By: Andrea Hubert
Games are a medium like any other. Climate scenarios in films and literature are increasingly appearing. How does the gaming medium deal with the climate crisis? What can games offer us besides stories of the apocalypse?
Within the theme, games are being developed that creatively deal with environmental devastation and its social consequences. The games industry is organised under the International Game Developer Association: Climate Special Interest Group. The organisation is concerned not only with the environmental design of games, but also with how the games industry should deal with the inherent environmental impacts that are necessarily associated with the development, production and use of the latest technologies. In this article we will focus mainly on the content of games. But we must not forget that digital worlds, of which video games are a part, are unsustainable in their current form. In all sectors, including the games industry, this must be countered.
The power of simulations
Games are often lauded for their power to draw people into their worlds through their interactivity – their ability to react and respond to player actions in the game. Closely related to this ability, but transcending it, is a far more fundamental property of games. Namely, their power to provide a safe space for the player to experience complex (planetary and otherwise) systems that are otherwise difficult to understand because of their complexity and interconnectedness.
Simulations have been and are used extensively, especially in games that are created for the purpose of learning or inducing reflection. You may think of this category as the typical ‘educational’ games, also called ‘edutainment’ (a combination of the words education = teaching, and entertainment = fun). You may have played one of these games in primary school. Typically, it involves solving a problem that is the subject of the lesson (count five examples) and then playing for a while (snake, hopscotch…) as a reward. But game design that wants to teach us something doesn’t stop at these approaches. This is also seen in the case of environmental games. For example, World Without Oil, ImagineEarth (Serious Bros.), or the more recent TerraNil (Free Lives), Eco (Strange Loop Games), Climate Game (Financial Times) or the domestic Beecarbonize (Charles Games) have been created for such purposes – games that go far beyond the “chocolate on broccoli” strategy.
Imagining the future
However, the gaming medium can also affect our lives in less obvious ways. Games can convey experiences that we would not otherwise have on our own through stories, mechanics, or visual representations. Within environmental games, we can therefore encounter powerful experiences in games such as Never Alone (Upper One Games), Gibbon: Beyond the Trees (Broken Rules), and Endling: Extinction is forever (Herobeat Studios). Visually, narratively and mechanically we can imagine the future through games. Dystopian premises may come to mind sooner than futures in which we can solve the climate crisis. What might such a world look like? And how can we approach it? Games that address similar themes often gravitate towards solarpunk tones – a direct alternative to the cyberpunk movement.
For the most part, solarpunk presents an optimistic vision of the climate future. In which technology does not dominate our lives, but is used by humans to enable life in balance with other organisms on the planet. Solar panels, the lack of pressure for individual achievement, and the active promotion of caring for oneself and others are just a few common themes in solarpunk works – plays, and even books (e.g., Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers). Among games, the strategy Synergy (Goblinz Studio) or the relaxing regrowth of plants after the ruins of civilization Cloud Gardens (Noio) come close. Those that offer us different visions of social order are, for example, Against the Storm (Eremite Games), a strategy game in which instead of humbling your enemies you must fulfill the needs of your citizens, which include, for example, the need to rest. In I was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northwa Games), you grow up as the first generation born on a planet outside of Earth. In it, you shape your colony’s relationship with the planet you live on.
Links to reality
Straddling the line between imagination and reflection on the contemporary world are games that base their premise on the real world. Through it, they allow for thinking about environmental issues that arise naturally within the gameplay through connections to the real world. The upcoming game Out and About (Yaldi Games) gives you the opportunity to experience real world plants, their properties and uses in everyday life as a herbalist. Venice 2089 (Safe Place Studio) tells its story against the backdrop of a flooded Venice. The tides in it affect which locations the player has access to. Oiligarchy (Molleindustria) sarcastically elaborates on the oil industry’s motivations for the continued destruction of the environment. Phone Story by the same creator uses shock therapy to spread awareness of inhumane conditions throughout the Apple iPhone supply chain. From the cobalt mines in the Congo to the factories in Shenzhen, China.
The perspective of other beings
From here, we move from research and development into less straightforward strategies for thinking about environmental issues. Many games redefine the relationship between humans and nature by decentralising the human perspective on the world. We play as indescribable creatures (Flower – thatgamecompany) or animals that can’t talk (Untitled Goose Game – House House). Or we switch perspectives from cells to deer to trees to stars (Everything – David OReilly). When we spend a few hours in the body of another organism, we have a chance to see the world through its eyes. We can avoid the feeling that we as humans are the most important inhabitants, the rulers of the planet.
In the context of all these games, we can talk about a kind of normalisation of environmentally friendly behaviour and thinking about the world. The more of these that emerge, the more this effect can take hold. And this article is by no means an all-encompassing typology of how the medium can be used to deal with environmental issues. Not everything necessarily lies within the content of the game itself. Building active communities through fan bases and linking to collections and other pro-environment activities outside the game are other strategies employed. For example, it is possible to use existing (multiplayer) games without environmental themes to do good through activating their loyal players with community events, fundraisers, or contests.
Uniqueness of the player experience
You may not find the games mentioned here to be very relevant to climate issues. Or maybe a completely different game reminded you of environmental issues without you expecting it to. This is where we run up against both the limits and the beauty of the gaming medium – everyone’s experience will be fundamentally different, even within the same game. How we approach the issues, and whether we choose to interact with them within the game, is dependent on the context of the gameplay. And not only on our frame of mind and mood to engage in deeper reflection, for example after a long day at work, but also on how we perceive the topics in general and how they are represented in our immediate environment.
Last but not least, the story of a fox caring for her cubs in the midst of an environmental apocalypse may ultimately speak to us more about survival or maternal love and determination instead of environmental themes. Whether the authors’ purpose was to portray this story, or the climate message, or both, the player experience will always be theirs first and foremost and may revolve around a variety of themes. This is why the ubiquity and normalization of the representation of our climate future in our media is crucial. Because climate change is our reality, and games can help us deal with it and imagine what our future might look like.
This article “How the video game medium handles environmental issues“, was originally publishes by the European Journalism Observatory on September 2 2024.