were asked to design video games with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals in mind. World Rescue does just that, placing you into the shoes of five different young global citizens from Brazil, India, Kenya, Norway, and China.
Through simple platforming and resource management gameplay, this game walks you through various real international problems, from pollution and drought to disease and climate displacement. World Rescue's strength lies in its showcasing of real communities affected by environmental problems and its emphasis on youth's ability to change our trajectory.
8 A New Beginning 🐟
This 2011 point-and-click adventure game by Daedalic Entertainment focuses on the repercussions of humanity's rampant fuel consumption. You play as Bent, a weary middle-aged researcher looking into blue algae biofuel as an alternative energy source to fossil fuels, and Fay, a researcher sent back in time from an apocalyptic environmental dystopia in 2500, convinced that Bent's research holds the key to the planet's salvation.
This unlikely partnership faces countless challenges while pursuing their goals of a cleaner future. While the gameplay can be a bit slow and the dialogue a bit overwhelming, A New Beginning tells an interesting story with well-written characters about the dangers of mindle♒ss energy usage.
7 🤪 Plasticity
This next game, released in 2019 by USC Games, is a shorཧt but poignant platformer about the perils of plastic consumption. You take up the role of Noa, a girl raised in a world thoroughly polluted with plastic waste, so much so that her mother passes away of complications due to ingesting microplastics. Noa takes it upon herself to honor her mother by visiting the place she was raised, the once-pri✱stine Avalon Island, now also thoroughly polluted.
Throughout the game, Noa can take steps toward cleaning the island and saving its wildlife. While this game might not have a planetary scope, its hauntingဣ message and captivating art diꦚrection showcase the importance of one individual in making a change.
6 Reset Earth �🐷�
Developed by the UN's Environment Programme, Ozone Secretariat, this 2021 mobile game follows a group of three young adults in a dystopian future. Knox, Sagan, and Terran live in a world ravaged by smog. This seems to cause a mysterious disease called the Grow, an ailment that gradually kills humans, resulting in no remaining people over 30 years old.
Through a series of time-travel platforming, the trio embarks on a journey to discover what happened to the ozone layer, how the Grow came to be, and what can be done to save their reality. Reset Earth is a classic cli-fi tale, taking a thoughtful look at the impact of CFCs and atmospheric damage, prompting you to think a little more about what's behind each breath.
5 ℱ Everything
Released in 2017 by David OReilly, Everything is an odd one on this list. The game does not explicitly advocate for you to save the environment but is instead a plotless universe simulator where you can inhabit thousands of 'things' from cows to photons and from violins to galaxies. A peculiar addition to Everything is the default narration of British philosopher Alan Watts speaking about connectivity and humanity's participation in nature.
The game is a meditatioᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚn on the entangled and symbiotic nature of existence, a love letter to communalism. If one plays Everything how it was intended to be played, the logical response is to see ♏yourself as one with the environment, develop an affection for it and, of course, try to preserve it. Because you are it, and it is you.
4 ༒ ๊ We Are the Caretakers
This game, released by Heart Shaped Games LLC in 2021, is an Afrofuturist strategy RPG. Taking place in the far future, you play as a band of Caretakers, warrior-guardians of w𒐪ildlife like the alien megafauna Rauns (that have similarities to the rhinoceros). We Are the Caretakers explores saving the environment from the perspective of animal habitat preservation, discussing issues like illegal poaching and diplomatic wildlife zones.
Through turn-based combat, skill management, and gradually exploring new areas of an evolving landscape, your party fights against poachers and others who would threaten the harmony of their environment. It's also noteworthy that ten percent of Heart Shaped Games' profits from We Are the Caretakers are donated to the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) to protect rhinos.
3 Alba: A Wildlife Adventure 🥃
Developed by Ustwo Games and released in 2020, this charming game follows Alba, a young British girl, as she explores the fictional Valencian island of Secarral while on vacation. Shortly into her vacation, Alba discovers that the island's wildlife preserve, which was recently damaged in a fire, is set to be replaced by a luxury hotel.
To raise awareness, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure has you photograph and catalog the island's local fauna (including the elusive Iberian lynx), perform litter cleanups, help rescue animals in danger, and gather signatures for a petition to stop the hotel's development. While this game is small in scope, its eye-catching animation and heartfelt story remind us that large policies are constructed from individual action.
2 💫 Final Fantasy 7 🌱
Second on our list is Square Enix's 1997 PlayStation release (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:and 2020 remake), the cult classic 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7. This game does not take place on Earth but rather on a mysterious 'Planet' (or 'Gaia') fueled by the Lifestream, a river of spiritual energy that grants the planet its resources.
Within the game, you play as mercenary Cloud Strife and other members of AVALANCHE, an eco-terrorism group in the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:industrial city of Midgar, the base of operations for the exploitative Shinra Electric Company who capitalize off the Lifestream. Despite being an epic saga about memory, identity, and friendship, the heart of this game has always been a ꦍcautionary tale about the potential disruptions caused by human indust🎀ry.
1 Eco
This 2018 release from Strange Loop Games takes place in a landscape very similar to Minecraft's, but an orbiting meteor is set to impact your planet unless you can develop the technology to destroy it in time. Eco has you harvesting materials, advancing society, developing roads and buildings, and establishing your own economics and government.
The difficulty is that every resource you and your collaborators harvest affects your planet's environment, making it possible for you to destroy the planet in pursuit of saving it, an eerily human conundrum. The brilliance of Eco is that it explores a crux of modern environmental debate: What does progress look like without unmitigated consumption, and is sustainable progress truly possible? With stellar game design, a collaborative atmosphere, and a truly human premise, this reflection of the human-environment interaction deserves the top spot on this list.